My friend, mentor, and longtime business partner Dan Conway was a near-scratch golfer. I was not. When we discussed the recent play of various pro golfers, he always said, “They play a different game than we do.” This means not just hacks like me but low-handicap golfers, too.
Golf and business have a minority of idolized, out-of-touch pros who play the game at a different level. That’s not so bad for the golf industry, but the threats to small business from the higher levels cannot be ignored.
When people have an idea to “build a better mousetrap,” a better product or service, they create a system and build a business around it. Like the average golfer, they may have little training and no coaching, and occasionally, they hit a hole-in-one. But they play a different game than the corporate elites and private equity types, who just make money off money.
Small business owners are the heart and soul of our communities. They create businesses and devote most of their waking hours to providing quality goods and services to their customers. In addition, they create jobs and donate time, money, and energy to community activities.
That’s the way it’s been for millennia. It’s not the same game up the business ladder.
Unlike huge companies and the private equity types they spawn, small business owners operate with a deep sense of empathy. They meet their customers, look their employees in the eye, and feel the impact of their decisions on the people, their families, and the community. This connection is what sets them apart.
I’ve been reading the book “Into Unknown Skies” by David K. Randall. It tells the true story of the people, manufacturers, airplanes, and governments that raced to be the first and fastest to fly around the world in 1924.
The 1920s in America were similar to the 2020s. The country was recovering from a pandemic and had retreated from its international relationships following the First World War. Immigrant bashing was a widespread sport in Congress and on the streets, and the prevailing sentiment in the public was “America First.” Four years into prohibition, airplanes were considered mere entertainment with no practical application. From thrill shows to occasional mail transportation, airplanes did little else.
Airplanes the US Military used in France and Germany during the war were European-made. After the armistice, US military leaders decided airplanes would never be needed again, so they burned most of the fleet to the ground in France.
The story’s American hero and entrepreneur is Donald Wills Douglas Sr., who created the Douglas Aircraft Company with $500 of borrowed money in 1921. He designed and produced four Douglas World Cruisers, airplanes that led the US to success in the “World Flight” race in 1924.
Like all proper capitalists, Douglas relied on government funding to get the World Cruisers in the air. He eventually built a vast enterprise that transformed commercial flight. In 1967, his company merged with McDonnell Aircraft to form McDonnell Douglas, which became part of Boeing in 1997.
The Roaring Twenties were a significant social and cultural period for more than just air transportation. Economic prosperity, rapid social change, and exuberant optimism transformed American life in the 1920s. However, the good times ended after the stock market crashed in late October 1929, leading to the rapid erosion of confidence in the banking system—the beginning of the Great Depression, which lasted more than a decade.
Rampant financial speculation in the late 1920s, when millions invested savings or borrowed money to buy stocks, pushed prices to unsustainable levels. Industry produced more goods than it could sell, and banks lent money freely, encouraging speculation. A small percentage of the population held most of the nation’s wealth, and many struggled to make ends meet. Banks failed, businesses closed, and unemployment soared.
The Douglas Aircraft story is a classic example of the entrepreneurial spirit. Donald Douglas, who spent little time flying, knew how to engineer and build airplanes better than most of his peers. His business, which started with just a few hundred dollars, grew to a corporate but not immortal giant. Douglas built a better mouse trap, and after getting his plane flown around the globe and another World War, people were beating a path to his door.
We need to make it easier for small business owners to serve in government at the highest levels. We’ve done this before, but money interests are killing us today.
