The Future of Entrepreneurship (+ The Transcend Fellowship) 💼 Transcend Newsletter XV
The role entrepreneurs will play in a new economy, and how they might get supported along the way
This week we are focusing on the future of entrepreneurship - and have an important announcement related to that vision! As always, we are one email away, anytime. Find more about our work at Transcend Network.
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NEXT ISSUE - The future of Higher Education in the US
tl;dr: Entrepreneurship will be embedded in the way more people work, and technology will provide more tools to build projects, changing how entrepreneurs are supported and funded.
1) Defining entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurs create employment opportunities for themselves, rather than working for a business that rewards their labor with a stable wage.
The lines between entrepreneurs and laborers are increasingly blurred as the figure of the contractor has largely driven the work of gig economy platforms: politically and socially, there’s a clear trend towards regulating the compensation of these players.
2) Why should we care?
There are two trends that are moving entrepreneurs towards the center of the world’s economy.
1) Automation is taking certain jobs away, and replacing them with others that are much more independent and human-centered. Freelancers play an important role in filling those gaps.
2) Software is eating the world - but through tools rather than services. As the costs of computing keep decreasing every year, and more industries are touched by technology, software plays an increasing role in the world’s economy. The largest tech companies have a heavy focus on offering products to businesses (Google, Facebook, Amazon), and these tools will become increasingly ubiquitous and lower the barrier to starting businesses.
So here’s why we should care: by 2027, the US is projected to have a majority of freelancers in its economy (see graph), a figure that countries like India have already reached for self-employed individuals (mostly in the informal economy, though they are increasingly using technology in their work).
3) The future of entrepreneurship
The changes in entrepreneurship and the role it plays in the economy will be affecting 3 key areas:
1️⃣How entrepreneurs work: automation isn’t wiping away the work of managers, artists and creators, but rather will enable them to focus on much more human functions such as human care, experience design, or arts and culture.
2️⃣Who gets to be an entrepreneur: the tools that lower the barriers to entrepreneurship should “lift all boats”, and enable more underrepresented groups to build businesses and thrive.
3️⃣How entrepreneurs are funded: the way in which entrepreneurs, and particularly technology entrepreneurs, will be funded may be undergoing a major change: as the barrier to creating businesses lowers, the expected return from investors and lenders will also adjust to a new type of business. More profitable businesses will substitute the moonshots investors bet on, or will they?
4) Projects in the space
As we explore new ways in which entrepreneurs are using technology to build the future of learning and work, we’d like to use this space to announce the launch of our Transcend Fellowship (Winter 2020).
This fellowship is an 8-week remote program for early-stage founders building a startup in the future of learning and work.
The program is cost and equity-free, will run from mid-January to March of 2020, and will provide global founders with a community, resources and connections to take their businesses to the next level. We’ll gather top founders from all around the world, and connect them to the best operators, investors and talent in the space, so make sure to check it out and apply by December 1st.
Read more about the W20 Fellowship and apply here!
What do you think? We’d love to get your thoughts, please leave a comment or reply to this email!
☀️Wefunder, the best crowdfunding platform for startups, is looking for an Entrepreneur in Residence in San Francisco
🔧Hiring for entry-level AWS skills? Our friends over at Generation (who are redefining skills training through employer partnerships) are taking in the last interviews for candidates from their first AWS-focused cohorts in the UK.
📝Newsletter readers Megan and Danyal just won the 3rd place award for NY Academy of Science challenge, by design a prototype to improve educational outcomes in Indonesia.
🌐Our friend Dani Grant (who also did an awesome interview recently) put out an interesting question to the Twitter world - lots of interesting responses in the thread.
All the updated job opportunities can be found on our new Job Board!
Microverse - Product Management
Community Manager - Notion
Impact Investing Intern - Kiva
Strive - Strategy & Operations Lead | Marketing Intern
AngelList - Venture Financing Operations
Briter Bridges - Community ManagerAssociate; Expansion and Research
London Interdisciplinary School - Digital Marketing Manager
Laconia - VC Intern
Fill out this form if you are looking to hire or get hired, and check out our job board for updated openings.
Thanks for reading another week! For any feedback, requests or ideas, reply to this email.
Alberto(alberto@transcend-network.com) & Michael (michael@transcend-network.com)