By James Hall
The corporate culture would have you believe that it is the foremost structure of the economy. That the entrepreneur is a nuisance and is tilting at windmills. Since competition is a dirty word, the innovative venture poses no threat, but might qualify as an acquisition. Only if the business model is such that duplicating the endeavor is too time consuming or difficult will the corporatist take interest. Yet, in the end, the design of the corporate organization is more about brute force than creative invention. So why is it so difficult for the entrepreneur to get their project off the ground? And what is the compelling motivation to start your own business?
An independent businessperson is a much different breed from the corporate ladder climber. Consider the 7 Reasons to Ditch the Corporate World for a Career at a Startup.
- Getting recognition
- Having more responsibility
- Bonding with coworkers
- Learning from true innovators
- Embracing new opportunities
- Putting your strengths to work
- Working toward the money
If you have never been part of a small business and your only experience is with a corporatist organization, some of the above aspects may seem foreign if not outright dangerous. In order to help define the difference between the two mindsets, Jun Loayza founder of Future Delivery provides the following assessment in Corporate World vs Entrepreneurial Life.
The corporate world is calling with nice cars, fancy lunches, and guaranteed paychecks — if you’re willing to put your dream company on hold and sit in a low-walled prison five days a week. If you’re torn between stable income and the wish fulfillment of a bold new venture, listen up to someone who’s had the pleasure and pain of living in both worlds.
Work/Life balance vs Lifestyle
Steady Income vs No Money
Good Enough vs Better than All the Rest
These headings compare the vast differences in thinking, temperament, objectives and goals. Start-up attempts usually begin with an idea for a product or service that is not currently available. Formulating a business plan and identifying a method to monetize a return is often overlooked, when the visionary is engaged with the excitement that a successful rollout could generate.
A small business owner of a more established sector operation is more concerned with surviving competition, maintaining margins, expanding market share and gaining access to capital for growth and expenses. This difference from the dreamer turned practical, separates the emphasis both apply.
So the similarities between the merchant and the innovative entrepreneur have far more in common than the style used by Corporate America Is Killing Your Start-up Dreams. The Inc. publication presents aspects of the corporate culture and how it works.
Note the vast difference in the business model employed by corporations from the entrepreneur. While they preach company loyalty, corporatists actually exercise a pattern of expediency.
Corporate America Creates a False Sense of Security
The corporate climb is slow and at each rung you’re reminded that there is so much still to do before reaching the next level
Knowledge is power
Mitigating risk is key
You only live once
Corporatism 101 presents background on the difference between corporatism and corporations. However, the blunt distinction in both prove to be light years different from an economy driven by creative and pioneering projects that advance, grow and create actual new wealth.
Corporate mores seldom exhibit a passion to improve the economic well being of consumers, but frequently tap the consumerism of the customer to keep the engine of materialism as the life blood of business.
Add to this aspect the financial sector of the corporate economy and the lack of any real competition is vividly demonstrated. There is little room for start-up financial ventures, when the source of capital access is mainly reserved to the largest of corporate companies.
It is because of this reason that most plans fail. Money is a necessary ingredient to float a start-up. Finding an angel financier to raise the needed venture capital is usually reserved to seasoned business people.
Nonetheless, for those brave souls who strike out on their own, the risks are substantial. What happens if you flop? Going back to a previous life may not be an option.
Why Corporations Won’t Hire An Entrepreneur defines the issue well.
Corporations have become factories of mental models created over decades of controlling how and what people think through the influence of power and money. The attitudes have created cultures of “we are in control and we pay you to follow the rules we make”.
These mental models were designed to build organizations where compliance and productivity of human labor determined profitability. Subsequently organizations were built around a hierarchy of control similar to the military where the strategy was to beat the enemy. This mental model is dependent on compliance. Compliance through control of resources via influence of power and money has proven to be limiting and costly.
Basically, the dilemma is that forced compliance works better than free association in the trenches of economic dominance. The essential notion of a free market is an illusion. In the real world of goods and services the big box store, energy supplier, tax minimization, food processor and financial services are the realm of protective trade secrets.
While it might be easy to analyze how a large retailer operates, it may not be as transparent on how that business maintains its dominance over their own market share. The entrepreneur is constantly fighting to get into the game. Carving out a small niche that flies under the corporate radar screen is the best chance to refine and expand a start-up.
Forget about transferring the entrepreneurship mindset into the corporate structure. Both planets orbit in different universes. With the systemic decline in a viable economy, the unemployment stats and the underemployment part time jobs that emerge from the corporatist companies allow for little future for our society or individual security.
America was built by daring entrepreneurs long before the corporate system.
Original article archived here
James Hall is a reformed, former political operative. This pundit’s formal instruction in History, Philosophy and Political Science served as training for activism, on the staff of several politicians and in many campaigns. A believer in authentic Public Service, independent business interests were pursued in the private sector. Speculation in markets, and international business investments, allowed for extensive travel and a world view for commerce. Hall is the publisher of BREAKING ALL THE RULES. Contact [email protected]
I’ve been making a living in the corporate world all my time (40+years) and…There is really no sense of camaraderie – just folks that are forced to work together. Corporations take away the entrepreneurial spirit that made the U.S. successful. They perpetuate the ivy leagues silver spoon. they allow the beast to extort it’s fees. They want 40 hours or more per week – what fascist bastard thought that up – the French revolution was over less.
Outlaw corporations and the U.S. would return to it’s roots as the most innovative country in the world.
I used to patronize a small independently owned tool rental business. One day the owner admitted to me ruefully that he had spent most of his life working for a large corporation and that he regretted not getting out sooner. Not long after that I went there and the door was locked during business hours, and I learned from the neighboring business that the tool rental owner was dead of a heart attack. Take that as a warning — don’t let your life clock tick away doing something you hate, only to die wishing you’d done something else.