They're all about scaring the dookie out of would-be entrepreneurs
I’m sure they think they’re doing us all a favor and saving us from ourselves when they try to make starting a business sound like getting on the wrong side of the Spanish Inquisition.
How fun. Another government agency trying to save us from our own foolishness.
In the SBA “Readiness Assessment Guide” or RAG, as I call it, the SBA grills the prospective entrepreneur:[list class="bullet-3"][li]“Are you prepared to lose a portion of your savings?”[/li][li]“Are you aware that running your own business may require working more than 12 hours a day, six days a week and maybe Sundays and holidays?”[/li][li]“If you discover you do not have the basic skills needed for your business, will you be willing to delay your plans until you have acquired the necessary skills.”[/li][li]“Are you prepared to sell your mother to an Eastern European slavery ring in order to raise seed capital?”[/li][/list]
(I made the last one up.)
The entire RAG, and a good chunk of the SBA entrepreneurship courses, are designed to scare the bejeepers out of anyone so bold as to consider starting their own company.[inset side="left" title=""]SBA used to stand for the Small Business Administration. In May of 1994, in a little-know shift that nonetheless completely transformed the mission of the SBA, the acronym was changed to "Scare Businesspeople Away."[/inset]
So, are they right? Is it in our best interest to be frightened away from starting our own business unless we have just “the right stuff?” Should a government agency be in the business of putting hopeful entrepreneurs through some kind of Navy Seal boot camp designed to make them quit?
In this entrepreneur’s opinion, there’s only as much risk in starting a company as you want there to be. Anyone can start their own micro-business with ZERO risk if that’s what they prefer. In fact, it’s almost always better to start a new business with low risk. The only time that risk arises is when the m-bizzer gets bigger than their britches – which is actually something the SBA encourages by backing small business loans. If you don’t want risk in starting a new business, then DON’T:
[list class="bullet-3"][li]Invest a bunch of money,[/li][li]Borrow a bunch of money,[/li][li]Quit your ever-loving job, or[/li][li]Invest months or years of your life in planning.[/li][/list]
In short, if you start your business small (tiny small) and start it today – without bailing on your day job – there’s nothing to fear. The most you have to lose is some of your time.
Oh, and if you think it “takes money to make money,” keep reading. We’ll address that fallacy in NUMBER FIVE. In a nutshell: no it doesn’t. You can make tons of money with no money. Many, if not most, really successful entrepreneurs have done just that and you can too.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say starting a business is “easy.” But it’s the good kind of hard – like working out or spending time with your kids at Chuck-e-cheese. There’s no reason on Earth for the dipthongs at the SBA to try and scare us off.
We can handle it. And, now that we’re over eighteen, we’re brushing our own teeth without a reminder and even deciding what clothes we should wear every single day, it’s probably a good time to let us decide for ourselves if we want to start our own business or not. Granted, the bureaucrats wandering the halls of the SBA probably have stunningly-large IQs, but I think we can handle this decision on our own.
Go scare Al Queda. We’re perfectly capable of scaring ourselves.
[tbanner color="green" title="Biz Fu Scroll of Wisdom #14:" style="3"]He who can does. He who cannot, goes to work for some huge, soulless bureaucracy and tries to scare the crap out of those who might so that he can sleep just a little better imagining that he’s not a total whimp for never trying.[/tbanner]
SBA Screed
