A new business is born

Over the weekend I was part of something surprisingly common. In the UK, a new business is launched every half an hour. Toward the end of my long London weekend trip, my musically talented friend, Alex, invited me to set up his website to publicly announce his offerings. The Live Link, will, in essence, be a live music agency, connecting young and talented jazz and blues musicians to events and venues across London. Alex is bootstrapping amazingly well to get his business going, he has exploited all of his friends to help him get things off the ground. From website, tax and audit to newsletter articles. For me, being involved in an exciting and promising new venture always gets me going, blasting through problems and offering advice with the minimum of resources.
It’s very easy to draw comparisons between a small nascent business to a large corporation. One striking characteristic in this work is that your are easily inclined to think creatively when there isn’t the constraints of bureaucratic rules and regulations that are imposed on you in a large corporations, not only is it really quite liberating but it also feels hugely more productive. This not to say that once I complete my MBA I’ll go straight into my own start-up, I still think working in large established companies is necessary for me to learn additional skills & competencies without the risk of failure of a start-up. Over the weekend, before long, Alex began raising questions and issues in which there were no clear or easy answers to; such as how does he maintain 100% complete ownership and control as the business grows? He is in the unique position where he is able to raise all of the capital for launching the business on his own, and his primary partner, at this time, cannot raise anything, but for him to remain engaged and motivated by the business whilst continuing to provide his essential skills he may want the opportunity to own a share in the future- I’m sure this is a classic start-up dilemma.
Ultimately, I will also want to become an entrepreneur, but I doubt I’ll be ready so soon after MBA, in the meantime, I’m happy to dabble in start-ups before fully jumping ship. The fact that I’m willing to spend half my weekend helping out someone else’s business shows I’m passionate and serious about new ventures. I should be right at home in Silicon Valley, and after 2 years, hopefully I’ll be the wiser when it comes to business matters.