August 25, 2009 – U.S. News and World Report – New York, NY, USA
Ross Paterson has found the perfect spot for would-be entrepreneurs: The place has minimal market penetration, abounds in hardworking, business-savvy people and has minimal government red tape. Unfortunately, you may need a flak jacket. Last spring, the former Army officer took his Fort Worth, Texas–based Growth Coach business-consulting franchise to Afghanistan for a week of seminars to teach 30 nascent entrepreneurs at Kabul’s Leadership Development Institute about good ol’ American-style bootstrapping.
How does a Texas business coach set up shop in Afghanistan?
I went over there for the first time in 2002 as part of a nonprofit I run called Global Fusion, and now I go back a few times a year. The idea is to create a vision and then get the resources to bring about a new Afghanistan–like working with universities to create an agricultural model that moves away from opium and educating women on how to keep their families healthy. The more we got involved, the more we realized we needed to make everything into a business model so it could be sustainable there. I realized the material I used in the Growth Coach franchise I started in 2006 could give them the systematic model they need.
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