Hi guys, welcome back to Global Business Environment, Course Two.

This is module two and we're in part three.

We continue to try to understand how you might start and

operate a business in the global business environment.

And we've talked about some of the challenges that you might face in your

home country with institutions and

infrastructure that might make it more or less challenging to start that business.

We've talked about how in some places,

it's really not an option that if you can't find a job,

you need to start a business and so, I'm very sensitive to that fact.

What I want to talk about for a few minutes is not so much the idea for

starting your business but where you might get the funds to start a business.

And one movement that's been very positive and contributed to more small businesses

launching and operating across the globe is something called micro-finance and

that was really started by the Grameen Foundation,the Grameen Bank and

what it does is it makes very small loans to individuals across the globe.

Now very small might depend on where you live the amount of

money that you might consider to be a lot or

a little might depend but relatively speaking, smaller loans.

We're talking about $100, $500, $1,000 loans and

they might exist or these loans might be granted or given based

on the ability of the individual to repay at a very reasonable

interest rate, but they're for very simple business start-ups.

It might be to buy a tool for an individual in a country

where agricultural is still, agriculture is still the predominant, to better and

more efficiently operate their farm, their plot of land.

It might be funding to buy a printer that costs

$1000 to make the stickers or letters that go on taxis.

And so the individuals, the idea are limited

by the finance side of starting a business.

And so the Grameen Foundation, the Grameen Bank exists to make those

microfinance loans to get, help individuals increase their

levels of entrepreneurship and small business ownership.

Now these individuals have skills, knowledge,

ability, often they're simply lacking a small amount of money to buy some

some tool to buy inventory, to buy a piece of land,

to pay an employee, something to grow and operate their business.

Another entity that exists around the globe is called ACCION International and

it's also a micro financed institution.

They also make much large loans in the tens of thousands of dollars for example,

but they're around the world and they've offered more than 5 million

micro loans to entrepreneurs and small business operators around the world.

Here in my own community there are individuals who have started food trucks

for example to they've started car cleaning companies,

they've started restaurants using funds from ACCION.

Again, many of us have ideas, but

we don't have access to bank loans for a variety of reasons.

We many not have a credit rating score our, our economy may not have

a good credit rating system we may not have collateral or

property to back up a loan and so these entities are have been

a great producer of entrepreneurship across the globe.

I encourage you to consider these sources of finance if you're interested in

starting a business and

feel like there's nowhere to turn, these are, two places that you might turn.

And there are others out there.

Another source of financing for entrepreneurs and

small business operators, artists creative individuals around the globe

are sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo and

these are companies that crowd-source financing of businesses.

And what crowd-sourcing means is that many, many individuals

invest a small amount of money in a business idea getting off the ground.

Let's look here at this site, Kickstarter.com, and

see some of the businesses that exist

out there that are trying to get funding for their ideas.

So here on Kickstarter,

there are a lot of categories depending on your business idea.

You see music crafts, technology related businesses,

fashion related businesses, food related businesses.

And again wherever you may be, whatever the type of business, whether it's

necessity driven or opportunity driven, there are sources of financing out there.

There are individuals who are willing to invest in your business idea.

7 million people have financed or supported or

invested in these businesses and there as individuals all

around the world who would like to invest in business ideas and be a part of that.

I'm going to click on technology here for a second here is a technology business

that's related to robotics that has received some significant investments.

Let me click on food and you can start a project here.

$55 million have been invested in 3000 food based

businesses and so any, anybody could start a business

idea by simply clicking on start a project here and, uploading it there.

It's a, it's a great,

it's a great movement that exists now, this crowdsourcing.

Here is Indiegogo and I've had students who have placed their business ideas

on this site for example, I had a student who placed an idea for

a water heater that was much more efficient in Mexico and

he launched his idea with several colleagues, several students on his campus

and it was very successful in receiving funding on the site.

Indiegogo, again, is similar.

Here are some some of the ideas.

Here are some headphones that received, 500,000 investments 500,000 US dollars.

Here's a film that's received funding.

Here is, a movie.

Here's a wireless speaker system.

So these are these are technology ideas, these are fashion ideas,

these are design ideas and

again you can click on on these categories to see the types of things that are out

there that are receiving investment from individuals across the world.

I encourage you, if you have time, to an interest to consider looking into

this further because it can be a very serious way to launch your business idea

across the globe, gain interest from investors and also customers.

And so this is a new relatively new

thing in the financing world of start up businesses crowdsourcing.

So we have micro finance with the Grameen Foundation and Accion.

We have crowd sourcing with companies like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

Financing is not or

a lack of financing should not be for many of us, an impediment in today's world.

There have been so many advances that it is much more accessible, the financing,

the money, that it really isn't the biggest for starting your business today.

And so that will end part three of module two, and we'll see you back next time.

Module 2, part 3

International Business II

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