Peter Roper The Family Business Man
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Sometimes a bright idea just gets brighter and brighter!

Sometimes a bright idea just gets brighter and brighter!
The thing about a family business is that (generally) we always have lots of ideas.

Some win some lose.

Some are good, some are great, some are badly timed, and some are just…

Who would have thought the idea of a greeting card business online would work? Yet as I type this Moonpig have floated on the stock market valued at £1.5 billion – yes that’s right billion!

And there are so many other examples of simple ideas that take off and become huge. Remember how Amazon started by selling books?

The challenge for all of us is when to play a card and when to stick, when to fold and when to defer.

Probably all of us have had ideas that we didn’t pursue and then seen some upstarts take the idea and make a fortune with it or is that just me dammit?
Just occasionally however we take an idea and run with it and it gets better and better, not necessarily in a financial way – in fact sometimes it might be a commercial disaster! However, in your eyes the idea is wonderful, and when it comes to a natural conclusion you are genuinely happy where it has got to.

You see the real point about running our own business is that we simply fail our way to success, where most of our ideas never see the light of day or, if they do, they stop for a variety of reasons. Hopefully, we learn from the exercise and move on and eventually find something that works at the level we want.

The simple truth is for most of us its our heritage, its our apprenticeship to this thing called having our own business. After all, it is a rarity that someone starts a business and is an instant and sustained success. For most of us we must run the gambit of ups and downs learning as we go hopefully becoming eventually proficient and successful at what we do.

It is a long road and in fact, is a never-ending journey. The Family Business Practice was set up to help on that journey and we are delighted to help our members.

Whenever you need a hand just shout - we would be delighted to, at the very least, lend an experienced ear.

Until the next time…

Peter Roper.

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