Many people helped me on my journey from a refugee camp to teaching at Oxford University, but one of the most influential was a man I never met. A man who, indirectly, showed me that people like us could succeed and set me on the path to discovering the secrets of immigrant entrepreneurs’ success.
Having been brought up as part of a persecuted Turkish ethnic minority in communist Bulgaria and then as a refugee in Turkey, I found myself suddenly thrown into an unfamiliar world when I received financial aid to study at the University of Miami in the late 1990s. Nothing represented the shock of the new more than the strange devices we were expected to write our essays on—it was the first time I’d ever seen a computer.
But my unease turned to inspiration when I discovered that the man who had played the key role in creating the device I was tentatively using—Andrew Grove, the former CEO of Intel—was a refugee and immigrant, just like me. If he could make it in a new country, why couldn’t I?
Posing that question led me to discover more about the contributions of immigrants to American life and eventually ask another, much more important, question: Why are immigrants such successful entrepreneurs?
The evidence for immigrant entrepreneurs’ success
Despite what some might argue, the statistics on immigrant entrepreneurs’ economic impact are crystal clear. Immigrants and their children comprise only 27% of the U.S. population, but they have, according to the American Immigration Council, founded 46% of the companies on the Fortune 500 list. Collectively, those 230 “New American” Fortune 500 companies collected $8.6 trillion in revenue in fiscal year 2023, a figure higher than the GDP of every country in the world except the U.S. and China.
Immigrants’ impacts on entrepreneurship are not restricted to the Fortune 500 list. Indeed, 80% of billion-dollar startups have a first- or second-generation immigrant as a founder or senior leader. And immigrant-founded businesses generally grow faster and last longer than the companies created by their native-born peers.
In other words, the data shows that immigrants make America great and are keeping it that way.
Understanding why immigrants are so successful
But surprisingly, despite all that evidence of success, researchers very rarely ask why immigrants are so successful and what we can all learn from them, two questions that have become central obsessions of my twin career as an entrepreneur and academic. To answer them, I studied many of the most successful immigrant entrepreneurs in the U.S. today—from companies as diverse as Duolingo and Dermalogica, Wondery and WhatsApp—to see if I could identify the secrets underpinning their success.
Of course, the complexities of the immigrant experience cannot be easily distilled into simple solutions. However, my research has identified distinct principles commonly applied by immigrant entrepreneurs that explain their success. Here, I will present three: one related to the past, one to the present, and one to the future.
The past—using your heritage to inspire a business idea
One of the key reasons why immigrant entrepreneurs are more likely to formulate successful business ideas is that their backgrounds have given them rich experiences of living across cultures. And while the orthodox position is that aspiring entrepreneurs should look outward to spot market gaps that they can fill, immigrants generally start by looking inward, creating business ideas that are rooted in their multicultural identities.
Here, for example, is Iraqi American Reem Hassani explaining how she found the inspiration to co-found Numi Organic Tea, the world’s largest fairtrade tea company: “Entrepreneurs need to follow their heart, and their vision, and their passion first and then see what’s out there, not the other way round.”
Or consider Jan Koum, who grew up in the USSR under communism, where every phone call could be monitored, before moving to the U.S. where phoning home was prohibitively expensive and advertising a constant annoyance. Jan drew on those experiences to create a fully encrypted, free, and ad-free means of communication that you, alongside 3 billion others, have probably used today: WhatsApp.
The present—engaging communities to turn ideas into realities
Having a great idea is the first step, the next is making it a reality. Immigrant entrepreneurs use multiple techniques to achieve that, but one of the most interesting relates to how they prioritize community. Having often been cut loose from the ties that gave them strength in their own countries, immigrants tend to become experts at nurturing connections in their new homes and deeply value each one.
A great example of this comes from the story of Hamdi Ulukaya, who transformed an abandoned Kraft factory in Upstate New York into Chobani, the U.S.’s leading Greek yogurt producer, by putting into practice the principles he’d been raised with as part of a close-knit nomadic community in northeastern Turkey. Reflecting those principles, Ulukaya recruited from the local community, integrated refugees into the workforce, and rewarded everyone’s efforts by giving a 10% stake in the company to his staff.
The future—business with a purpose beyond profit
Finally, one of the key reasons for immigrant entrepreneurs’ success is that they are generally motivated by purposes that transcend profit. Often reacting to the hardships that they have endured, immigrant entrepreneurs tend to seek to leave positive legacies for the future, which can become powerful sources of competitive advantage in the present.
A compelling example of that comes from the story of Luis von Ahn, whose experiences witnessing poverty and inequality in Guatemala during its devastating civil war inspired the creation of Duolingo, a platform for democratizing education that has become the world’s most downloaded learning app.
Von Ahn’s commitment to keeping Duolingo free for its users ironically became the competitive advantage that allowed it to disrupt the online language-learning world and reach a $10 billion valuation within around a decade of its release.
Learning from immigrant entrepreneurs
Although the strengths that immigrants bring often come from their experiences of living across multiple cultures, the strategies that those strengths inspire can be used by anyone, whether immigrant or otherwise, to build businesses that succeed and last. Here are some of my tips for putting the business principles of immigrant entrepreneurs into practice:
- Value cross-cultural experience. Embrace opportunities to travel and work abroad and actively seek to recruit staff who bring cross-cultural knowledge to your team.
- Focus on what matters to you. When creating a business, draw on your own experiences and identity to create a company that reflects your values.
- Prioritize community. Build trust with your stakeholders by actively listening to them and taking action to integrate their insights into your business practices.
- Embrace a broader business purpose. Recognize that true success goes beyond mere profit and align your business goals with societal improvements so that you both contribute positively and enhance your competitive edge.
We may be living in increasingly challenging times for immigrants, but I remain confident that their entrepreneurial spirit will continue to shine through, helping to grow the economy and inspiring others to emulate their world-changing achievements.
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