It’s heart wrenching to see so many small businesses having to close their doors for good. Owning a small business is like having a baby. Sleepless nights, lots of hard work, plenty of trials. But ultimately a sense of pride in watching it grow and develop. So to see it all disappear is a real sense of loss. From what I’ve seen and the people I’ve spoken to, there are three ways small companies are going out of business over this time. Over the years I’ve closed businesses for each of these reasons. The cause is simple and very clear. Lack of revenue. Starve a business of its lifeblood and eventually it’ll die, some quicker than others. But some are particularly vulnerable, like the companies below. The first example business is doing OK before the COVID-19 lockdown, but now the … Read More
Unintended consequences from COVID-19 response
A recent book I read, Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman, talked about second-order effects. It states: “Every action has a consequence, and each consequence has another consequence. These are called Second-Order Effects. Every change you make to a system will have Second-Order Effects, which may affect the system’s functionality. Be careful when making changes, they may have the opposite effect of what you aimed for.” I’ve tried to apply that thought process to every change I’ve made since I read that book. For example, I have a dodgy knee. My initial solution was to rest it, or not use it as much. Makes sense right? If something is hurting, let it heal. But I went and saw a professional about it. Turns out that I need to do a different type of exercise to strengthen the knee. If I had … Read More