Last Friday, we had the honor to speak with a room full of entrepreneurs in Surgut, Siberia via teleconference. The conference was set up by Michelle Skiljian of the Inland Empire Women’s Center and Dr. Tapie Rhom, an IT professor at CSUSB along with the help of many others. We filed into  the tele-learning center at Cal State San Bernardino for a 7:00pm start. The tele bridge started late because the participants on the Russian end had to fight a snow storm to get to the venue. The crowd was slow to build but after about twenty minutes there were fifty or so participants involved in the conversation with about 15 Southern California business owners.

They aren’t all that different than us, except they have higher expectations for what America does for it’s start up nation. Most of their questions centered on sources of capital (with an interesting sidebar about support for parolees), the kinds of businesses we start here and, in particular, the kinds of businesses women are getting into. The Russian audience was majority women and the only three business owners that spoke were women. They explained the split of business owners in Russia 85-15% male, with the majority of women owning care giving or service businesses.

Continue reading “Speaking With Russian Entrepreneurs | Peter Mehit” →