I love reading your newsletter and thank you for raising awareness. As a “new” entrepreneur in professional services one of the biggest challenges when setting up and to be sustainable as a business is to remain Global. The Greek market for some professionals is too small or may not present the right type of opportunities for interesting work. My advice is to take the plunge, trust yourself, and always remember that resilience and adaptability is key for any entrepreneur to thrive.
Thanks for sharing, Katerina. I think more Greeks need to hear this. Oftentimes, I feel that we have forgotten our roots (of course, there are good reasons for that, including the deep shock and very real after-effects of the recent financial crisis).
Could not agree more about how we have forgotten our roots. I understand people, but they need to snap out of it - especially young people who are just starting. If they can explore the world - see what is out there and bring that passion back to Greece then I think we will be in a better place. We have a loooong way to go
Having just returned from holidays in Greece, I must say that we have a unique opportunity as a country to capitalise on the willingness of the diaspora to invest in our country. So many of the tourists I saw/heard while on holidays were Greek (either 1st/2nd generation Greeks or Greeks who left during the GFC). It genuinely blew my mind how many tourists who I initially thought were foreign ended up being Greek. These people obviously come back because they love spending time in Greece. Maybe they can help kickstart local entrepreneurship in Greece if the country becomes a favourable destination for those aspiring to create a business.
If Greece continues to reduce the bureaucracy surrounding business creation, improves the judicial system, and invests in better infrastructure, there will be a fraction of those Greeks who will consider opening up businesses there, or will at least be keen to invest their money in some way (e.g. real estate). I think we have a 15-20 year window to achieve this, otherwise Greece may just end up being solely a holiday destination for a lot of those people, especially the ones who left during the GFC. I'm part of those who left during the GFC and would love to one day invest in the country I've grown up in and love to bits.
Indeed we have a very weak legal framework, I would also add that we are very weak at enforcing this legal framework.
Maybe we could raise trust level if we had a more responsive and faster judicial system.
It’s true that Greeks think they can get away with illegal and unethical behavior because of they think they can avoid the law and courts for a very long period of time. This leads to almost an incentive for bad business behavior which in turns leads to a further decrease in trust.
Yes, (swift and proper) legal enforcement is key. I have talked about this issue many times in the past. Having laws that are bypassed or a judiciary that enforces them ad hoc is problematic.
Expediting the time it takes to reach a legal decision should be a top priority for any government, including our current one. "Justice delayed is justice denied" after all.
Speed, however, should not sacrifice the quality of the decision. At the end of the day, there are human lives at stake!
One of the reasons of low entrepreneurship is low trust. Trust is essential for new and ambitious ventures because they require a team. Greeks love to go solo out of fear of getting “backstabbed”. The stat on “ownership of businesses” is evidence.
It’s a rule, you can do something mediocre alone, but if you want to do something big, you need a good team and for you to have a good team you need trust.
That's a very good point, Anastasi. Trust plays a crucial role.
Simple, clear and well understood institutional rules are necessary in cultivating trust. Unfortunately, in Greece we have an extremely complex legal framework that shifts all the time. I remember when I first read about the importance of property rights by Hernando de Soto (https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2001/03/desoto.htm) - could not stop thinking about the very informal nature of business-making in Greece.
Paradoxically, there have been findings whereby even in a supposedly low-trust society like our own we can create high levels of trust between personal interactions. Stathis Kalyvas has been expanding on this concept in recent years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfjuchCqx28. I wonder how/if we can extend that even more. I find it very interesting!
I love reading your newsletter and thank you for raising awareness. As a “new” entrepreneur in professional services one of the biggest challenges when setting up and to be sustainable as a business is to remain Global. The Greek market for some professionals is too small or may not present the right type of opportunities for interesting work. My advice is to take the plunge, trust yourself, and always remember that resilience and adaptability is key for any entrepreneur to thrive.
Thanks for sharing, Katerina. I think more Greeks need to hear this. Oftentimes, I feel that we have forgotten our roots (of course, there are good reasons for that, including the deep shock and very real after-effects of the recent financial crisis).
Could not agree more about how we have forgotten our roots. I understand people, but they need to snap out of it - especially young people who are just starting. If they can explore the world - see what is out there and bring that passion back to Greece then I think we will be in a better place. We have a loooong way to go
Having just returned from holidays in Greece, I must say that we have a unique opportunity as a country to capitalise on the willingness of the diaspora to invest in our country. So many of the tourists I saw/heard while on holidays were Greek (either 1st/2nd generation Greeks or Greeks who left during the GFC). It genuinely blew my mind how many tourists who I initially thought were foreign ended up being Greek. These people obviously come back because they love spending time in Greece. Maybe they can help kickstart local entrepreneurship in Greece if the country becomes a favourable destination for those aspiring to create a business.
If Greece continues to reduce the bureaucracy surrounding business creation, improves the judicial system, and invests in better infrastructure, there will be a fraction of those Greeks who will consider opening up businesses there, or will at least be keen to invest their money in some way (e.g. real estate). I think we have a 15-20 year window to achieve this, otherwise Greece may just end up being solely a holiday destination for a lot of those people, especially the ones who left during the GFC. I'm part of those who left during the GFC and would love to one day invest in the country I've grown up in and love to bits.
Hear hear, Peter. Could not agree more with you!
I hope this newsletter helps (even if slightly) towards that direction. :)
Indeed we have a very weak legal framework, I would also add that we are very weak at enforcing this legal framework.
Maybe we could raise trust level if we had a more responsive and faster judicial system.
It’s true that Greeks think they can get away with illegal and unethical behavior because of they think they can avoid the law and courts for a very long period of time. This leads to almost an incentive for bad business behavior which in turns leads to a further decrease in trust.
Yes, (swift and proper) legal enforcement is key. I have talked about this issue many times in the past. Having laws that are bypassed or a judiciary that enforces them ad hoc is problematic.
Expediting the time it takes to reach a legal decision should be a top priority for any government, including our current one. "Justice delayed is justice denied" after all.
Speed, however, should not sacrifice the quality of the decision. At the end of the day, there are human lives at stake!
One of the reasons of low entrepreneurship is low trust. Trust is essential for new and ambitious ventures because they require a team. Greeks love to go solo out of fear of getting “backstabbed”. The stat on “ownership of businesses” is evidence.
It’s a rule, you can do something mediocre alone, but if you want to do something big, you need a good team and for you to have a good team you need trust.
That's a very good point, Anastasi. Trust plays a crucial role.
Simple, clear and well understood institutional rules are necessary in cultivating trust. Unfortunately, in Greece we have an extremely complex legal framework that shifts all the time. I remember when I first read about the importance of property rights by Hernando de Soto (https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2001/03/desoto.htm) - could not stop thinking about the very informal nature of business-making in Greece.
Paradoxically, there have been findings whereby even in a supposedly low-trust society like our own we can create high levels of trust between personal interactions. Stathis Kalyvas has been expanding on this concept in recent years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfjuchCqx28. I wonder how/if we can extend that even more. I find it very interesting!