An article which we propose to publish in the Stabroek Business shortly undertakes a cursory examination of the experiences of a handful of ‘new entrepreneurs’ who have sought to either pursue optional ways of earning a living given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the conventional labour market, or else, have decided to embark on new business excursions, presumably to add to their existing incomes or else, just ‘for the heck’ of undertaking a new adventure.
Outside of those with whom we had limited interviews there are many more who have either taken the entrepreneurial plunge, or else, are in the process of exploring investment avenues that might appeal to them.
The first thing that should be said about these initiatives is that it took a complete transformation in our national circumstances for our new investors to ‘take the plunge’; and while there is no telling just where the pandemic will take us, in the final analysis, it cannot be anything but a positive development that some measure of initiative and inventiveness have derived from our circumstances.
Historically, it had been a sort of national understanding that Guyana had been favoured with a limited business class and that the remainder of us were satisfied with being salaried employees. That theory, of course, was always questionable, bearing in mind that small numbers of not particularly well-placed individuals and families had managed to break through the barrier and establish themselves in various entrepreneurial pursuits.
If no one appears to be entirely certain as to those factors which, over time, appear to have broadened the national aptitude for entrepreneurship, what has been impressive is the level of thinking that has gone into selecting the investment niches that our new entrepreneurs have chosen.
This newspaper well remembers the establishment at the University of Guyana of the School of Entrepreneurship & Business Innovation (SEBI). The core mission of SEBI, the University had informed, was to “educate and develop entrepreneurial and innovative leaders and managers with the skills, competencies, predisposition and habits of mind to contribute to the social vitality and economic advancement of the nation and the global community.” But its ambition extended beyond that. UG had made it clear that there was room at SEBI for a category of businessmen and women whom we have been inclined to describe as hustlers, but who, having survived the rigours of what, frequently, can be a tough, no-nonsense environment of what, sometimes, is just pure, unadulterated ‘flat foot hustling’ had ‘come through’. What SEBI said it was seeking to do was to infuse a measure of entrepreneurial orthodoxy into the natural acumen of those ‘hustlers’ and while the jury may still be out on the outcome of the SEBI ‘experiment’ the reality is that there has, unquestionably, been a quantum shift in the national attitude to entrepreneurship. Necessity, it is often said, is the mother of invention and while it would be churlish, to say the least, for such a discourse to lead to the assertion that COVID-19 is some sort of necessary evil, it would be foolish to deny the reality that the pandemic’s unwholesome repercussions have, in some instances, brought out the best in those who have been pushed into entrepreneurship through circumstances.
The question is, of course, where do we go from here? Are we likely to witness a retreat to an as you were, when, finally, we have slain the beast of COVID-19. Or will we take the present emerging appetite for entrepreneurship as far as it can go, building on what we have and creating a transformed entrepreneurial landscape.
