Business Success: Why Money is not Capital

Money isn’t capital. Wisdom is. 90% of businesses fail in their first 5 years. Only 1% makes it through their first 10 years. This is a constant pattern.

Many fail not because they lack capital but they lack wisdom. Wisdom simply is applied knowledge. It’s a way of acting intelligently in the course of one’s purpose.

Understanding that every action either takes you away or closer to your desired goal – survival and domination – is the fundamental key of wisdom.

Lack of capital never held any true entrepreneur from achieving his or her goals. Only a lack of knowledge and it’s application, i.e. wisdom, is a major determinant in entrepreneurial success.

We have seen million and billion dollars investments fail in a few months. We have also witnessed billion and now trillion  dollar businesses that started from the most humble of beginnings, in the garages and yet they scaled through. The Amazon story is a classic example.

Everything great begins with a seed.

For a seed to become a forest is only a matter of time and effort. The real problem is that most entrepreneurs are hypnotized by the false idea of overnight success. They fail to understand that everything great begins with a seed.

A seed must be planted, tendered and nurtured before it becomes a fruit bearing tree. Every farmer knows there’s many activities and processes that must be done with precision and care, to ensure a great harvest. The entrepreneur is only but a farmer with land, labour and real capital – time and effort.

The entrepreneur that fails to start small or to start with what he/she already has, is no entrepreneur at all. A saying goes: “if you don’t have what you need, what you have is a seed.”

The real capital for a business success isn’t money but wisdom, that is, the ability of the entrepreneur to “start where he is, use what she has, and do what they can” to take their seed (idea) and make it an Amazon.

Paschal Agonsi
Lagos, Nigeria
5/February/2021