SOURCE - https://brightwanderer.tumblr.com/post/681806049845608448
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I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.
Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.
The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.
| just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.
Yeah. I would usually see a business as failed only if it is going through bankruptcy.
If you “close” it, it’s because it failed. Successful business are transferred or sold, because a loyal customer base and a successful business model have a lot of value.
Same for 90% of the other things mentioned. If you do a hobby for a while and you abandon it, it’s by definition a phase. Etc.
Not really true. Plenty of mom and pop shops close because no one wants to run it and they don’t want to ruin the reputation of their family business by selling it to someone who might not run it well. I worked for a few places where this happened.
Who are these people that decline tens of thousands of dollars/euros/pounds for their image? Must be nice being that rich…
Plenty of otherwise successful businesses could not be sold for tens of thousands of dollars just for the name. Several are in business solely because of personal connections with other small businesses. Once that element is gone people go elsewhere. At least in my community/experience.
That’s freelancing then, not really a business, isn’t it?
There was a dessert business I used to do work for that catered a lot of local businesses events. She got plenty of work there and then had a loyal customer base because of the introduction to her desserts at these events. That seems like a valid business to me. She retired and moved to be closer to her kids and that was it. No one to take her place. I don’t know what you consider freelancing but she put her kids through school off of it so I don’t know why it wouldn’t count as business even if she technically never had long term contracts. She had her stuff in stores in the area because she made a name for herself and her products. People liked her and her story as much as the food so I don’t think people would’ve kept buying it if they found out she didn’t own it anymore.
I think you might not be aware of how many people have small businesses. 10% of American workers are self employed. I have done a lot of work for small businesses and it’s very different than what a lot of people who had a teacher and a factory worker as parents think.
For me a business is an organization with intellectual property (recipes, for instance) employees (institutional knowledge, know-how), reputation, location, customer base, etc. Basically a bus factor higher than 1.
A successful motivational speaker, a good mechanic or a youtuber wouldn’t be “a business” in my understanding. A car garage with 5 mechanics would.
I’m not sure why you think having multiple employees is necessary for a business. You need to register a business regardless of how many employees it has and need to pay taxes and carry applicable licenses and insurance regardless. Does a married couple working together count because it’s technically two people? Does someone who pays a contract company or temp agency to cover business tasks count? If I run a remodeling business but I just do the plans and subcontract entire construction teams to do the actual remodel that wouldn’t count by your metric. It seems like it falls into the kind of thinking OOP is suggesting against. You seem to have just decided that a business needs to meet some random requirement in order to be valid. What exactly is a single mechanic who works for themselves supposed to say? Do they not own a business?