Perhaps a contrary point of view, but I believe that the current market and economic turmoil makes it a very exciting time to be an entrepreneur and to bet on entrepreneurs, and will eventually be quite beneficial to their businesses. Gone are the days, especially in the B2B environment, when customers can afford to ignore a "better mousetrap" (especially where they drive in-year cost reductions or productivity improvements), or make "safe" decisions to choose inferior offerings just because they come from bigger brands where one is protected in the event of failure -- there is NO room for failure now. Yes it is a tough environment in which to acquire new customers, service products, meet commitments and to raise financing. On the other hand, entrepreneurs and business builders are uniquely positioned to use the harsh environment to succeed -- we've always had to bring adaptability, innovation and hunger every day, even in the good times, to build our businesses, do more with less and make something out of nothing. Now, those same qualities should result in a lot more airtime with our stakeholders, while multinational competitors are busy internally focused on retrenching, cutting overhead, reducing trade credit from 60 days to 15 days, etc. etc.
To all entrepreneurs ... this is our time now. It is a unique opportunity to make some noise, increase productivity, commercialize innovation and create jobs. We've always been the shock troops on the front lines of the economy, and it is time for us to lead the charge once again.
Long live the entrepreneur, and Never Fu@#ing Quit !!!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Long live entrepreneurs !!!
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4 comments:
Real entrepreneurs are great. You're awesome! :-) But ticket-clipping, would-be monopolists are not and are actually the enemies of genuine innovation and entrepreneurial effort. It's important to distinguish between the two and understand that large proportion of so-called "entrepreneurs" are more in the ticket-clipping category......really.
Steve, a thoughtful and valid distinction. I'd actually go a step further and propose that there is a fundamental difference between an "entrepreneur / business builder" -- someone who wakes up each morning, knowing that they have to kill what they are going to eat that day or have their family and employees go hungry -- and large, beaurocratic, ossified organizations (possibly monopolies or oligopolies) that by definition have created barriers to competition, have no motivation to innovate, and have lost the ability to adapt or create new value. I dare say that Adam Smith did not have monopolies or oligopolies in mind when he was writing about the "invisible hand of the perfect market".
At the end of the day, the current market and economic turmoil that we are experiencing is a long overdue shakeup. And there is plenty of blame to go around. The problem was caused by a credit and entitlement mentality at the individual level, that was aided and abetted by greed and short-term, bonus-driven financial engineering by the very institutions that we were counting on to be stewards of the basic fundamentals for the economic and monetary system that support the standard of living that we enjoy.
Real jobs, real innovation and real value creation have largely been the calling card of entrepreneurs and buisiness builders that create and build SME's. Even in the good times, nothing could be taken for granted, and every success had to be earned through sweat, smarts and perseverance. Especially in times like this, we need our entrepeneurs to step up, to innovate, to create jobs, to keep our countries competitive globally. We need to find ways of helping this segment create that success -- they are the straw that stirs the drink, and the ripple effect of that success is what is required for a recovery in the real economy. If not entrepreneurs, then who?
I think a case can be made that entrepreneurial activities, albeit within large corporations, caused this economic mess. I think we need to focus on the both the goal and the means of the entepreneurial effort. Wealth creation is important, dominance of a piece of the world is laudable .. but first do no harm.
Wayne ... totally agree. But the requirement for a moral compass in all our activites applies, whether we are talking about entrepreneurs, big company CEOs who profit at the expense of their shareholders, politicians or even at the grass roots level, in terms of what choices and decisions individuals and families make with respect to mortgaging ... Read Morethe future on the environment, on depending on and possibly defaulting on credit etc. etc.
There's definitely more than enough blame to go around, but then again, one has to believe that an inspired collective change of values and effort can reverse the trend, and put us on an upward spiral.
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