Kerre McIvor: Cheers to the spirit of 'can do'

Small businesses are coming back after weeks of lockdown - and good on them. Photo / Dean Purcell

COMMENT

It's fair to say I started off the week a little grumpy. My hissy fit was brought about seeing friends of mine desperately trying to keep their businesses alive under what appears to me to be ridiculous and controlling restrictions; restrictions for which there appear to be no need or justification.

I was a good soldier under levels 4 and 3; I obeyed all the rules but now – there's an oppositionally defiant child in me, screaming to be let out.

However, by the end of the week, there was a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. In among the headlines of yet more companies laying off yet more staff, I saw an article from economist Benje Patterson. He had looked up the companies register and found that during April, during the most restrictive period of our lockdown, 3136 new businesses were registered with the companies' office.

Down 1000 on the same time last year, but nonetheless, I found it remarkable that thousands of crazy cats were willing to take a punt at a time when much of the country was hunkering down.

And then I remembered a caller to my show a few weeks back. He is a pilot with Qantas who has had his wings clipped. During the first couple of weeks of lockdown, he was strolling in his neighbourhood and saw a cafe that had obviously gone out of business. He took note of the number on the door, made a phone call, and within a month, under level 3, he had re-employed the barista and a couple of other staff, had persuaded his father-in-law to give him the recipe for his legendary cheese scones and boom.

In the Bubble Cafe was in business, serving coffee and scones out of a hole in the wall. A number of listeners went along after hearing him on the radio and have reported back that the coffee is excellent and the cheese scones are magnificent, so may the Bubble Cafe prosper and never pop.

There's an example of someone who could have justifiably been rocked in having his world come crashing down. Instead, he decided to have a punt at doing something he'd never done before.

Benje Patterson says most of the businesses that have started up during lockdown were offering professional services, given that these services are "weightless" and don't require large amounts of capital but he said there were a surprising number of retail and construction businesses.

The start-ups were spread right throughout the country and Benje says that could be because the extensive testing of working from home has given people the confidence to work anywhere in the country.

But why on earth, at a time when people are seeing the world tilted on its axis and when it's a time of great uncertainty, would anyone think it was a good idea to try something new? The very fact that I would ask that question means I do not, and will never have, the spirit of an entrepreneur.

Benje says the process of change is a friend of entrepreneurship. When others see chaos in disrupted supply chains, and changes in consumer demand, and changing business practices, entrepreneurs see opportunity.

Benje points out that more than half of the Fortune 500 companies started up during a recession or in bear markets. Air BnB sprang up during the GFC.

Of course, not every one of the 3136 new companies that took a breath in April will be thriving this time next year. Some of them will be gone. But that's a fact of life for anyone starting a new business.

I'm just in awe that these brave people weren't knocked down by redundancy or seeing their existing businesses destroyed. They weren't put off by difficulties in raising capital or finding buyers with everyone locked up at home or ridiculous restrictions.

Entrepreneurs see the world differently and will have a go where others step back. More power to them. They're the ones I'll raise my glass to tonight.