Image: My family’s old bedding shop (Estimated taken in 1993).
First off, no, that is probably not a smart phone in his hands… I don’t think there are any smart phones in 1993. Is that a mobile phone? or a calculator? I am not so sure, but I can guarantee that’s a 100% real image taken in my family’s old bedding shop back in 1990s. The store’s been gone for more than 30 years though, but the family business goes on… now mostly just barely hanging on by me and my little business Re Pillow Co…
I think a lot of people would think that having a family business of some sort is such a great blessing from your family, I used to believe so too! It sounds cool. But after stepping in and working in the industry for a few years, I would stand by my view but with one key caveat — it cannot be a money-losing business. If you step into an aging, money-losing, or even considerably in-debt company with not enough smart brains, but with lots of old problems to solve, it will be surely an uphill battle for you. It will definitely make you question seriously why step into this business, you might be better off just start your own business or join another soulless, big corp. But no one has the crystal ball and we all take things as we find them. From the bright side, it gives you a real challenging mission to work on, and real pressure to turn things around as soon as possible, as every moment that passes, comes with costs. I think there are no better trainings than this. It is a tougher challenge than starting a new business in some sense.