Venture Boldly
Creating Global Impact through Entrepreneurship
Right now, in Haiti, in Afghanistan, in Myanmar and Cuba, a small cadre of daring entrepreneurs is working to accomplish what billions of dollars of aid have largely failed to do. They are building businesses, leaping over gaps in infrastructural development, and hiring thousands of their fellow citizens. They are building products and services that meet local needs. They are driving economic growth from the ground up.
In these countries, high-growth entrepreneurs are the game-changers. With the right backing, small and medium enterprises are best placed to meet local needs, create jobs, reduce extreme poverty, and contribute to economic and political stability. These are the building blocks of rising incomes and long-term economic growth, the necessary ingredients to move countries up and out of categories like “least developed” or “conflict-prone.”
What’s more, local entrepreneurs drive growth that is sustainable. They understand the local context, they have credibility with the local population, and they are long-term committed — three things most often lacking from grand, donor-led international interventions. Entrepreneurs are not offering short-term handouts or Band-Aids that fail to get at the root cause of the problem — which is a lack of sustainable value creation. A successful high-growth business means gainful employment for more of a country’s citizens, and more life-changing products offered to more people who need them. When enterprises in these countries scale, their impact scales, too.
If scale is the solution, it has also been a problem so far in frontier markets. Entrepreneurs in these countries face significant barriers that prevent them from expanding. A lack of available investment capital prevents profitable ventures from undertaking projects they need to grow. Scaling requires a team of support, but access to top quality consulting, recruiting, and training is limited and stunts potential growth. Most entrepreneurial ecosystems in the developing world are broken or at a very early stage and elite entrepreneurs feel isolated. They need access to networks and markets that can help them succeed. Talent, mentorship, role models, collaboration, and incubation opportunities — all essential community aspects that enable business development — are lacking. The result is a combination of factors that constrict entrepreneurial growth in the countries that need it most. If ventures can’t scale, they simply can’t create the change their countries need.
That’s where Alter steps in. Founded in 2015 out of Stanford Business School, we empower entrepreneurs in frontier markets to achieve impact through scale. Armed with both Silicon Valley resources and in-depth, country-specific expertise, we target the exact barriers that growing ventures face. Here’s how it works:
First, we select the best entrepreneurs in frontier markets. Every nation has a few game-changing entrepreneurs who create outsized value. We choose to partner with the highest character, highest competency management teams leading the most scalable ventures.
Next, we scale them with Silicon Valley resources. Our ventures work in challenging ecosystems. We match them with investments, expertise, and networks from the world’s top entrepreneurial ecosystem: Silicon Valley. At the same time, we recognize that our role is to support and catalyze, and that our entrepreneurs are the experts in meeting local needs.
With the help of our resources, our ventures impact lives and transform ecosystems. They scale to create thousands of new jobs and serve the needs of millions of people. What’s more, our successful entrepreneurs become role-models who lead their nations’ transformation and inspire the next generation of startups.
Our model is built on the hard work, leadership, and local knowledge of our entrepreneurs. That’s another way the Alter model differs from many traditional approaches to aid: we don’t impose solutions. We empower leaders.
So far, we’ve selected 17 ventures in 4 countries: Haiti, Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Cuba. Along the way, we mapped those nations’ ecosystems, formed national advisory boards of business experts, and assessed more than 400 potential partner ventures. The selection process ultimately comes down to a critical question: are we inspired to wake up every single day and help make this entrepreneur a national role model? For every one of our partners, the answer is a resounding, “yes.”
In the past year, we’ve helped our ventures scale by providing over $1 million in value-added services. We’ve connected our portfolio companies to top investors, expertise, and networks. We’ve run a coaching program for executives, completed strategy consulting projects, and recruited top engineering and management talent to create immediate impact in the countries where we work.
All of that work has paid off. To date, our ventures have created over 1,200 new jobs as we’ve helped them scale. They’ve been able to provide basic services, like affordable internet access and vital health information, to millions of new consumers. And cumulatively they’ve grown their revenues by over $100 million.
In the places we choose to work, and for the entrepreneurs we support, scale and impact go hand-in-hand. The theory is simple, but the execution is tricky. That’s why we’re so proud of what our ventures have accomplished. It is their drive, their dedication, their innovative solutions to problems in the developing world that merit all the credit.
We are proud to be their supporters and partners. In the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing our ventures’ stories with the world. We see them as the keys to sustainable development in some of the world’s toughest markets. As you read about their remarkable journeys to scale, we hope you’ll be as inspired by them as we are.
Watch a short 3-minute video to be inspired by these 3 incredible Alter Entrepreneurs now.
