Why is the micro enterprise business owner a micro enterprise owner?
I mean why isn’t he or she a small or medium enterprise owner instead of a v small or micro business?
Because, that’s all the money he has got! Or even lesser!
Then why doesn’t he or she opt for getting into a lower scale smaller business?
Because he or she is in a tearing unpardoning unrelenting hurry to come up or recover!
Therein lies the biggest quality or strength of an entrepreneur. The compulsive self-satisfying appetite to take risk. The sheer brute force and spirit of entrepreneurship, the strength to take crazy pressure to organise all that it takes to build a business from scratch.
And therein also lies the nuclei of the inefficiencies, cracks, gaps, counter forces, troubles, curses etc he or she unwittingly inadvertently gets into.
You’ll find 9/10 startup or micro entrepreneurs running like mad dogs to arrange for that extra overdraft limit, juggling for that new order they have got, which like other old orders run the high risk of being weakly contracted or turning into a bad debt or late payment case...
9/10 Indian businessmen are famous for not paying to their vendors on time.In turn they are more than proportionately blessed by their customers who oblige them by not paying them on time as well. and when they do pay, they do so in bits and pieces, like kidney stones coming out in instalments.
Wisdom would say that the entrepreneur should not bite more than he or she can chew. That they should not take orders without air tight payment terms and timelines. That they shouldn’t expand faster than the fastest credit limit expansion possibilities.
But therein lies the paradox.
It is simply not possible with an entrepreneur.
Because he/she can’t.
Because, if he/she could, he/she wouldn’t be an entrepreneur that can pull off a dramatic survival in the draconian business jungle. Entrepreneurship is a state of intoxication to withstand and survive the maddening ruthless world of business.
Pity that those who are primary engines of employment generation and wealth economy movers are treated the way they are. Maybe, that’s a litmus test to control the entrepreneur population. A filter to keep the quality in check. It also unwittingly acts as the entry safety barrier for those who manage to reach the other side without drowning.
The counter curse to the entrepreneurship blessing is that they can’t exist , work or grow sanely.
Because if they were sane, they wouldn’t be able to enterprise and have what it takes to be an entrepreneur.
Its like the spaceship rocket needing escape velocity to be able to escape the earth’s environment in search of the orbit in space and prevent being sucked back towards the earth under the gravity of realities and constraints.
So, do the micro and small business owner need consultancy or advice?
Well, yes and no!
Yes, because he needs it. And desperately so.
No, because he doesn’t want it. He hates it.
And there are reasons for his hostile attitude.
First, he is in a highly focused, engaged and energized state of existence where he is very less likely to listen to any preaching as to how he should be conducting his business. If he did, he runs the risk of losing his momentum and mojo.
Second, he knows the constraints and limitations he is working under. He is not interested in baring himself and sharing his glaring weaknesses and threat situations with anyone, nor believes that anyone is competent enough to “lecture him” on that, more so who has not been in his position.
The no.1 and overwhelming priority of start-ups and micro enterprises is the need to expand and scale up to “Safety” and at the same time escape the 90% probability of going under. To remain alive and grow to the next level is critical. Ultimate and fierce example of struggle for survival and survival of the fittest.
Manpower care and satisfaction is not high on the agenda. That’s why start-ups and micro organisations need highly charged up, self-guided, equally excited, talented, committed and “maintenance-free” people in the team.
Nor is there a space for elaborate system for quality. What a paradox that while quality is the major cause of assignment rejections of the start-ups and small companies thus jeopardizing their very existence, yet there is v less cost and time allocation for having elaborate quality systems in place. It is all left inadvertently to the sheer inherent quality readiness of the enterprise, personal involvement of the core team member and his/her eye for quality. There are no safety quality nets.
Mostly, the end results of the start-ups and small companies are scripted even before the auspicious coconut is broken and ribbon cut.
Entrepreneurship of start-ups and micro business ventures is a stampede which, if survived, gradually promises to turn into a rhythmic galloping of the horse regiment, finally turning into a marchpast of a jack-booted professional army.
Entrepreneurship is a unique kind of meditation which doesn’t permit “interruption”.
An entrepreneur is a wounded soul on fire that doesn’t want a consultant or advisor. Just a friend, who he would need every other hour, if only to listen and to indirectly and gently point, but not come in the way!
