The Myth of the small business man and why he mustn’t remain small forever

We all grew up with kind of the same urban mythology, that is, the one where the small entrepreneur starts up with almost nothing but a good idea and a lot of willpower, finally to become a successful and accomplished businessman, a productive part of society boosting the economy and becoming the source of many more jobs for the community.

Actually, it is widely believed that small and medium businesses are the main source of jobs, when in fact this is not quite correct. The truth is that small and medium businesses are the main source of transitory jobs in the economy, where employees usually work for a limited amount of time to move on to work in bigger companies.

So, in spite of the low income, less innovation and less exports, up and coming small business owners are still held as the foundation of our society. The question is: why? Well, it’s very simple, they are held in deep appreciation only when they become big companies.

That’s it, they remain part of our modern mythology as long as they don’t remain small business owners, for a tale without a grand finale is very unappealing. An entrepreneur that can go from a small start up to an actual big size company is responsible for the creation of jobs that are well paid, challenging, innovative, and highly productive. You know, the type of Job that you’d like to keep.

Small businessman

So, you see now, the small businessman is important, yes, but he becomes an actual inspiration for myths when he is able to observe the failings and imbalances in the products and services we use everyday, and manages to fix those, supplying a solution for the problems he initially saw.

This ability is what people actually admire, this is what causes fascination for stories about up and coming business man that later became head of big important companies like FedEx or Coca Cola. We can take the example of FedEx, and learn a thing or two:

Fred Smith started the company in 1971, he was going to provide the service of getting your stuff on time, no matter what, no more setbacks. Why was this revolutionary?

Well, in the late 60’s delivering packages from one city to the next needed the cooperation and coordination of at least 3 different delivering companies, which as you may imagine, resulted in numerous setbacks and people placing blame on each other.

Clients weren’t getting their products on time, and people were generally dissatisfied with the service. So, Fred saw this as an opportunity, he saw the imbalance and focused on fixing it, 45 years later FedEx is a verb in the dictionary and a source of many sustainable jobs, becoming a real boost and positive contributor to our society.

When the small, but visionary, can seize an opportunity like this is when we can see the myth entering reality and again coming to inspire other people to do the same, thus feeding our imaginations, but remember, only as long as it transcends the limitations of the status quo by transforming it into something useful and productive for others through his vision.