Finding the High-Flying Entrepreneurs: A Cautionary Tale.

The article focuses on the traits of successful entrepreneurs. Locating new businesses has always been a problem. By their very nature, they do not appear in any listings until they are already established and have identified themselves as requiring a telephone, a credit rating, as employing others, or as registering for Value Added Tax or sales tax. Moreover, these listings are not always publicly available, they may be incomplete or out-of-date, or they may not list the firm by age or by size, making the task of isolating the new and small firm both long and laborious. On the surface, however, this problem should not arise when attempting to find the more established firms and their founders. In 1992, researchers were asked by a European Task Force to conduct a pilot study to assess the viability and cost of identifying the hundred largest, high-growth, entrepreneurial firms that would form the base for the creation of the European equivalent of the American Business Conference. This group would not only provide visible role models for other entrepreneurs across Europe, but would also be an important "sounding board" for European policy in relation to the entrepreneurial firm.