Having just posted my previous entry about some of the less obvious advantages of a properly capitalized business, as opposed to a bootstrapped one, I got to thinking about the ways in which similar concepts may apply, in different ways, to the macro-economy, and even more broadly speaking to every-day affairs. And I am thinking that a poorly capitalized environment reveals itself as such in a variety of every-day ways.
I’ve noticed lately, for example, that a whole miscellany of odds and ends for which I have had to rely on outside help, have been attended to in a slipshod and careless manner, resulting in a litany of jobs poorly done. A business card order I’ve placed came back from the printers with the wrong font style; the auto repair shop attending to my car took three extra days to order a part that was needed, without any reason, during which time my car was just sitting there, while I was sitting here, waiting; at roughly the same time, my Blackberry service crashed for almost a whole day, and it’s unclear if it was RIM‘s or Verizon‘s fault, but who cares; and I am still struggling with a Gmail tagging system that last week went into a funk, losing track of dozens of tagged items, a problem of which Google claims on its help site to be aware. Swell.
Can all of this be a coincidence, that – from the little enterprise to the huge – in the last few weeks I’ve come across such consistent erring and flawed service? Maybe, although one starts to wonder, as, at different levels also, harried under-performance is noted. Take, for example, two of my favorite contemporary artists – Bob Dylan and Thomas Pynchon – both of whom released new material in 2009, in both cases a mere couple of years since the prior release, and in both cases from artists who in the past decade(s) had settled into a much more leisurely groove. Why the sudden rush? Arguably, the hurry shows. Together Through Life and Inherent Vice were both received as “lite” variations of the respective artist’s standard fare, and I can’t help but feel that these products were rushed to market, so to speak, because, like many others, and as comical as it may seem, Bob Dylan and Thomas Pynchon may have suffered losses in their stock portfolios.
That’s neither here nor there, of course, but the bigger point still remains, which is that a bootstrapped economy is prone to produce bootstrapped experiences. And this is precisely the type of environment in which quality of any kind – product, service, artistic – will be most appreciated, and will enable its provider to stand out, perhaps for a long time.
