408 sats \ 17 replies \ @davidw 15 Dec 2023 \ on: Stacker Saloon
At what point does the cost of basing your business in the U.S and Europe become a severe disadvantage? Seems to me we may now be approaching that inflexion point.
This is an interesting thought experiment. I am in Canada and was indirectly thinking along these lines today as I was walking through the downtown area of our town. The area was bustling today as we have many folks from the city already arriving for Christmas. It was nice to see all the local shops, restaurants and cafes filled with patrons.
Ever since I sold my business almost 2 years ago now. I have been keeping an open mind and open eye to what business I might start next, which I plan to at some point when the itch to do so it greater than the itch to not do so. I saw a small vacant commercial space next to a boutique hotel and I started thinking about what I could do with that space but was resigned to thinking about business licenses, permits to redevelop the space, the cost to build out something, financing, all types of insurance, hiring, payroll, taxes, and so on. You get the picture. I started to think more about the barriers to entry than what was possible.
Maybe just a sign that I am not that motivated to start something again or that something with a physical location shouldn't be considered. But also maybe a sign that even for seasoned entrepreneurs starting certain businesses just doesn't make financial sense and aren't worth the hassle anymore.
I know this isn't really what you were getting at but thought it was adjacent to your point.
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It’s absolutely what I was getting at. Love hearing insights like this. The regulatory burden for all businesses is increasingly prohibitive.
Go to Colombia, Paraguay or many other traditionally ‘backwards’ countries and all you need to do is pay the money upfront and if you’re motivated you could open a store next week. This I suspect was how it used to be in the West, very agile and entrepreneurial. That feels alien now. Opening a physical store/restaurant/hotel in Canada, Europe or U.S these days requires probably that you want to do it for the passion, not for a decent living or for the profit motive. Especially given the paperwork involved & setup costs involved.
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If you can even imagine it, there were periods where you didn't even have to pay the money upfront. If you felt like starting a business, you just started a business.
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oh, I can! It still working like this in some places: you just DO it and accept cash - people used to work at home too, just sell the surplus in the first place.
Business is quite a big word TBH, how about just doing what you are good at and enjoy, and it also provides value to others at the same time, so much easier to understand! Now it's about MBA ( title ), PPT, and many fancy numbers to fool others, or even creating problems to sell solutions, madness.
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There are definitely some sole proprietors who provide off the books services, but the idea of having a brick-and-mortar store without state permission is very foreign to us. I'm glad you've experienced that degree of freedom first hand.
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Well said.
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I went to a waving village before and was told all the retail shops weren't even there 20 years ago, and most people used to work at home and then sell their products, then slowly opening small workshops; but then everything is moving to big factories now, and these manufactures are competing for marketing or price instead of quality or craftsmanship, and roughly 7 people are left still doing waving the traditional way out of the whole village! quite depressed to see how fiat money is ruining traditions.
then I got to meet two craftsmen and spent some time with them, we made some nice products together, and I paid them in cash; if more people value quality and appreciate people's passion instead of marketing, and say what they mean, mean what they say, maybe things don't need to be so complicated at all, the whole reason why having all this corporation setup is mainly to protect yourself from dishonest people, but then if we are really being real about the "law", the whole corporation thing and law are actually protection for the "bad guys."... but that's another topic.
I just feel that maybe Bitcoin can reshape our understanding of business, corporating by contracts, not by laws. cc @Lux
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This is a rabbit hole I only started uncovering.
I'm also in the camp: "I want to have a business but not at the condition of becoming a circus monkey."
A handbook about trusts, a way to do commerce without handing over sovereignty:
https://drydenwire.com/site/assets/files/30245/weisss-trustee-handbook.pdf
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yes, otherwise you need to obey their rules once you register the business there, must have other options, especially now that with freedom money - if not using their money, why still voluntarily to play their games?
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Haha. This is awesome. Stealing it.
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maybe the future of running business is with a node and POW, then everything else decentralized - belong to nowhere yet it's everywhere.
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Totally. I mean that is similar to how things are now (with the ‘cloud’) just not in name.
When working for yourself and maybe a few corporate clients, this is definitely optimal.
When serving tens of thousands of individual users & a few employees, B2C, the archaic systems are still somewhat rigged towards a physical location. You often need the legal protection that a business provides.
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When serving tens of thousands of individual users & a few employees, B2C, the archaic systems are still somewhat rigged towards a physical location. You need the legal protection that a business provides.
But then look at Bitcoin:)!
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100%. I realise I could sound like someone with a cuck-mentality above.
I just meant that there are benefits to being a small fish & unregistered or being big and having legal protection in favourable jurisdictions. Especially if you are not exclusively online.
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