Diary of an Executive: The Year of Entrepreneurship

(Photo: Andresr/shutterstock.com)

To eliminate every doubt in his calculation, Uncle Bole says the names of each of them out loud. He knows their parents, families. They've been neighbors for a long time.

"That's nothing odd, such examples can be found all around Serbia," somebody could say. Young people are leaving their villages to pursue a better life in cities. Those who stay cannot find a wife. Family estates are dying.

I too am aware of all that. But the thing is that I have not bumped into Uncle Bole at the Pester plateau or in faraway villages at the foot of Mount Stara Planina. Uncle Bole is my neighbor. This story is set in a six-floor building in New Belgrade. All these lads and girls Uncle Bole talks about I meet almost every day. They are all beautiful and well-bred boys and girls. Some of them are long-time students. Others graduated from a faculty and are now waiting for a job. And while they wait, they live with parents and take pocket money from them.

My building is not an exception. The situation is the same in other neighborhoods. In other cities. In other countries.

And scientists are researching why it is so. Psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, economists... they have all joined the research and each has their own theory. Some of them believe that Internet and social media networks are to blame, while others say it is all a consequence of the global crisis. In my personal opinion, the most professional explanation has been provided by Goran Milic, a famous journalist from Croatia. This man was doing a research on why certain countries in Western Europe were four times more successful than Croatia on average even though their population was not four times better educated, their real estates were not four times bigger, and their citizens did not eat four times more than Croats... He was looking for the data that could explain this huge difference, and he found it:

Compared with their peers in Denmark, exactly forty times more (!) Croatian adults under the age of 30 live with their parents. Not four, forty times more.

I would so like to see the results of these statistics in Serbia. I have no doubt that the outcome of this duel between the two countries would once again be uncertain. And devastating to both economies.

The year 2016 is declared the year of entrepreneurship in Serbia. At various levels, young people are introduced to the advantages of starting their own company. They are offered support from mentors, information, and even money sometimes. All this is useful. However, it might not be bad to expand this campaign to the parents of these young people as well.

Because all that is well explained by Nebojsa Matic, a successful entrepreneur and the owner of Mikroelektronika which exports products all around the world. When asked how he came up with the idea to become an entrepreneur, he put it simply:

"It was neither a vision, nor a plan... I became an entrepreneur because I had to. It happened when my parents stopped giving me money and financing my education. It is only then that you realize your brain suddenly starts working and thinking of ways to make money…"

That is why it seems to me that this year, just like all others before it, will be the year of entrepreneurship for some and the year of the protection of offspring for others.

And this choice will determine their fate this year.

(More information on the blog at www.dnevnikjednogdirektora.com)