There are Many Configurations of Business That Work - Commoncog
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This is part of the Operations topic cluster, which belongs to the Business Expertise Triad.
This is part of the Capital topic cluster, which belongs to the Business Expertise Triad.
Business Thinking
There are Many Configurations of Business That Work
By Cedric Chin
Table of Contents
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I’ve had four conversations in the past year where someone said to me, “I have young kids / I have an existing life I’m happy with / I have existing obligations that I enjoy. I don’t know if starting a company is compatible with that.”<br>Some versions of the conversation then go: “I don’t know if I’m a good fit to lead a high growth company.” Or “I don’t know of many people who started a startup with young kids.”<br>Invariably, in every single one of those conversations I say something like: “You don’t have to start a startup if you don’t want to. But that doesn’t mean you have to give up on business. You can always find a business configuration that fits you and what you want out of life … if you want it enough.”<br>There are limitations to this idea, of course, because there are limits to the forms of business that works. But the spectrum of configurations are far larger than what most people tend to believe.<br>You’ve Been Sold a Bill of Goods<br>Imagine if I told you that you must go to school, get good grades, go to a university, do a pragmatic, commercially viable degree, find a job once you graduate, find a nice man to settle with (or a nice woman to marry if you are a man), have 2.1 kids (above replacement rate), buy at least one car, and own a house with a mortgage and a lawn.<br>You might find yourself reacting viscerally to this template. And it would be understandable if you do: this is an old, post-war American, heteronormative vision of life. You might scrunch up your face and go “how old fashioned.” You should know by now that there are many other alternatives to this vision:<br>You don’t have to do a pragmatic, commercially viable degree — many folks end up doing something different from what they studied in university. (Somewhat related: the most lucrative, most interesting jobs in any generation are often new things that are not taught in universities of that particular generation).<br>You don’t have to take a job. You could start a business, or freelance.<br>You don’t have to marry someone. You also don’t have to marry someone of the opposite gender. (Depending on your context you might not even need to marry one person.)<br>You don’t have to have kids if you don’t want to.<br>You may opt to live in a city with great public transport, or a city where it’s possible to bicycle to work — meaning you don’t have to buy a car and get a car loan.<br>You don’t have to own a house — you could rent for a large number of decades, depending on the housing policies of the country you live in. Or you can live on a boat and sail from country to country.<br>You don’t have to live in your country of birth. Nor do you have to retire in the country you work in.<br>Of course, making such decisions are all intertwined. Social policies and housing policies and work policies and childcare policies and the country of your birth and the power of the passport you hold and immigration and where to live and what to study and career choices all somewhat depend on each other. But I think most folks know — once they mature past the grip of trite socialisation — that they may choose a configuration that works for them when it comes to living their lives. This is called ‘agency’. They may choose to live their lives without consideration for the opinions of others.<br>So why do folks lock into a certain template when it comes to starting a business? If you ask someone what they think about entrepreneurship, they invariably fall back on:<br>You must raise money from investors.<br>You need to work hard for the entire duration of the business.<br>You need to be in a primary line of business, which means you need to come up with a Very Good Idea and you must Focus.<br>You need growth — the faster, the more vociferous, the better.<br>You may only relax after you exit the business.<br>Why do folks lock onto such a template? The answer is the same as with our vision of the heteronormative suburban family: at any age, there are dominant narratives that float in our heads. These narratives tend to constrain our options. Because the vast majority of business narratives today are anchored around the venture-backed, Silicon-Valley startup model, you are likely to believe that the only path to a large, successful business is the startup. Also most people don’t spend that much time thinking about business forms. Which means that unless you are a...