It might be a dream come true, but lately at night, Singapore seems to take on the cool air of a Brisbane autumn. And it is exactly in this lovely weather that me and some pals were seated around the coffeeshop table talking about life again.

One of the Coffee Table Dudes have just lost his job, the layoff being on the wall for awhile, and the execution hastened when the company found an excuse vis-a-vis the economic situation now.

He looked forlorn, with the chief question of how to bring food to the table in the next few months hovering above heads like a dark, stormy cloud. The job climate is not looking good, and speaking to certain financial world friends of mine, it is just the beginning of troubles for Singapore. Next year’s going to be when all the ramifications set in.

After all that has happened in the short space of two months, I wonder if the people’s faith and trust in corporations have been shattered. Bum 2, as we call him now (the original Bum happens to be yours truly), is wondering if he should embark on the chore of a job hunt, or pack his bags and go for studies/travel. He is also wondering if he should start his own small business, and forever throw off those manacles that come with a 9-to-5 job.

It could be wistful thinking, but deep in my mind, I was wondering if this spells the end for huge, wasteful corporations? I considered the pre-Industrial Revolution economies of the world, where the world is predominantly made up of small businesses. The hardworking blacksmith, that keen tailor, one lone journalist writing the town’s paper. How wonderful it would be, if everyone was master and owner of their own trade and business.

The Industrial Revolution changed everything – power was delivered to groups of people working in concert to drive production and growth. Only corporations were able to purchase the machinery that allowed them to capitalize on economies-of-scale. Upon analysis, the reasons why corporations arose during the Industrial Revolution was :

• Expensive machinery was able to be purchased only by groups or organizations
• Knowledge transfer technologies and methods were sufficient to make an organization greater than the sum of its parts
• The world became increasing consumers of material goods, and is not content to just live in a small town. In short, ambitions grew, the world’s the oyster now.

However, looking at right now, time could be ripe for the comeback of small businesses. Increasingly, singular individuals are more and more empowered. Knowledge, even specialized knowledge, is widely available on that gold mine we call the Internet. No doubt material goods still makes up a large part of our consumerism habits, but more and more, information and intangible goods and services are being sought after. In short :

• Knowledge, which used to be expensive, is now available, via modern channels, for cheap or free.
• Purchase patterns are slowly but surely shifting away from material goods, which required expensive equipment, to information and intangible services, which require a good head on the shoulders and a smile.
• Corporations are possibly facing consumer backlash, people might prefer now to shop at the small grocer, compared to heading down to Carrefour. They think these big guys have been greedy for too long, and now the little folks need the break they deserve.

What transpired on that coffee table:

• B1 : It’s not gonna be easy, mate. You’ll survive, it’s hard to die, but to grow big is another issue. A whole different challenge lies ahead if you want to take that business idea of yours from conception, to execution, to growing beyond that critical point where it starts becoming a small firm.
• B2 : Is it that hard?
• B1 : You have no idea, I languished in the early days of the business, working out the core model, making failed sales presentations, coming back and spending nights poring over what I have done wrong. Then you constantly got to stay ahead of the game, keep on learning, keep on innovating. It gets lonely too, without colleagues, and more importantly, it gets frightening, when you have yet to clinch a sale and it’s towards the end of the month. Your bills are still gonna come, whether a client’s payment is in or not.
• B2 : But you seem to be fine towards the latter half of the 2nd year, in fact I remembered you could afford a quite a fair bit of new toys.
• B1 : Yes, but it was a roller-coaster ride through and through. I had a few mentors, who told me to persist and hang in there – it’s all about perserverance. However there were nights where you lay on your bed wondering if it was the right move, whether you should send out your resume tomorrow.
  However, after being in business, and being an employee for close to two years now, I am resolute that running your own business gives you the most satisfaction in your life, especially if you are doing the things you love to do.
• A job will give you security, colleagues, lunchtime, and a measure of progress – until it decides that you have outlived your usefulness. A job also means that you have to sacrifice control over 10 hours of your life every working day, contending with bad management and practises, and putting in more work than your paycheck actually is. What irks me the most about working for someone – your efforts, however valiant, are stymied by the fact that you have absolutely no control over its rewards/execution.
• If you run a small business, you know that every minute of effort you put in, you’ll get one minute worth of returns – whether it is client satisfaction or monetary payments. However, the same goes for every minute of rest you take – you don’t get anything for that. In a corporation, you could be working two weeks on a proposal that is eventually is going to be thrown out of the window. If you run your own business, you know that proposal is going to matter somehow, at the very least.
• So what I’m saying is this – you have full control. You reap the fruits of your labor, and it’s yours. And as you bring the business up, you also bring in like-minded individuals. You are able to set the culture of the business to what you perceive to be best – whether arguments are going to be resolved over a beer in the pub, or be stored deep down in guts only to be lashed out at meetings.
• B2 : Hmm… that’s quite a bit to take in.
• B1 : All I’m saying, old chap, that if you are brave and foolish enough, setting up your business is going to be the singularly most rewarding thing you have ever done in your life.

And Bum 1 goes on to advise Bum 2, taking in consideration personality, situational factors, dependents. Not dictating anything, just offering perspectives.

And while Bum 1 is now an employee, rest assured it’s not going to be for long – he’s just taking a walk, peeking into other people’s gardens, seeing what should be done, and what not to do.

Bum 1, as sure as the weather changes from the tepid tropicals to the cool hemispheres, is bidding his time, learning and growing. He will be master of himself again, and time – oh time, that most precious commodity a man can ever have – will be his to wield once again.