America’s entrepreneurial economy is the envy of the world.  Young companies account for almost 30 percent of new jobs, and as we’ve fought back from the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes, startups have helped our private sector create 15.5 million jobs since early 2010—the longest streak of private-sector job creation on record.  

Today, in celebration of National Entrepreneurship Month, the Administration is releasing a Top 10 list of President Obama’s most significant specific actions to promote American entrepreneurship, as well as announcing new efforts to build on these successes. 

Over the past eight years, thanks to the grit, determination, and creativity of entrepreneurs all across the country, American startup activity is rebounding and growing more inclusive.

Here is a short summary of the President’s top 10 actions to accelerate American entrepreneurship; for more details, see here.

1. Signed permanent tax incentives for startup investment, by making the research and experimentation (R&E) tax credit available to pre-revenue startups and permanently eliminating capital gains tax on certain small business investments.
2. Accelerated the transition of research discoveries from lab to market, by scaling up the I-Corps entrepreneurship training program for Federally-funded scientists and engineers, opening up data on Federal research facilities and intellectual property, extending and strengthening the $2.5 billion Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, and more.
3. Cut red tape for entrepreneurs, with over 100 cities and communities taking the Startup in a Day pledge to streamline their business startup processes, allowing entrepreneurs to navigate requirements in as little as 24 hours.
4. Expanded regional entrepreneurship opportunities, startup accelerator programs investing in regional innovation clusters, and incentivizing regional innovation strategies research commercialization centers and early-stage seed capital funds.  
5. Directly boosted entrepreneurs’ access to capital, with $8.4 billion in loans and venture investments catalyzed by the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) and new pathways for impact investment funds and early-stage innovation funds through the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program.  
6. Prioritized inclusive entrepreneurship, with the first-ever White House Demo Day catalyzing major investors, technology companies, and other organizations to committing to new actions to ensure diverse recruitment and hiring, complemented by Federal agency actions to reduce barriers faced by women entrepreneurs, train veteran entrepreneurs for 21st century opportunities, and more.
7. Created opportunities for promising entrepreneurs and innovators from abroad, allowing international students with qualifying science and engineering degrees from U.S. universities to extend the time they participate in practical training, and unlocking the talents of high-skilled Americans-in-waiting.
8. Updated securities laws for high-growth companies, with the bipartisan Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act making it easier for smaller firms to responsibly make an initial public offering (IPO), allowing entrepreneurs to raise up to $50 million through regulated “mini public offerings,” and creating a national marketplace for securities-based crowdfunding.
9. Made the U.S. patent system more efficient and responsive to innovators, by signing the bipartisan America Invents Act to significantly reduce patent application costs and wait times for startups and small businesses, taking steps to increase transparency and level the playing field for innovators, and more.
10. Unleashed entrepreneurship in the industries of the future, including clean energy, biotechnology, the commercial space industry, nanotechnology, drones, robotics, advanced manufacturing, and more.

To ensure that every American entrepreneur has a straight shot at success, we need all hands on deck.  That’s why, since the launch of the White House Startup America initiative in 2011, the President has issued a consistent public call to action to companies, nonprofits, universities, investors, and others to celebrate and accelerate high-growth entrepreneurship throughout the country.

Today, even more organizations are responding to that call to action, with engineering deans from more than 200 universities committed to building a more diverse student talent pipeline; 79 companies committed to the Tech Inclusion Pledge, an effort to make the technology workforce at each of their companies representative of the American people as soon as possible; and over 30 angel investor groups with over $800 million under management making a new commitment to promote inclusive entrepreneurship. For more details, click here.

Many of President Obama’s signature achievements have significantly increased opportunities for entrepreneurs to take smart risks and build the next generation of great American companies:  the Affordable Care Act is making it easier for entrepreneurs to buy health insurance, unlocking them from traditional employer-based coverage; the Pay As You Earn program is making it easier for entrepreneurs to pay off student loan debt; the Open Data Initiative has unlocked over 200,000 government datasets as raw material for entrepreneurial innovation; ConnectED and ConnectALL are allowing aspiring entrepreneurs everywhere to access high-speed broadband, while a strong net neutrality policy ensures a free and open internet; and the President signed into law the largest annual increase in research and development funding in America’s history.

These and other efforts to address income inequality, promote competitive markets, reduce unduly restrictive occupational licensing, and scale up rapid training for 21st century technology skills are essential to ensure that America remains the best place on the planet to start and scale the next great company.

Not only would the Senate bill effectively “staple” a green card to the diplomas of advanced STEM graduates educated in the United States, it would create a new pathway for foreign entrepreneurs who want to start and grow their companies here.

As a computer science professor and serial entrepreneur, Luis von Ahn exemplifies the best of both worlds. Luis grew up in Guatemala, studied math and computer science at two great American universities, and went on to launch a number of successful startups. His latest venture is Duolingo, an iPhone App of the Year with over 12 million active users learning a new language. The Pittsburgh-based company employs 35 people and is growing fast.

I spoke with Luis about his experience as an immigrant entrepreneur, and how immigration reform would allow America to remain a magnet for countless other brilliant innovators who dream of making a big impact here.

What was your path from immigrant to academic to entrepreneur?

I grew up in Guatemala, and I didn’t actually plan to immigrate to the United States. I just wanted to do math, but couldn’t do that in Guatemala. I got into Duke University, came to the United States to study when I was 17, and I’ve been here ever since.

I went on to pursue a Ph.D. in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. As it happened, in my first semester, I helped invent the CAPTCHA – the squiggly letters that nearly every website now uses to validate that you’re a human, not a computer.

My second project was the “ESP Game” – it was played by around 5 million people, and as they played, they taught computers how to recognize the contents of photos. Google bought my little one-person company, changed the name to Google Image Labeler, and used it to vastly improve the Google image search engine.

My third project came to me after I learned that someone in the world was typing a CAPTCHA about 200 million times every day. At first, I was pretty proud of myself for helping invent that. But then I started feeling bad, because CAPTCHAs take up about ten seconds of your time. If you multiply that by 200 million, that’s about 500,000 hours of human effort every day. That was how I came up with the idea of the reCAPTCHA, where you type in not just a random word but also a word scanned from an old book – now you’re not just identifying yourself as a human, you’re also helping to teach computers how to decipher an unusual word. I was already a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon when I turned this idea into a company – Google bought that one, too, and is using it to help digitize the world’s books.

How did you come up with the idea for Duolingo?

My view on education is really shaped by where I am from in Guatemala, and I wanted to create education that doesn’t discriminate based on wealth. People talk about education as an equalizer, but I’ve seen how it can be a divider. When people are rich, they can pay for an amazing education, and because they get a great education, they remain rich. At the same time, about 800 million people around the world are trying to learn English, to get a better job and improve their lot. But most ways to learn a language are expensive. They are geared toward the minority of people learning a language, not the majority. I wanted to create equal-opportunity learning for everybody.

We designed Duolingo as a mobile app that would be fun, effective, and free. Today, more people are learning a new language on Duolingo than in the entire U.S. public school system. And we’re working on some exciting new ideas to lower the cost of getting certified as an English speaker, which is the key to job advancement for so many people around the world.

What is the relationship between your experience as an immigrant and an entrepreneur?

Duolingo has been massively informed by my having to learn English as a student in Guatemala, and being from a country where the impact of knowing English is a big deal. My co-founder is from Switzerland, we both had to learn English, and we both understand how much people are trying to learn languages in other countries. I was one of the fortunate people who went to an American school, so I learned when I was young.

Why do you see immigration reform as an urgent priority for America?

I really think it is a no-brainer. I see it every day. We spend so much effort educating Ph.D. students at our great universities. And at the end of those six years, these graduates end up among probably the top 15 people in the whole world in whatever they’re doing – they are amazing.

It is insane when you see them leave. They’ve just been trained here, and then they often have to go elsewhere and make wherever they go a much better place. 

It is similar for entrepreneurs. I think having top people start companies here instead of in other places is hugely important for the United States. At least in my field, other countries are starting to catch up. It is still the case that the best place is the United States, but it is not like 10 years ago where it was the only place. Now, we are seeing really awesome and successful apps coming out of Europe, China, and even Latin America. In many of these cases, these companies were started by people who were educated here but had to leave.

Luis von Ahn, immigrant entrepreneur and founder of Duolingo, Inc. (Credit: Duolingo archives)

Some of these Champions have done exemplary work through programs affiliated with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), including SCORE, Small Business Development Centers, Women’s Business Centers, and the Emerging Leaders (e200) Initiative. Others are working to grow regional “entrepreneurial ecosystems” through the Startup America Partnership, a private-sector response to the White House Startup America initiative.

A strong mentor can offer invaluable support to entrepreneurs. Check out this new video on what makes an effective entrepreneurial mentor, drawn from interviews with leaders from the Startup America Partnership, who share their own experience on both sides of the relationship.

Hayley Hoverter met President Obama on Tuesday at the White House Science Fair, where she presented her product, “Sweet (dis)SOLVE", a new type of sugar packet that dissolves in hot water, February 7, 2012. (Photo courtesy NFTE)

Hayley Hoverter is an award-winning technology innovator, an entrepreneur, a CEO – and she’s also a 16-year-old high school student.  This week she met President Obama at the White House Science Fair, where she presented her product, “Sweet (dis)SOLVE.”  As the President explained:

“What impresses me so much is not just how smart you are, but it’s the fact that you recognize you’ve got a responsibility to use your talents in service of something bigger than yourselves.  Some of you, that means developing new products that will change the way we live.  Hayley Hoverter invented a new type of sugar packet that dissolves in hot water.  It’s flavorless, it’s colorless, and potentially could save up to 2 million pounds of trash each year -- and that’s just at Starbucks.”

Last year Hayley won the National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge, run by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE).  She received a $10,000 award from Mastercard to turn her idea into a business, and she’s well on her way.  “Tell me when I can buy stock," the President joked after hearing her pitch.

Nearly 40% of American teenagers are interested in starting a business, and now is a better time than ever to be a young entrepreneur.  For starters, it’s easier to pursue an entrepreneurial path now that the President has signed legislation allowing young people to stay insured on their parents’ health plan and capping student loan payments at 15% of income (soon dropping to 10% as part of the President’s “We Can’t Wait” series of executive actions).

Private sector trends have also made it easier than ever for young entrepreneurs to surround themselves with the right resources.  Since Y Combinator launched in 2005, mentor-driven startup accelerators have sprouted up across the country.  The cost of starting and growing a company has plummeted with the rise of web-based tools, and the Startup America Partnership has mobilized over $1 billion in business services to bring that cost down even further for 100,000 startups.

Meanwhile, as part of the White House Startup America Initiative – which just celebrated its first birthday last week – the Obama Administration has funded a National University Clean Energy Business Challenge and a National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation, inspiring more young Americans to start new companies and solve tough problems.  And top Administration officials – including the First Lady-- continue to meet with young entrepreneurs at the White House and across the country.

America is full of talented young people like Hayley Hoverter who are poised to create the jobs of the future.  Check out the other student teams at the White House Science Fair, and you’ll find kids selling innovative electronics, marketing new robot designs, launching new educational video games, and developing life-saving mobile device applications.  The President’s Startup America Legislative Agenda, unveiled last week, would provide greater access to capital and tax relief for this new generation of entrepreneurs just getting started.

Doug Rand is a Senior Advisor to the Deputy Director at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Northeast Ohio has staked its future on high-growth entrepreneurship.  That’s why today, President Obama is bringing five Cabinet secretaries and his top economic advisors to Cleveland for a White House Winning the Future Forum on Small Business.  In special sessions on high-growth entrepreneurship, access to capital, workforce development, boosting exports, and cleantech innovation, they’ll hear entrepreneurs from across the region address the real challenges and opportunities facing small and growing businesses every day. 

One of these companies is ABSMaterials, based in Wooster, Ohio.  It developed and patented super-absorbent material called “Osorb” that soaks up organic contaminants like a sponge.  This innovative, reusable technology can help clean up oil spills, polluted waterways, and contaminated drinking water.  In just the last two years, ABSMaterials has brought this technology from a novel idea to a revenue-generating product.  The company has raised $3.5 million from private investors, and is creating jobs.

The growth of ABSMaterials did not happen in a vacuum.  Northeast Ohio has spent well over a decade growing the kind of entrepreneurial ecosystem that allows innovative startups to thrive.  Some of the growth capital for ABSMaterials came from JumpStart, a regional economic development network that’s been so successful, it recently announced that it will be scaling the model across the country—a major private-sector commitment to U.S. entrepreneurship in response to the President’s Startup America call to action.

Today, Lorain County Community College (LCCC) is also making a bold commitment under the banner of Startup America.  It is transforming its Innovation Fund from a local success story in Elyria, Ohio, into a national phenomenon:  Innovation Fund America.

Here’s how the model works:  The Innovation Fund makes small but crucial grants to local high-tech startups like ABSMaterials, allowing them to prove their technology and raise money from private investors.  Philanthropic contributions to the fund are tax-deductible, because the startups agree to educate the next generation of entrepreneurs through student internships. 

It’s a quadruple-win:  Donors can see their dollars go to work toward high-impact, high-growth local economic development; innovative startups get seed capital when they need it most; community college students get hands-on experience at an entrepreneurial high-tech company; and the region gets new jobs.  (It bears repeating that the overwhelming majority of net new jobs come from startups.) 

So far, LCCC’s Innovation Fund has awarded $4.3 million to 60 companies, rapidly creating 100 new jobs, attracting $41 million in additional private investment, and sponsoring 130 student entrepreneurship internships.  Starting today, LCCC will help other community colleges across the country replicate this model, as part of the Virtual Incubator Network, a project of the American Association of Community Colleges funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

Lorain County Community College is helping America win the future by out-innovating, out-educating, and out-building our competitors.  Read more about its efforts at the new Innovation Fund America site, and check out the full range of Startup America policy initiatives and private-sector commitments at obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/startupamerica.