147will probably not be let in, but you have to team up with someone who is a little more

‘entrepreneurial’. (T. entrepreneurship coach)

A similar point was furthered by Z., a serial entrepreneur engaged in social entrepreneurship. In her view, the entrepreneurship system in Sweden over-supports technical entrepreneurship, but under-supports social entrepreneurship. As this quote illustrates, the entrepreneurship industry does not necessarily foster a broad base of entrepreneurs, but targets the rather narrow crowd that fits the entrepreneurial ideals:

There is an enormous amount of support in Skåne. But in the field where I work, social

entrepreneurship, there is not enough support. . . social entrepreneurship is difficult in the A. Brattström

148entrepreneurial system, because the people themselves are not ‘entrepreneurs.’ (Z. serial

entrepreneur) The Ideas that Get Lost in Translation It is not only individuals that are lost in translation, but ideas too. As N. concluded, when there is a hype around high-tech entrepreneurship with strong Silicon Valley connotations, there is a risk of forgetting the plainer aspect of entrepreneurship:

It is a pity that we do not support plain, simple entrepreneurship. . .the ordinary, the unsexy,

is forgotten. (N. entrepreneurship scholar)

Advancing a similar point, X. reflected that with a cultural ideal that emphasizes speed, there is a risk that the value of more profound, slow thinking is lost. Instead of spending time understanding fundamental problems, there is a risk of jumping to solutions in an environment that is hot and fast paced:

Because entrepreneurship is so hot, we uncritically take in all of these terms, like the lean

startup, effectuation, agile work processes. And those tools are developed to speed up

prototype development and solutions. And it becomes a problem that we spend too little

time on understanding the more fundamental problems we seek to solve. We just have a hint

of the problem, and then focus on the solution. (X. entrepreneurship scholar)

In all, this suggests that the prevalence of cultural ideals is not only enabling but also constraining for the individuals, ideas, and reflections that fall outside of the cultural norm. Entrepreneurship as a Lifestyle Choice Several informants described how entrepreneurship is becoming a lifestyle choice, in addition to a means to make a living or grow a business. D. for instance:

It is becoming a lifestyle choice. To be able to say: I have a startup. I went to Hyper Island

[a private entrepreneurship education in Stockholm] and I know it all. (D. serial

entrepreneur) That individuals pursue a particular lifestyle is not problematic per se. It is a privilege of people in the richer world to be able to choose how to live their life for themselves. It becomes problematic, however, if taxpayers’ money or private capital goes into supporting lifestyles, when it is meant to support the development of the economy. This was brought up by A.: I met a lady the other day, she has been around for a year, . . .creating a platform for yoga

teaching. I asked “okay, how many yoga teachers do you have?” and she is like “10” and I’m

like, “okay, how long have you been doing this?”—“for a year”. And I look at this, it’s a

freaking website with 10 [users]. So, what have you been doing for a year of your life? She is

27, 28 years old, probably has a degree from some top university here, paid by taxpayers’

money, under the excuse of being an entrepreneur. (A. serial entrepreneur and entrepre-

neurship educator) In addition to deploying resources, informants also emphasized that lifestyle entrepreneurship floods the entrepreneurship industry with actors and activities that do not add substantial value. In short, cultural ideals contribute to an increase Cultural Ideals in the Entrepreneurship Industry

149in entrepreneurial activities, but not a corresponding increase in entrepreneurial outcomes. N. for example, said, There are a lot of different [support] actors, that all chase the same entrepreneurs.

(N. entrepreneurship scholar) D., himself a serial entrepreneur, said, It is becoming a lifestyle. . .but as the quality of events decrease, and the quality of the

entrepreneurs accepted into incubators decrease, then you are just educating people in

entrepreneurship. . .There are two-three startup events every night in Stockholm. . .and that

dilutes quality. You can go to an investor matchmaking event where there is just one

registered participant—because no one else has time to go. The quality of events has

decreased, but even more the quality of participants. (D. serial entrepreneur) Infused by Cultural Ideals, the Entrepreneurship Industry Becomes Self-Sustaining As the entrepreneurship industry has developed its own cultural ideals, these ideals have created a reinforcing pattern, institutionalizing the industry further. T., for example, emphasized the importance of name-dropping in the industry and how entrepreneurs, instead of working on the new venture, needed to spend time proving that they were in fact “an entrepreneur”:

You need to know the right names. There is a lot of name-dropping. Have you talked to this

person? Do you know that person? A lot of time [in meetings] is spent on the entrepreneur

proving that he or she is an entrepreneur, rather than on the company. (T. entrepreneurship

coach) Several informants described how this has led to a sustaining of the entrepreneurship industry. Representatives of the support system (coaches, incubator managers, matchmakers) recommended themselves and their peers as a way to maintain the industry, rather than necessarily to help the entrepreneurs. As one informant said,

In one incubator, we received the advice: “you need to talk to Olof [pseudonym], he can help

you grow.” This means that we sat with a former incubator member, who had a private

consultancy company, and advised us to acquire services from their private company, using

public funding. That is completely unethical but it happened several times. To get the advice

“this won’t cost you anything, you can use the verification funding [i.e., public money].”

There is a group of parasites that work as consultants and live out of the public support

system. They do not contribute to economic growth; they just live out of the entrepreneur-

ship industry. (D. serial entrepreneur) W., an entrepreneurship scholar, offered a similar line of reasoning:

There are a lot of people sitting and thinking about how they can help. But often, it is more

about how they can keep themselves busy. By applying for funding from the E.U., or

VINNOVA to create an idea about how to contribute to the ecosystem. (W. entrepreneurship scholar) Z., a serial entrepreneur, had a similar reflection. In her view, the entrepreneurship industry is populated with support actors, who claim to support entrepreneurs but who are primarily supporting themselves: To be honest, and now I might not be ‘politically correct,’ but consider all these people in the

“system”. . .it is a small community, where everyone basically knows everyone. . .there are a A. Brattström

150lot of people in the system that gain from the system being the way it is. . . .Had the system

been more effective, these people would not have been needed. We could have gotten rid of

ourselves. (Z. serial entrepreneur) She described a collegial culture, with support actors attending each other’s events. This creates the perception of the entrepreneurship industry being a vibrant, growing industry, whereas in fact its population are Tordenskjold Soldiers; like extras on a T.V. production set to create the perception of a crowd.2

We do not work to make things better. We just muddle around, patting each other’s backs.

Attending each other’s events. . .We call it Tordenskjold’s Soldiers. . . It is the same people

over and over again. Same people that attend the conferences. The same people working in

the system. The same people supporting each other. We do not change it because then we

lose our own jobs. (Z. serial entrepreneur)