Apologies
Nov 03
May I start off this business angel blog by apologizing to regular readers of this blog for the absence of new postings over the last few days. Being an Englishman in North America – I confess to going down with flu (lets be honest, men don’t get colds – we always get the flu!).
It got me thinking about the issue of absence from work and in particular entrepreneurs being off ill. Firstly, I should state that I did manage to go to all my business engagements and nothing was cancelled. I was suffering and when I got home, I did not have the energy to write a blog.
I invested in a business a couple of years ago and after about ten months the entrepreneur decided to take two weeks off on paternity leave. I have to say that along with the other investors; I was a bit upset about this. Being an entrepreneur carries with it special responsibilities that in the first few years you should not seek to ‘escape from’.
I have written previously about the need to take a break – and I hope that I am not contradicting myself by now appearing to be attacking leave which you are entitled to. And if the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, can take paternity leave, why can’t entrepreneurs?
For me, the answer is about scale. As a small start up with a management team of just two, the entrepreneur taking paternity leave for two weeks, in the anecdote above, did have a significant and negative effect on the business. If you want to take leave (and there is nothing wrong with that desire) you have to put in place a structure that can cope without you.
This is not always possible in the first few years if you are the main driving force and putting in very long hours. Having said this, I would be nervous about investing in a business that was so dependent on just one person.
The lesson for entrepreneurs is – if you want to be flexible with your time and want to be able to take paternity leave (and this is not a judgment call for me to make), then you should either only seek investment from family and friends or you should raise enough money (and therefore have a strong enough business) to hire a good management team to look after things when you are not there. Investors should also learn from my mistake and only invest in businesses which are not utterly dependent on just one person.
Happy breaks!
Hi and welcome to my blog. 