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Old 10-02-2012, 02:12 PM
fixated
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You make a couple of points that on the surface sounds sensible, but if you dig deeper reveal a lot of flawed thinking many people have on SMEs.

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Originally Posted by Workerbee View Post
Select a good boss who has grown from startup to at least >1M in profit annually. Then you will learn something from him or her. ... if you intend to be an entrepreneur, then this is the best learning ground as much of what u do and learn will be transferable in your own venture. MNCs i would argue, tend to spoil us.
Telling people to select "good" boss is like advising the way to strike rich is to select "good" stocks and buy "winning" numbers. There is no way you can tell if the boss is good just by interview and reference checks. Each boss has unique work style that is only suitable for some, a good boss of one may be a terrible one for the other.

Besides most people do not have the luxury of moving around SMEs at rapid pace to select out the good boss. You will end up damaging your CV badly if you try this stunt too many times. Profitability of the firm seldom has little relation to how much you can learn from the boss as well.

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But as a SME owner, i can tell you that being a successful entrepreneur is as good if not better than being a MNC manager/snr mgr in terms of freedom and money. In fact, i would argue the feeling of being able pay for your own business class tickets and have people respect you for what you created from scratch is totally comparable to the respect you get from being part of a branded MNC. Job security is so much better too!
What exactly does freedom mean? There are Senior Managers in MNCs who work like cows and also loboh ones that know how to achieve work life balance. Similarly there are businesses and industries where the boss can focus on management of strategic issues while other businesses might require 24/7 hands on management on the ground or be available anytime for the client.

I would suggest that you not make generalised statements on MNCs and SMEs based on your very limited experience in the particular business environment you are familiar with. As for satisfaction of paying your own business class ticket, that is probably something personal to you. I doubt the typical SME boss flies around in business class.

Everyone be it business owner or employee is suceptible to business ups and downs. Employees have an added risk of internal politics while business owner has an added risk of capital impairment. The idea that owning a SME provides better security than being MNC employee is downright laughable in itself.

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Moreover, if you can transfer to professional management like many of the more famous SME families or if you sell to a MNC, then you are a capital owner who does not even need work. In MNC environment, only regional CEO or global CXOs reach that level as you need to accumulate about $15-20M min over 10 years of work.
And somehow you will be able to build up a business from scratch to a valuation of $15-20mln with less work than a c-level executive? I strongly doubt so, evidence suggests the proportion of SMEs that are eventually able to reach such valuations are few and far between. Even if they do, their owners sure did not have cruise their woay through compared to senior managers in MNCs in which you seem to be implying throughout your post.
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