The Beermat Entrepreneur, 3rd Edition

Chapter 2

The seedling enterprise

There are very different stages that a business passes through on its way to maturity. These stages are radically different from one another – in culture, people, management style, finance, selling. In everything really.

So different and distinct are these stages, that I nearly chose the metaphor of a butterfly, whose larval, pupal and free-flying phases are totally unrecognisable as being related to the same creature. But there is a little more continuity than this – and anyway, will the massive company you eventually build really resemble one of those beautiful but evanescent creatures that flaps across your garden on a summer’s day (till the cat attacks it)?

I prefer the metaphor of an oak: beautiful, ...