I met Elias G. Carayannis at opencoffee today, a well known and respected professor of management science at the George Washington University. He initiated an interesting discussion about startups, networks and location. It got me thinking about how Sweden is influencing me, and to which extend that determines success in general.

“Coaching seven Greek ventures into the US was quite an experiment, the companies already established themselves in Europe, but offered world class technologies. How do you take them to the next level?”

That struck me, an entrepreneur could be considered to be successful in operating a venture, but might fail to see the bigger picture.

What determines a location that could create a bigger success? Most people will point to Silicon Valley as the ‘ideal’ entrepreneurial environment. The Valley is well known for the smart people hanging out and freeload as long as they can. They don’t want to work for a corporation, but rather come together and work on cool projects. Could the ‘couch surfing’ mentality create a better (global) entrepreneurial environment?

Ask yourself now, are you aim high, or are you setting reliable goals? How can entrepreneurs think outside the box to become the next Skype or Google?

I hope you like that post!