In a follow up to a previous post, an interesting aspect of the “Russian Market: Legal and Business Perspectives” symposium was the panelists’ discussion of Russia’s treatment of domestic and foreign businesses—and argument that it is a large stop sign for many investors. Consequently, the oil-focused government has for years ignored one of its chief assets—the country’s young science and technology innovators. Educated in traditionally math-heavy state schools and inspired by the successes of Sergey Brin and Arkady Volozh, they too are ready to innovate. This undervalued science and technology talent has attracted many Indian and Chinese investors to explore Russia, and these investments have proven to be lucrative.
The panelists agreed that Russian entrepreneurs tend to generate highly original proposals. “Russians don’t usually pitch yet another social network idea,” observed Stephanie Marrus, Director of the Entrepreneurship Center at UCSF. Building on her comment, Axel Tillman, CEO of RVC-USA, shared an example of how a small team of Russian engineers, within days, developed a commercially-viable way of avoiding a costly energy distribution inefficiency in the elevator industry, which many others thought permanent and inevitable.
The panelists also discussed how Russian entrepreneurs tend to have a can-do attitude and a strong confidence in their own ability to overcome obstacles to innovation. While valuable in many respects, these tendencies, if unchecked, can result in delays and frustrations even for entrepreneurs themselves, as they attempt to accomplish unfamiliar business tasks on their own, often without consulting an expert even when one is available. The resulting delays can be highly damaging for the outlook of a business, both in the short- and long-term future.