Lessons From Successful Immigrants
Immigrant entrepreneurs are the fastest-growing segment of small-business owners today, says a report on the future of small business by Intuit and the Palo Alto, Calif., Institute for the Future. That’s partly because immigrants have few options: U.S. jobs usually go to those fluent in the English language and American culture. Every month in 2005, about 350 of every 100,000 immigrants started businesses — compared with 280 native-born Americans, according to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Index of Entrepreneurial Activity. Many fail, but others hang on or try again, eventually launching a better life. Take a glance into the lives and lessons of three immigrant entrepreneurs:
Lesson 1: Reinvent Yourself
Kamal Dergham, 47, arrived in the U.S. in 1979 to study mechanical engineering and eventually trained to trouble-shoot commercial air-conditioning systems. Through seven years of study he worked long hours for low wages at a Lebanese fast-food restaurant. He held every job, from cook to dishwasher to cashier, learning the business inside and out. In 1989, his big break came, not in his field but when a relative abandoned a failing restaurant, turning over the keys to Dergham at no cost. For six months, Dergham made no money, only friends. Standing outside the restaurant, he chatted with merchants, strangers and passing children, a few of whom eventually ventured inside to try. Today his Pita Delite restaurant chain has six locations, three of them franchises. Dergham’s refusal to be defined by training or tradition is typical of successful immigrant entrepreneurs.
Lesson 2: Take A Chance
Immigrants are risk-takers by definition. Like Dergham, people who immigrate generally are more achievement-oriented. That’s why they are here in the first place. Without money for restaurant food supplies, Dergham, his wife, mother, father and younger brother cooked each day’s menu from supplies on hand, using the day’s meager receipts to buy for the next day. They shared a two-bedroom apartment, crowded by American standards but roomy to Dergham. He worked 13-hour days and six-day weeks. Summoning strength for sacrifices typifies self-made millionaires.
Lesson 3: Work, Work, Work
Sheela Murthy heads a 60-person law firm near Baltimore and grosses millions of dollars a year, enabling her to indulge her greatest pleasure, charitable giving. She arrived from India in 1985, dead broke and 24. She had, however, a secret weapon: her willingness to work long hours. “I can work 18 hours a day and really turn it out,” she says. In the U.S., hard work produces “immediate results,” unlike back home in her day where, she says, no one — least of all a woman — could get established without connections. Intuit’s study finds immigrant women start businesses at a rate almost twice that of native-born American women.
Lesson 4: Fill A Void
Murthy’s rise exemplifies the tendency of immigrants to spot and fill unmet needs, particularly in their own communities. Murthy’s Harvard degree immediately gained her a $70,000 job as a corporate lawyer, but she hated the atmosphere. She needed to know she was helping people. Searching for a specialty, she recalled the poor job her own immigration lawyer had done. Other newcomers, she realized, needed trustworthy help with complex American immigration laws. Nine years after arriving, she went solo. Her volunteer column on immigration law for a nonprofit newsletter generated a huge response, telling her that the Internet might reach new clients everywhere.
Lesson 5: Network With Others Like Yourself
Anatoly was 21 in 1995 when he left Russia for business school in America.He had no money, and his student visa’s terms forbade him from taking a job. But, in the post-perestroika turmoil, Russians were desperate for Western cars and tools. Before he left he distributed his e-mail address and cell-phone number far and wide, telling people, “Make sure you guys call me first if you need anything, if you need nice SUVs — anything.” He financed two MBAs — in international business and information technology — by filling orders from friends, acquaintances and strangers, marking up cars $1,500 or $2,000. Like Murthy and Dergham, he spotted a void and filled it. Immigrants without access to local language, capital or cultural acumen turn to networks of their countrymen for training, financing, advice and customers. Surprising trust develops.
Lesson 6: Despise Debt, Scrimp and Save
People who have witnessed economic catastrophe firsthand tend to squirrel away money. Anatoly makes $51,000 a year, yet he estimates he saves at least 40% before taxes. His wife can’t yet work — she’s waiting impatiently for a green card. Still, they bought a house last year, just five years after he began his job, using a down payment earned partly from reselling garage-sale finds on eBay. Dergham says he has capable American friends whose success is undermined by spending habits: “They make half of what I make but live 10 times better than I do.” Starting from scratch is tough anywhere, yet it can be done. “You must be your own boss to make money,” Dergham says, “and this country gives a great opportunity. There is no country in the world like that.”
