Business is people
What is a business? Let’s understand it by taking apart the components from a business piece by piece.1
- Remove the revenue, you’ve got a dormant business.
- Remove the cashflow, you’ve got a struggling business.
- Remove the profit, you’ve got a loss making business.
- Remove the asset, tough, but there are arbitrage businesses with no asset.
- Remove the customers, well, the business is unpopular.
- Remove the product, you’ve got a service business.
- Remove the solution, business might pivot and survive.
- Remove the brand, that’s a generic business.
- But remove the people, you’ve got nothing.
Business is a human affair.2 It is obvious. But still a profound insight.
- Founders are people.
- Employees are people.
- Customers are people.
- Products are built, sold and bought by the people.
So, if you face a problem in your business, it is — directly or indirectly — a people problem. Alone with this insight, one can’t do anything. But at least you have a direction. Thanks for reading!
Footnotes
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This kind of thinking is similar to ablation study, especially in artificial intelligence. It involves systematically removing one component from a system at a time and observing how the system behaves. Then that component is restored, and another is removed. Repeating this process will help understand the contribution of each part in the system. On the other hand, muntzing is the practice of reducing the components of a system to the bare minimum required for it to “sufficiently function” in most operating conditions. The thought experiment here encompasses both of these concepts. ↩
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Two months after writing this piece, I watched Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year (2009). The plot lead, Harpreet Singh Bedi, has a similar quote in the movie.
“Business number नहीं, business लोग हैं… सिर्फ लोग।”
English (translated):
“Business isn’t numbers; business is people… only people.”While the movie is a lot of bollywood, it got the essence of a business right. More people should watch it. ↩