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Comment by AndrewKemendo | Hacker News Reader

> If you couldn't raise money, then only people who are already extremely rich would be able to start a business of any size, let alone one that requires deploying physical hardware in multiple regions

You’re describing the current state of the world

We’re there already. The entire system is built to exploit everybody who does not have significant capital to fight back against it

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I am so curious why you repeatedly spit in the collective face of the millions of small business owners in the US and around the world.

If what you say were true, the world would exist as a series of 3-5 megacorps, and small businesses would not exist. Since they do exist, how do you square that with your claim that only the "extremely rich would be able to start a business of any size" is currently true?

I agree, most businesses are very small. Large businesses and especially very large businesses are the exception.

4.7M of the 8M US businesses have <5 employees.

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/small-business-week....

Starting a business requires little more than filing incorporation documents with your state.

Growing a business to dominate a market and get crazy rich may require outside funding, but growing a business to support and maintain your individual lifestyle does not.

I would also add to your point that starting a business is easier than it has ever been. While far from perfect, the internet has been an amazing equalizer.

On the one hand, it makes it easy for you to reach customers.

On the other hand, it makes it easy for your competitors to reach customers.

I'd argue that, on the whole, the internet has made starting "just an idea and a garage" businesses harder, because they now face immediate, maximally-funded competition. Whereas pre-Internet they would have been geographically/physically protected for awhile.

True, net win for customers, efficiency, etc. (maybe). But you couldn't start a Starbucks these days.

> spit in the collective face of the millions of small business owners in the US and around the world.

Their income is similar to that of most working professionals and their assets are similar to the savings of most working professionals. They entrepreneured themselves into having a job, they're not the investor/capitalist multimillionaires we picture when we think of rich people.

>the world would exist as a series of 3-5 megacorps, and small businesses would not exist

The economy exists as the 500 megacorps that make up the s&p 500. Small businesses just fill in the gaps and are for the most part beholden to the megacorps for their business, their supplies and/or their financing.

It's just not though. Surely you know (or know of) people who've built successful businesses with the help of funding, and couldn't have done so without it.

Just because someone takes funding, doesn't make them any less or a part of some "built" system. Even my favourite bakery could never have got started without funding - with debt not equity. It doesn't make him any less brilliant. He would've had to be extremely rich so start the business otherwise

Not all funding is creating equal or share the same expectations. Borrowing money from a bank to open a bakery or taking an investment from friends and family to cover the initial startup costs is very different from raising venture capital money. The growth and return on investment expectations are wildly different.

Which is sort of natural, isn't it? The natural world is set up to exploit everything that does not have a defense against it. You adapt or you get eaten or out-competed. The fact that "the non-rich" have not yet realized that they can, in fact, band together to force more powerful forces to behave better, doesn't mean they can't still do it.

Our biggest advantage is working together as a community, and our biggest flaw is not helping each other when we easily could.

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