The business was never the whole story!

Last Tuesday, I went looking for a hardware shop.

Instead, I found a marriage.

On Wednesday, I visited a restaurant.

I accidentally walked into a police station.

On Thursday, I stopped at a hotel.

By the time I left, I had attended a family funeral.

No, nobody had died.

At least not in the way you are thinking.

Allow an old man to explain.

You see, people think entrepreneurs own businesses.

After watching them for more years than I care to admit, I have come to a different conclusion.

Entrepreneurs don’t simply build businesses.

Businesses quietly build entrepreneurs.

That is why I no longer become too excited when someone tells me they own six restaurants, four petrol stations, or three hardware shops.

Those are merely buildings.

I want to know something much more interesting.

What have those businesses done to you?

Because somewhere between the first customer and the thousandth invoice…

Something begins to happen.

The business changes the owner.

It changes how they think.

How they eat.

How they sleep.

How they spend money.

How they love.

Sometimes…

Even how they laugh.

One young lady in Kampala once complained to me.

“Mzee, business owners are the stingiest men in Uganda.”

I asked why.

She said,

“They’ll negotiate for thirty minutes over the price of coffee…”

“…then walk into their shop and spend five million shillings on a new freezer without blinking.”

I nearly choked on my tea.

Not because she was wrong.

Because she had accidentally discovered one of entrepreneurship’s great mysteries.

An entrepreneur rarely sees money.

He sees inventory.

Working capital.

Payroll.

Another delivery van.

Three bags of cement.

A month’s rent.

Money quietly stops being money.

It becomes tomorrow.

That is why some of the richest entrepreneurs I know still drive cars whose radios gave up on life during President Clinton’s first term.

Their neighbours assume they are struggling.

Their bank manager knows better.

As the Americans like saying…

“The millionaire next door.”

Around here…

He probably owns the hardware shop.

Then there is the family business.

Ah…

The family business.

The only place where your Managing Director can also be your mother.

The Human Resources Manager is your wife.

The Procurement Officer is your brother-in-law.

The Chairman of the Board is your father.

And your greatest competitor…

May be your younger sister.

From outside, the hotel looks magnificent.

Inside…

The annual general meeting begins with prayer…

…and ends with people refusing to greet each other.

Even Shakespeare might have asked for scriptwriting lessons.

And don’t let anybody fool you.

Entrepreneurs don’t retire.

They merely relocate their worrying.

One gentleman sold his company after thirty-five years.

A week later his wife found him rearranging tins of baked beans in the supermarket.

“What are you doing?”

“They’ve displayed them badly.”

Old habits are stubborn tenants.

The saddest stories, however, are not found in balance sheets.

They are found in hospital waiting rooms.

I have met entrepreneurs who remember every customer from 1987…

…but cannot remember the last time they ate lunch before four o’clock.

They built profitable businesses.

Their pancreases remained unimpressed.

The doctor prescribed exercise.

The entrepreneur asked,

“Can I delegate it?

But perhaps the greatest misunderstanding of all is this.

We think entrepreneurs build businesses.

Sometimes they do.

But that is only the visible part.

The invisible part is far more interesting.

The hardware merchant quietly becomes a negotiator.

The restaurateur becomes a psychologist.

The mechanic becomes a diagnostician.

The farmer becomes a risk analyst.

The market trader becomes an economist.

The hotel owner becomes a leader.

Then one day…

The business disappears.

Competition.

Technology.

AI.

Changing markets.

Bad luck.

Age.

The building closes.

Everyone says,

“He has lost everything.”

Really?

Has he lost the ability to negotiate?

To persuade?

To lead?

To solve problems?

To build trust?

To start again?

No.

The building was rented.

The capability was earned.

There is a difference.

That, my children, is why I have stopped asking entrepreneurs,

“How many businesses do you own?”

Instead I ask,

“What kind of human being has your business quietly been building?”

The answers are always more interesting.

And perhaps…

Just perhaps…

The greatest product any business ever makes…

Is not what it sells to customers.

It is the person it quietly creates.

Uncle Rwamiti’s Notebook

Businesses have two balance sheets.

One records profit and loss.

The other records the human beings they quietly create.

Only one tells the whole story.