A large part of Lithuanians think about their business: the main reasons that prevent them from taking the first step

Sonata Gutauskaitė – Bubnelienė, Member of the Board of Directors of SEB Bank and Director of the Baltic Retail Service, spoke about Lithuania’s entrepreneurial spirit and enthusiasm for starting businesses at the Login 2021 remote conference in late May.

During the day, the speaker shared the entrepreneurship barometer developed by the bank this year.

“We talked about the need to promote entrepreneurship in Lithuania more and more often, and especially now, during the pandemic, when everyone needed a lot of flexibility, adaptation to the new work organization, lifestyle change. If we think about a In a broad sense, the concept of an entrepreneur is very broad. He is not just an entrepreneur that everyone understands. He can be a creative person who sees sustainable solutions at every opportunity, who can create something not only for himself but also for society, “he began. the report the bank representative.

An image of a business start-up.

A survey conducted by the Bank surveyed 1,000 Lithuanians to find out how many Lithuanians are determined to do business or engage in additional activities to earn income and unleash their entrepreneurial potential.

Survey data shows that 6 percent. 13 percent of the population say they already have their own business. – performs activities in addition to permanent work. 19 percent admitted frequent thinkers who could and are considering additional activities. More than a third (35%) mentioned that they sometimes think about their business or additional activities.

“Looking at the figures, we see that we have a pretty good situation, because more than half of the Lithuanian population say that they are considering and possibly decide to start a business. If we add those who already have a business and additional income, the number is quite good ”, summed up the conference participant.

At the same time, they tried to draw a picture – what a typical image of a resident who wants to start his own business. According to the survey, such a person is usually a metropolitan resident with a higher education, who works in an office, at an earlier age.

Respondents also identified what causes them the most barriers to starting and doing business. Among the most popular reasons are not having a good idea (42%), anxiety to invest (39%) and fear of failure (34%).

According to the speaker, the differences between women and men can also be mentioned here. According to the survey, women are more cautious when starting a business. First, 45 percent. women indicate that they are not sure they have an adequate idea, at that time there are 38% of those men.

Also, fear of making a mistake stops 37 percent. women to start a business, at that time 30% of those men.

Lack of investment is cited as a 42 percent reason for not starting their own business. men and 37 percent. women.

“As a result, there has been a lot of talk lately about a good gender balance: if women were to unite with men, then maybe working together would generate money and generate business ideas,” said S. Gutauskaitė-Bubnelienė.

The speaker added that the studies carried out by the bank show that 22% of the companies are founded solely by women. After analyzing the shareholders, the result is better: the beneficiaries are 28% women.

“It just came to our knowledge then. According to an international consultancy, the world economy is suffering a lot from this, and if men and women were to engage in business together, the balance would be better and world GDP could grow twice as fast,” he said. .

At the conclusion of the presentation of the research results, a representative from SEB Bank also discussed why people build their business. Here, the survey shows that most of them do it (60%) because they wanted to improve their living conditions, increase income, 30%. – had a hobby that turned into a job, 28 percent. – wanted to create a job for himself, 24 percent. – I wanted to work a free schedule, 19 percent. – wanted to be self-managed, 5 percent. – He lost his job.

No mistakes

After the presentation, Rūta Merkytė, founder of Manilla cosmetics, joined the discussion on Lithuanian entrepreneurship. The entrepreneur said that the survey data reflects the same situation for her that she sees when interacting with people who want to start businesses.

“I get a lot of inquiries from people with requests for advice, advice on what I think about their business ideas, how I started a business, how much investment is needed. Similarly, I feel that many are hampered by fear of making a mistake, ”he said.

R. Merkytė stated that she is an entrepreneur, not a theorist, and agrees that it is still difficult to calculate the risk of starting a business: “But this approach helps me stay on the path of a successful business for five years. I cannot plan all future scenarios, I can only take and do. There is no error, there is only one result or another. I want to inspire people to try what is most important and the result can always be adjusted. “

Vladas Lašas, an investor and business angel who joined the discussion, shared his views that strong, public examples of the birth of successful companies can make a significant contribution to promoting entrepreneurship.

“None of them are magic, no one had an idea at the plate, we couldn’t do everything we wanted to do at the beginning,” he added.

V. Lašas was glad that during the research attention was paid to the imbalance between men and women in business, but he also sees a very pleasant process here in Lithuania: he has currently invested in at least three startups, which are only established by women. .

R. Merkytė also spoke about the situation of men and women in the workplace.

“From the five years of experience, I can say that women are afraid to go higher because they think they will lose the opportunity to spend more time in the family. Times are changing and these things can now be reconciled ”, she is convinced.

All the videos of the LOGIN 2021 conference presentations can be seen on Delfi Plus (Delfi Plus – News).