The Myth About Lack of Startup Capital – 3

Now let’s come to the employee. It sounds funny that while the job seeker is complaining of a lack of start-up capital, the employee joins the chorus. Where will the capital come from when you consume your capital every month? Many employees do not know that their salary is their capital. When you use money meant for A and spend it on B, it is called misappropriation of funds and it is s crime in the civil service. You cannot rob Peter to pay Paul and think Peter will be happy with you.

Some employees have no capital, but they own Blackberry and iPhones, iPads and so many other things their lives do not depend on, something they can delay gratification on and use that money to bring returns they can spend later.

All employees have capital, the only snag is, it is not in liquid cash. They come in the form of phones, cars, expensive rented apartments, large-screen 3D TVs, gizmos, clothes, etc. Their capital is locked up there. Some employees who are tenants move around in what I call houses – cars expensive enough to build at least a bungalow. It is hard to tell a tenant from a landlord. I have since found out how – the more flashy the car, the more likely the person is a tenant. In the estate where I live, most of the Range Rovers and Land Rovers are owned by tenants. Someone said – if you own a Range Rover and have a landlord, then something is wrong.

The start-up capital you are looking for comes from the inside, not the outside. You have to see it with your mind and ask the right questions. If you do not know that what you get each payday is your capital, you will misappropriate it and ask for more. Students can raise capital. Youth Corpers can raise capital. Employees can raise capital. The reason they have not done it is that they have chosen not to. The moment you choose to, the how will come to you. The major challenge is that we allow the how to stop us. We refuse to move until the show comes to us. More often than not, the show will not come until we move. You can be sitting on top of the solution wondering how. The how comes later.

You have to make the decision to move first. Ask anyone who has achieved success if they knew the how when they first started out. You can think it will work this way, and along the road, it turns out another way, that is why it is crucial to be focused and keep going, making course corrections along the way. Every flight goes off course along the way due to turbulence and headwinds. The pilot has to maneuver the aircraft back along the original flight path each time this happens. This goes on quietly in the cockpit, the passengers are not informed. You do not get to hear “Ladies and gentlemen, we are going off course due to strong headwinds/high turbulence”. It is a routine occurrence.

You cannot steer a ship until it leaves the harbor. You need to take stock of what you have and start with that. When you start small, you make small mistakes that are much easier to correct. If you want to start with a bang, when things go wrong (it usually does), you go down with a bang. It is to your advantage to start small. When you start from your garage, living room, bedroom, or whatever is available, nobody knows you. You are not yet in the public eye. You can experiment all you want until you get it right. If you start big with other people’s money, you are being watched and when you stumble, it will be in public, and your investors will be breathing down your neck.

Stop looking for capital and use what you have to get what you need. There is nothing shameful about starting small. You are walking a well-worn path.