Twenty students of RSM’s MScBA Entrepreneurship are engaged in a so-called Bootstrapping Elective. One of them came to see me the other day, carrying a red paperclip which he offered to trade for something else. His goal, he explained, was to “use this experiment as a means to meet interesting individuals from national and international politics, entertainment, business and other people of interest”. The idea is appealing: start with a red paperclip and keep trading it until you possess something of real value. I traded the paperclip for an Erasmus bookmark and a promise to receive a full report of the experiment once it’s completed.