Starting up a business can be done a number of different ways. Some people are fortunate or dedicated enough to have saved a decent amount of capital to get them going. Others aren’t so lucky so they’re under pressure to get things going as lean and mean as possible.
For myself I feel like I sit in the middle; I’m not comfortable enough to not stress about finances, but I have a small enough amount to give me a sense of hunger to do right. But thinking about dollar values and chances of success any cash I can get my hands on I think will do my venture good.
And so I applied for unemployment welfare to take some pressure off.
Now this is the perplexing bit: being a job-seeker benefit it is required applicants search for work they are capable of. I was also told the benefit is not for those who want to start their own business. On the other hand, there is also a government initiative to provide the same financial assistance specifically for those who want to start their own small business. However, in order to be suitable for the small business grant you need to be on an unemployment benefit looking for full time work.
In effect this causes a small ‘trap’ for those looking to start their own venture to get caught back into the general employment system, which is giving me mixed messages of the government’s stance on new ventures.
So what’s it going to be? Encourage entrepreneurship or herd people into the workforce?
Well I don’t really blame the government if their policy takes the risk-averse path of encouraging employment, new ventures are a hard sell after all. But innovation does have the potential to drive new economies. So looking at both sides of the scale it’s easy to understand why there is vagueness when dealing with government policies and procedures.
So what can be done about this? Power on. Head towards what you desire. If you come across small barriers like this then battle through them as practice – there’s plenty of them to come.
