Dearest readers, I think you're likely to agree with me that both USA and Canada are lands of entrepreneurs. The soil is fertile for small businesses, venture capital, Shark Tank (Dragon's Den in Canada) and bootstrap miracle businesses. Taking a business from an idea to a successful, profitable reality is no golden ticket because it often fails, but it always is a golden opportunity. As more and more countries with a growing entrepreneur population increasingly look our way for guidance, wisdom, experience and success stories, I think it is important to look at the other side of the business coin- failure, in large part due to many persistent business myths, half-truths and misunderstandings. Because the bar for entry into many types of businesses out there is getting lower and lower (e.g. uBer partner or Skip the Dishes bike delivery guy, and yes those are businesses too), many spend a lot of time and money building their venture the wrong way off of these persistent myths, and more often than not this makes it impossible to succeed. Let's take a look at a few.
My time is too valuable to do x or y. Here we go, this one comes up the most, at least in the circles of my friends and acquaintances. Anyone who is consumed by making their business work and believes they'll end up making lots of money, or anyone who's already sort of there, both think the same. For example, a person may say they don't want to do chores because their time s too valuable. This idea, formulated in this particular way, is a very toxic business misconception. First, it's very condescending to other people around the person saying this who do those tasks that the person sees below their value. Second, and more important, the way they formulate that sentence is not complete! The real format goes like this. I'm working on my business and my time is too valuable to do the chores, so I will PAY someone to do it for me. That's how it works. You believe that right now you make so much money that you should focus on your business and pay someone else to do the chores for you because it's cheaper to do that than for you to stop. Or, you have a loan or venture capital and, because you believe you will be making lots of money in the future as long as you keep working on your business, you also hire someone to do the chores so you can keep working on it. If you don't fall in any of these categories, in this particular example you still have to do the chores! Saying that they don't have to be done because your time is valuable and you don't have the money to pay someone to do it is toxic and a bad choice because you end up ignoring other aspects of your life and becoming a total mess. Or, you start leeching off your friends and family to do things for you while not giving anything in return. That is not a good look.
It's not what you know but who you know. Oh, there's another annoying myth. While this may be (occasionally) true in the job market, it certainly isn't true in business. I feel you are judged way more harshly and critically as an entrepreneur than as an employee. This is also because business owners often have way more stakeholders and crucial relations than employees. There are customers, vendors, suppliers, support service companies, employees, freelance contractors, investors, creditors etc. Once you get a truly excellent, well thought out business off the ground, you will undoubtedly become well-known precisely because of what you know and how well you do your business! The best examples would be Dragon's Den and Shark Tank, especially the later seasons. So many businesses got a chance to talk to dragons and the sharks- equal opportunity mind you. Just being there, introducing themselves and offering those investors to get to know them did not get each and every one of them a deal! The entrepreneurs that were already doing well or had their businesses well worked out are the ones who got the deal. So, first you get good, then you make connections. Getting a chance for a good connection without being good is a useless strategy to pursue because you'll get shot down.
The best way to get rich is to start a business. Hmm, this one sounds so true in North America that it's hard to believe it's a dangerous myth. While it is almost true, it ultimately is not when you break down its real meaning. So, what does it mean to be rich, for most people? It means financial freedom. You get lots of money so you have total control over your schedule and you want to work however much you desire, but really you don't have to work at all. Both employees and people who start a business from humble beginnings around the same time, so let's say in their 20's, get this kind of freedom no sooner than retirement time. If you look at different studies and statistics, many white collar and blue collar high skill, high experience jobs will make you equally financially free and wealthy by retirement as typical small to mid-size businesses would (not every business is the next Google- not even close). Now, which one do you think is riskier? A path where you go to school after school and become a career-driven high earning specialist, or a person who cooks up a business idea in their head, makes it real and then puts everything they have out there and then it's Moon or bust for them. Often times, you have to be part visionary and part a mixture of gambler, crazy person and risk lover and things still may not work out well, long enough for you to retire. It's a scary thought, yet one not considered by most people who have jobs instead of businesses. It's downright scary.
Talk about risk, there is also a belief out there that, as an entrepreneur, you need to take on a crazy amount of risk on a consistent basis in order to be successful. This, dearest readers, is another toxic business myth that can easily drag down a country's entire economy! The most successful businesses divide their business development into stages, calculate the risk at each stage as well as cumulatively, and then look at whether they can handle that amount of risk. They use all available data relevant to their business, analyze it and come up with insights that help them mitigate risk. The whole point is to make sure that the total risk involved will still allow the entrepreneur to recover in real time and keep going. For example, a business may try a new form of advertising and risk $500. Depending on how well the ads do, the entrepreneur may put more money into it, or stop it altogether. Either way, those $500 will not be the absolute last funds that the business has, nor will it be so much money that no other advertising will be attempted in a long time. This is how risk is done by successful businesses. Anyone who wants to say otherwise to me or you better pull up some hard data to back up their claims! :)
Finally, let's talk about the biggest myth of them all. When you read it, you'll call me crazy because there's no way this can be a myth. Running a business is the only way to be your own boss. How can this be a myth? Well, let's analyze it. When you utter the phrase "being your own boss," you are talking about having some power over your work and a degree of freedom and independence. While you can have this from the start (to a degree) as a business owner, an employee can catch up to this rather quickly. Many employees become such experienced, forward thinking, independent and self-driven professional that they create an aura of entrepreneurship in the workplace. You may know a few people like these at your work too. They are so good that, whether their bosses always see eye to eye with them or not, they value them, respect them and will always put in a good word from them. These people can advance more freely and quickly, and also change companies almost effortlessly whenever they perceive the need to do so. They are small businesses within bigger businesses, and a brand unto themselves. This means that people who feel better suited to this path don't have to try to start businesses and ultimately fail because it is just not their thing. If everyone who wants to be their boss wanted to start their own business solely for that reason, we would be in a perpetual recession here for sure.
There we have it, dearest readers- some business myths to think about. Can you think of a few more that irk you as much as these ones irk me? :)
My time is too valuable to do x or y. Here we go, this one comes up the most, at least in the circles of my friends and acquaintances. Anyone who is consumed by making their business work and believes they'll end up making lots of money, or anyone who's already sort of there, both think the same. For example, a person may say they don't want to do chores because their time s too valuable. This idea, formulated in this particular way, is a very toxic business misconception. First, it's very condescending to other people around the person saying this who do those tasks that the person sees below their value. Second, and more important, the way they formulate that sentence is not complete! The real format goes like this. I'm working on my business and my time is too valuable to do the chores, so I will PAY someone to do it for me. That's how it works. You believe that right now you make so much money that you should focus on your business and pay someone else to do the chores for you because it's cheaper to do that than for you to stop. Or, you have a loan or venture capital and, because you believe you will be making lots of money in the future as long as you keep working on your business, you also hire someone to do the chores so you can keep working on it. If you don't fall in any of these categories, in this particular example you still have to do the chores! Saying that they don't have to be done because your time is valuable and you don't have the money to pay someone to do it is toxic and a bad choice because you end up ignoring other aspects of your life and becoming a total mess. Or, you start leeching off your friends and family to do things for you while not giving anything in return. That is not a good look.
It's not what you know but who you know. Oh, there's another annoying myth. While this may be (occasionally) true in the job market, it certainly isn't true in business. I feel you are judged way more harshly and critically as an entrepreneur than as an employee. This is also because business owners often have way more stakeholders and crucial relations than employees. There are customers, vendors, suppliers, support service companies, employees, freelance contractors, investors, creditors etc. Once you get a truly excellent, well thought out business off the ground, you will undoubtedly become well-known precisely because of what you know and how well you do your business! The best examples would be Dragon's Den and Shark Tank, especially the later seasons. So many businesses got a chance to talk to dragons and the sharks- equal opportunity mind you. Just being there, introducing themselves and offering those investors to get to know them did not get each and every one of them a deal! The entrepreneurs that were already doing well or had their businesses well worked out are the ones who got the deal. So, first you get good, then you make connections. Getting a chance for a good connection without being good is a useless strategy to pursue because you'll get shot down.
The best way to get rich is to start a business. Hmm, this one sounds so true in North America that it's hard to believe it's a dangerous myth. While it is almost true, it ultimately is not when you break down its real meaning. So, what does it mean to be rich, for most people? It means financial freedom. You get lots of money so you have total control over your schedule and you want to work however much you desire, but really you don't have to work at all. Both employees and people who start a business from humble beginnings around the same time, so let's say in their 20's, get this kind of freedom no sooner than retirement time. If you look at different studies and statistics, many white collar and blue collar high skill, high experience jobs will make you equally financially free and wealthy by retirement as typical small to mid-size businesses would (not every business is the next Google- not even close). Now, which one do you think is riskier? A path where you go to school after school and become a career-driven high earning specialist, or a person who cooks up a business idea in their head, makes it real and then puts everything they have out there and then it's Moon or bust for them. Often times, you have to be part visionary and part a mixture of gambler, crazy person and risk lover and things still may not work out well, long enough for you to retire. It's a scary thought, yet one not considered by most people who have jobs instead of businesses. It's downright scary.
Talk about risk, there is also a belief out there that, as an entrepreneur, you need to take on a crazy amount of risk on a consistent basis in order to be successful. This, dearest readers, is another toxic business myth that can easily drag down a country's entire economy! The most successful businesses divide their business development into stages, calculate the risk at each stage as well as cumulatively, and then look at whether they can handle that amount of risk. They use all available data relevant to their business, analyze it and come up with insights that help them mitigate risk. The whole point is to make sure that the total risk involved will still allow the entrepreneur to recover in real time and keep going. For example, a business may try a new form of advertising and risk $500. Depending on how well the ads do, the entrepreneur may put more money into it, or stop it altogether. Either way, those $500 will not be the absolute last funds that the business has, nor will it be so much money that no other advertising will be attempted in a long time. This is how risk is done by successful businesses. Anyone who wants to say otherwise to me or you better pull up some hard data to back up their claims! :)
Finally, let's talk about the biggest myth of them all. When you read it, you'll call me crazy because there's no way this can be a myth. Running a business is the only way to be your own boss. How can this be a myth? Well, let's analyze it. When you utter the phrase "being your own boss," you are talking about having some power over your work and a degree of freedom and independence. While you can have this from the start (to a degree) as a business owner, an employee can catch up to this rather quickly. Many employees become such experienced, forward thinking, independent and self-driven professional that they create an aura of entrepreneurship in the workplace. You may know a few people like these at your work too. They are so good that, whether their bosses always see eye to eye with them or not, they value them, respect them and will always put in a good word from them. These people can advance more freely and quickly, and also change companies almost effortlessly whenever they perceive the need to do so. They are small businesses within bigger businesses, and a brand unto themselves. This means that people who feel better suited to this path don't have to try to start businesses and ultimately fail because it is just not their thing. If everyone who wants to be their boss wanted to start their own business solely for that reason, we would be in a perpetual recession here for sure.
There we have it, dearest readers- some business myths to think about. Can you think of a few more that irk you as much as these ones irk me? :)