In these times of our economies in a possible depression, small business focus is more important than ever, the japanese merchant Mitsui Takafuse had this to say about family business focus in the 17th century:

Never waste your attention on matters that have nothing to do with your work …. Remember that it is the family business that must not be neglected for a moment.

Being focused on your small business also means getting all tasks not crucial for your small business eliminated or outsourced.

Concentrate on your goals and on nothing else.

Measuring the economic confidence of small business owners the Discovery Small Business Watch Report for July 2007 is out, and it makes for interesting reading:

Economic confidence among small business owners fell in August as small business owners expressed less confidence in the economic conditions for their business and experienced more cash flow issues. At 102.4, the Watch is down nearly five points from July’s 107.3 and is nearly level with the Watch’s lowest index since its inception, June’s 102.5.

I’m concerned about the cash-flow crunch on small business. Maybe more small business owners should change to bootstrapping techniques as their prime small business strategy. Small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal businesses need to implement these techniques to become recession proof.

How recession proof is your business?

A few days ago I was once again reminded by Joshua Levy and his piece “One Blogger Asks: Is the Grass Really Greener on the Web Worker’s Lawn?” on his blog Web Worker Daily that I wanted to write a piece about what I believe to be the social impact of home working.

Joshua is asking some interesting questions about working from home:

So is all of this freedom actually liberating us? Does web work actually represent an evolution in the working conditions of the masses? Or are we fooling ourselves, blind to the reality that we can’t have it two ways — you can’t have the freedom AND have someone else, er, pay the bills.

If I ask myself these and other questions I’m invariably drawn to find answers in my personal work life and how it has changed in the last decade.

In 1999 I was still office based, traveled from one of our offices around the world to the next and was rarely home. In fact most of the time those years I came home Friday very late or Saturday and then often left Sunday night again. So I saw little of my family and especially my son who is now grown-up and ready to go to university.

Then in 1999 I sold my ISP-business and went back to run WinWeb. This time around I worked from home, right from the start I did not want to be in an office and lead the same life as before. So for the past eight years I have been there when my son came home from school, I even picked him up often enough. I was here when he came home with the latest music CD, I had to listen to - not always easy, I admit - or the latest sport-shoes form addidas had finally arrived at the shops.

Similarly I spend much more time with my wife, going for lunch, doing some “essential” gardening - I hated gardening, but love it now. I could give you many more examples, but you get the picture.

While there are many challenges for home workers, I believe we are seeing the beginning of an “reversal” trend. I would like to list here some challenges I believe our society is facing currently:

• Child care - in our work dominated society we often outsource most of our child-care, in kindergarten, boarding schools, and other institutions, here our children will not receive the same level of care and love they deserve and need;
• Care for the Elderly - our lifestyles often separate us from our loved ones and in times of need we are often not able to care for our relatives or friends, because we live in different cities or even countries for example;
• Environment - many of us spend hours every day alone in cars or on trains - not alone, but still isolated - and contribute to the carbon emissions that change our climate.

There are many more examples. This whole process began with the “Industrial Revolution” some 150 years ago. Some of us may even remember a time when three or even four generations of a family lived in one house. People worked in their villages, child-care or care for family “just” happened - was that a bad or good thing? Looking at single parent families and the impact on our children, I would argue it was a good thing, and so would the many parents working from home exactly for that reason - to provide a healthy family environment for their loved ones.

I believe that the whole trend of home working may in the future allow us to have a much more natural work/life balance and will reverse some of the damaging effects of the post industrial revolution changes in our society. People will live closer to family, local communities will be revived - I believe that is happening as we speak, and our children will benefit from “more family”, and all this will have a profound impact on all our lives and the environment.

I would encourage Joshua and everyone else working from home to relearn the social skills of building local friendships, or live near family and give you the social life you need.

After all, this technology we at WinWeb and others supply makes it possible to work from anywhere, gives you a tremendous amount of freedom to live the life you want, where you want.

Let’s hope in hundred years from now people will see this era not only as the “Information Age”, but also the age when we learned to live a better work/life balance, in tune with our emotional and social needs as individuals, families and society as a whole. What do you think?

Have a great weekend with your family and friends.

A few good posts of today may be interesting to you, so here is what I want to share with you today:

• Dry Cleaners Targeted in Lawsuit Closing Business on The Entrepreneurial Mind - Jeff tells a outrageous story about a judge who lost more than his pants and I’m sad to say should lose his robe too.
• Entrepreneur and Productivity Roundup on Bootstrapper - good small business ideas and solutions for your bootstrapping strategy.
• One Blogger Asks: Is the Grass Really Greener on the Web Worker’s Lawn? on Web Worker Daily - Must read, great piece with some interesting questions? I’ll write something about that later.

That’s all for today on the news round-up.

- Stefan

US president and actor Ronald Reagan was quoted in the Fortune Magazine in September 1986:

Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority and don’t interfere.

I’m not sure how true this would be in a small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer-, Professional-, Personal business environment. So, what may be a good idea for the big organisations may not necessarily a good idea for small business.

- Stefan

Some of the news stories and blog postings I enjoyed today:

• Delegate, Delegate, Delegate! on YoungEntrepreneur.com Blog - Evan Carmichael talks about the need to be able to delegate task and stay in control.
• Run Silent, Run Deep, Run Out of Money on Planning, Startups, Stories - Tim Berry has “cash-flow” story - a bit one sided - but it makes a valid point.
• Online Tools Give Office-Style Services on Business Opportunities Weblog - This is a must read example of home based business success using online tools.
• Recycle Old Computer Equipment Through Dell on Small Business Trends - And they even clean all your data of your hard-disk, great eco-friendly service from Dell Computers. It is not limited to Dell computers.

Happy working and reading.

- Stefan

In a small business world, where many ask for VC money before they even have a product or service, todays quote seems very relevant to me and is attributed to Sarah Tarleton Colvin, US nurse, campaigner for women’s suffrage, and educationalist:

A business set up just to make money is rarely efficient, because it is not intended to create wealth; it is only expected to make a fortune for certain people who occupy executive positions.

To a small business bootstrapper this will all make much more sense and may give you the heartening sought that while your business may not be making a lot of money, you may very well be creating wealth - which in the long run is the more important commodity.

- Stefan

I will share some of the posts I read with you in this Small Business News Round-Up series of posts:

• Bad Policy for an Entrepreneurial Econonmy at The Lockesmith Blog - Jeff Cornwall laments the no-change tax policies and it’s negative impact on small business.
• Red tape to worsen, firms predict at AccountingWeb - Needles to mention that the paper-pushing is getting worse and worse, if you need some numbers for this - here they are.
• 20-Something Business Trends at Small Business Trends - Graham Lutz tells us what is what for the Generation-Y entrepreneur, it’s a good read.
• Things I Wish I Knew….. at Dumb Little Man - this is a great list of small business experiences.

That is all I have time for today, it’s my first day back after my break, do I need to say more.

My quotation of today is not credited to anyone, but is a good quotation on for how people and small businesses deal with with the change in our private and business lives:

When the wind of change blows, some build walls, others build windmills.

I hope you are building windmills, as it is the best time ever for starting a small business.

Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoons had this to say about Focus Groups:

Focus Groups are people who are selected on the basis of their inexplicable free time and their common love for free sandwiches.

Listening to some of the stuff these groups come out with, he has a point!