Hystra Consulting, which works with businesses and social entrepreneurs, studied 280 ICT4D projects and found that 136 relied completely on donor funding to cover their operating costs, while 35 were partly subsidized.
Even in skill-specific fields such as technology, many successful entrepreneurs studied -- and were downright passionate about -- philosophy.
"Accidental entrepreneur" studied chemistry at UC, Berkeley; wanted academic career, but teaching jobs were scarce.
"Accidental entrepreneur" studied chemistry at UC, Berkeley, got Ph.D. from Caltech.
College students who wish to work as entrepreneurs can study everything from accounting to Web site design.
Our observation strategy involved the researchers' participation in the lives of the women entrepreneurs under study in the field setting (Fetterman 1998).
While entrepreneurs may study every dollar that comes into, and out of, their businesses, most small business people give their personal finances short shrift.
On the income of the entrepreneurs, the study revealed that the total income of women entrepreneurs significantly influenced positive changes in the net profits and capital of SMEs.
According to one study, black entrepreneurs are four times more likely to be denied a bank loan outright than white entrepreneurs, while the UK Survey of Small and Medium Enterprises shows that as many as a quarter of black entrepreneurs report problems in accessing finance.
Studies conducted on psychoanalytic model of entrepreneurship also noted that the childhoods of the entrepreneurs they studied were filled with poverty, insecurity, and neglect, and this was due to the fact that one parent was absent from home (Kets de Vries, 1977).
