1. Free up investor dollars from regulation.
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Extensive regulations governing investing prevent dollars from making its way into startups. Some regulations are justifiable, but the current status quo is unfairly onerous.

The first solution is to get rid of the accredited investor requirement, which requires you to have an income exceeding $200,000 or a joint income of $300,000 with your spouse, in order to invest directly in startups. Read the comprehensive case for abandoning this approach here.

The second solution revolves around crowdfunding regulations. The Securities and Exchange Commission raised the amount that companies can raise through crowd fundraising from just over $1M to $5M. Some argue, however, that the cap should still be much higher, and the reporting requirements should be made easier.

2. Make it easer to back builders

While you’re now able to buy and sell shares from an app on your phone for publicly traded companies, it's still a much more complicated process when dealing with private companies. The process of angel investing is a regulatory-heavy one and requires you to have access to founders.
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Companies have been hard at work to streamline this process, with AngelList Syndicates allowing you to get in on investments for private companies without the burden of lawyers and accountants, although you’d still need to be an accredited investor. Roundtable is attempting something similar within the European market.

3. Widen who has access to capital

While 2021 and early 2022 saw record venture spending, capital is still not being deployed to certain groups (women, people outside the US) and in a way that unlocks the global supply of builders. Last year, US startups with all-women teams received only 1.9% of all VC funding.

India and China, two of the largest global venture capital markets, score rather low on the per capita metric. This indicates that while they have flourishing startup economies, they exclude a large share of the population.

Organizations such as Stripe Atlas have allowed global founders to incorporate easily within the United States as a Delaware C-Corp, allowing them to access US venture capital funds. 

Other venture funds, such as Serena Ventures, founded by tennis star Serena Williams, help to get venture dollars to women and people of color. Angelist, as another example, allows you to invest in the Global Black Syndicate, allowing you to channel your investments to Black founders.

4. Look beyond the dollars

Ensuring improved access to capital also means ensuring the mentorship and guidance attached to the dollars is genuinely helpful and relevant for the founder. Access to capital should not be restricted to financial capital only. 

As ODF8 founder Maricel Saenz told On Deck, “I really wanted to have investors that I thought were aligned with what we were doing.” Many founders feel the same, but are unsure how to put this idea into practice. 

Tools such as Signal NFX help founders to find investors that are best suited to them. There has also been a shift toward freeing up investors’ time to allow them to spend more time with their portfolio companies, with firms like Correlation using technology to augment or even automate parts of their investing process, allowing you to receive a decision more quickly.

1. Make immigration more flexible

We’ve previously outlined the barriers global founders face in accessing capital. It is clear that the United States is far ahead when looking at venture funding for the world’s most populous nations, with the United States boasting $808 of venture funding per capita, compared to Brazil as the closest competitor at $50 per capita. The United States also boasts some of the world’s biggest tech hubs. 

However, despite this, it is still very difficult for global founders to come to the United States. From 2009 to 2022, there have been numerous startup visa bills that have not made it to law, which would have allowed founders to move to the US. 

The recent American COMPETES Act, which passed the House of Representatives, contained precisely such a proposal, alongside a proposal to ease immigration burdens for those highly qualified in the STEM fields. However, by the time the bill was signed into law, by then known as the CHIPS and Science Act, the immigration proposals of the bill had disappeared. 

Other countries have been approaching it differently. Estonia has been a model to imitate, with their flexible immigration laws being responsible partially for the success of their technology ecosystem.

2. Subsidize healthcare while unemployed
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Healthcare is primarily linked to employment within the United States, with the natural downside of not having health insurance when self-employed being a huge obstacle to starting a company. Similarly, parents with childcare linked to their employment can equally be discouraged from quitting their jobs due to the high costs of private childcare. 

There’s a huge opportunity for subsidies by governments or incubators for startup founders of healthcare and childcare to ensure those costs do not form barriers to starting up.

3. Startup friendly regulatory frameworks

Some regulations also simply need to be simplified and made more efficient. We previously outlined how regulations hold back capital investments, but regulations can discourage startups in other ways too. 

‍In Germany, due to restrictive legal and tax regulations, stock options in the mold of Silicon Valley are simply not possible. In South Africa, a restrictive exchange control system requires prior permission for raising foreign capital for local companies, stifling the ability of tech startups to raise foreign capital. 

Within the European Union, GDPR has brought a welcome increase in privacy controls for startups, but compliance has been extremely expensive and time-consuming for startups. 

Some of these regulations are not particularly well-justified and can be the result of the governing system being simply unaware of the needs of the modern tech ecosystem. However, lobbying for startup friendly regulatory environments is key to unlock the potential of founders.

‍1. Allow failutre & the pushing of boundaries

|In cultures where failure is stigmatized or viewed as a personal failing, individuals may be less likely to take risks and start their own businesses. Entrepreneurship often involves taking calculated risks and learning from failures, therefore a culture that does not tolerate failure may discourage entrepreneurial activity.

Equally, cultures that place a high value on authority and hierarchy may be less open to new ideas and may not encourage independent thinking or innovation.
 
Erik Torenberg describes solving this problem as giving people a ‘hero license’. He writes that, “most people don’t accomplish great things because they don’t try to accomplish great things. They don’t try because they don’t think of themselves as the kind of person who could accomplish great things. Reframing this mindset is critical to get people to prioritize opportunity over safety.”

2. Launch more start-up incubators to normalize starting companies

Start-up incubators play a key role in reframing this mindset of safety over opportunity. Entrepreneurship often requires access to resources such as capital, networks, and infrastructure. In cultures where these resources are scarce or difficult to access, it may be more challenging for individuals to start and sustain their own businesses. 

It might be that the cultural attitudes simply reflect the reality of the legal, political and economic system, instead of a gut disapproval of entrepreneurship. 

There are start-up incubators combating this all over the world. As one example, MEST Africa is a pan-African training incubator and seed fund that equips the continent’s tech entrepreneurs with the skills, and some funding, to launch and scale global software companies.

On Deck, equally, has had global founders from dozens of countries, who have gone on to build hugely successful startups, with companies such as Loop (India), Latitutd (Brazil) and Passionfruit (Germany) all making the list of On Deck’s Top 100 Companies of 2022.

It is undoubted that there are many successful entrepreneurs from a variety of cultural backgrounds, so it's clear that cultural barriers can be overcome with the right combination of skills, resources, and support.

3. Celebrate founders and entrepreneurs

Celebrating successful founders and entrepreneurs can inspire others to pursue their own startups. By highlighting the success stories of these individuals, aspiring entrepreneurs can see that it is possible to succeed in the startup world.

Celebrating founders and entrepreneurs can also raise public awareness of the importance of startups and the role they play in driving economic growth.

Think of movies such as The Social Network and podcasts such as How I Built This in achieving this.

1. STEM funding & immigration reforms

A key way to unlock technical barriers is getting more qualified workers in the STEM arena, to allow for more qualified individuals to be working on this problem. The one way to do this is company and government subsidies for STEM studies at the college-level. But there is also a need for STEM education to be taught in innovative and exciting ways through high-school, to encourage further study at the college level. 

A quicker route is to allow more STEM graduates to remain in the United States on worker visas, something the recent American COMPETES Act, which passed the House of Representatives, proposed to do. According to the Act, there would be a direct path to permanent residence for immigrants who earn a science, technology, engineering and math PhD degree in the U.S.

2. Government subsidies

Government subsidies are another way to allow more technically difficult and complex businesses to be formed. If the government funded some of the research in question, it would allow more expensive companies to be formed without the pressures of immediate profitability. SpaceX and Tesla have a well-documented history of government contracts, tax breaks and subsidies.

Wildtype, which recently raised $100M is currently working alongside the Food and Drug Administration to factory-produce cell-based sushi-grade salmon, and serves as a good example of private/public co-operation.

3. Greater efficiency & automation

The final solution to reducing technical barriers for technically-complex startups is by automating parts of their processes and improving their efficiency. 

An excellent example is a startup such as Castor - which is reducing barriers to patient studies for medical trials - making them faster and decentralized. Their software allows patients to join trials via a mobile app, and share their data in the same manner. This software has hugely reduced the complexity of running medical trials.

1. Internet

Despite internet access being accepted as universal and fast within much of the developed world, large parts of the world are lagging behind in internet access and reliability. When building a startup, and especially a tech startup, the need for high-speed, reliable internet is obvious. 

The one solution is to wait for governments and internet providers to ensure high-speed, reliable internet connection takes place within the country, but that is a time-consuming process, which might never result in the desired outcome. 

Instead, technology and startups have found solutions to work around this problem. Starlink is a satellite internet service provided by SpaceX, a private space exploration company founded by Elon Musk. The Starlink network consists of thousands of small satellites orbiting the Earth, which provide high-speed broadband internet access to areas where traditional internet infrastructure is not available or unreliable, with service now available in fifty countries.

There’s a huge opportunity for subsidies from governments and startup incubators for Starlink internet access, especially in areas with limited internet access.

2. Electricity

Some countries equally struggle with reliable electricity access. There’s been huge developments in the affordability and accessibility of small-scale solar equipment to keep businesses and homes powered-up even when the national grid struggles to stay afloat. 

The roll-out of solar panels in South Africa, driven by solar startups, has become significant enough that the government is now paying consumers to sell their electricity back to the grid, as the national grid continuously struggles to keep up with demand.

3. Move to the URL

We previously outlined how companies such as Stripe Atlas allows you to incorporate as a Delaware C-Corp from anywhere in the world. The Estonian government also allows for e-residency where you can establish and run an European Union company online.

Equally importantly, On Deck company AbstractOps allows you to automate state registrations, penalty notices and annual filings through their systems, ensuring you stay up to date administratively despite your startup physically being based abroad. Deel is another excellent tool if you wish to form a company in the URL. The HR platform that allows you to hire people from anywhere in the world, allowing you to work with the most talented employees regardless of geography. 

These tools and startups have allowed you an escape if your country has an extremely complex or regulatory unfriendly system for startups.

1. Recycling of capital and knowledge

The more successful companies that scale, the bigger the pool of experienced operators that have helped to build and scale the company are. More importantly, as these companies grow they start investing and acquiring smaller startups, their employees move between each other and the cumulative effect is that the startup economy emerges in a stronger position. 

It is essential to ensure the recycling of knowledge and capital remains active within the startup community. This is most often achieved through community spaces.

2. Community spaces

Community spaces such as On Deck are essential for founders, especially in the beginning stages of their journey. Through On Deck, thousands of founders have found co-founders, first employees, customers and supporters who share their wisdom, and write first checks. 

Similar spaces exist across the world to assist founders in the beginning stages of their journey, and allow more experienced founders to give back to the community. If such a space does not exist in your community - join a virtual community or start one -  there are founders and builders everywhere in the world.

1. Immerse yourself into the field

In order to fully understand the opportunities that a specific industry (health, climate, housing) might hold, it is important to find a community within that specific field. This leads to knowledge sharing which can help understand the specific pain points, needs and opportunities within that field.

2. Go into weeds

In order to fully understand where the legible opportunities within a space are, it is important to go into detail and fully understand the problems within that field, this is especially important in more technical fields.

‍Frontier Climate’s guide on Carbon removal knowledge gaps is an excellent example of a resource to explore in this regard.