In my last blog post, I explored the ways in which members of the Irish Canadian community can be helped to set up businesses. But then, readers of my blog post pointed out to me that I was jumping the gun: that I was prescribing solutions before first diagnosing the problem. They told me that the right approach is to first diagnose the problem, and then go on to prescribe solutions. In other words, that the right thing for me to do is first explore the things that make it hard for members of the Irish Canadian community to set up businesses. Then, having done so (having engaged in that diagnostic exercise), I can go ahead to explore the ways in which the members of the Irish Canadian community can be helped in learning how to register and set up businesses (which is the prescriptive side of the equation). Accordingly, I have decided to make this blog post diagnostic: by briefly exploring the three major things that make it hard for members of the Irish Canadian community to set up businesses.
The first thing that makes it hard for members of the Irish Canadian community to set up businesses is lack of business skills. Due to lack of these skills, you have many members of the Irish Canadian community not knowing even where to start, in the process of setting up new businesses.
The second thing that makes it hard for members of the Irish Canadian community to set up businesses is lack of capital (which is something I alluded to in my last blog post). In theory, getting a loan from a bank to start a business is easy, but in practice, it can turn out to be very hard. Getting investors to put their money into an untested business idea (by buying equity in the business) is even harder.
The third thing that makes it hard for members of the Irish Canadian community to set up businesses is lack of courage. You realize that setting up a business requires a certain degree of courage. Setting up a business is risky at so many levels, hence the need for courage. And that courage is often lacking in many individuals within the Irish Canadian community.