The entrepreneurial bandwagon is starting to feel a little full. Everyone from development experts to market research firms seems to be falling over themselves to hail the resourceful small-scale entrepreneur as a savior of poor communities everywhere. Even the uber-hip Trendwatching web site has gotten in on the act, calling minipreneurs an emerging consumer trend in a recent article. How much of this is hype, and how much has real potential?

First of all, minipreneurs aren’t new, so all the talk does feel a bit hyped-up. Microfinance organizations have been funding small-scale business ideas for 30-plus years, and it’s generally acknowledged that entrepreneurs can be a pretty good investment. They deliver development outcomes, too, by providing lower-cost goods and services while building local human and social capital. What are new are the tools and strategies available to help businesses get started and continue growing – and that’s where the real potential lies.

First of all, a big pat on the back for Ecocreto gaining recognition for its work on NPR recently. Secondly, a disclaimer: As I write this posting about water conservation issues in Mexico City, I realize that not too long ago, I also discussed the City's air quality problem. I feel bad picking on Mexico, home to one of the greatest places on Earth, but this warrants some attention - besides, the story of Ecocreto is an optimistic note in all of this.

I was reading Joel Makower's recent post on how water issues could become the next big enviro-development crisis. Though the blog was devoted to how "rich" countries are plagued by unclean water, it reminded me of how someone from Mexico City had commented on my DryWash piece, asking if this waterless carwash service would be available in his area, where people are worried about an impending water shortage and sanitation crisis. Apparently he is not the only one to notice this; one person interviewed in this BBC story laments that "the city was built above a lake, and yet we have no water!"

Today, the Financial Times covers Casas Bahia, a BOP favorite from Brazil which has also been discussed in CK Prahalad’s book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.  Although the FT adds little to the debate about extending credit to low-income consumers, it still provides important exposure to businesses that are engaging the poor.  Below, I have highlighted some of the more interesting points raised in the article and  added some of my own commentary.

Could selling to the poor be more than just turning a profit?

Michael Klein, managing director, says one reason for the company’s success lies in something understood by his father, a Polish immigrant, when he began selling table and bed linen from a handcart more than 50 years ago: “He understood that the poor want to be treated with respect. They want to be treated as if they were rich.”

(Sure, even the poor have their pride.  But being rich and acting rich are two different things.)

Consumers or citizens?  Can we buy our way into citizenship?

Five decades on, with annual sales of R$12bn ($5.56bn), this is still the case. “We help people achieve citizenship,” Mr Klein says. “When one of our lorries delivers a refrigerator to a house in a favela [shanty town], it tells the neighbours that this customer is an honest person, a person of dignity and responsibility, a person with access to credit.”

(Maybe…the rhetoric is a little strong.  I’m not so sure that people immediately equate a refrigerator with honesty.)