So good to read this and feel...validated, somehow. The UK is culturally a very difficult place to start and run a business. There's a crabs in the bucket mentality that I didnt have words for before I'd left the UK for a few years, but now when I visit or do business there is absolutely everywhere.
One business thing that really strikes me is that people in the UK treat bankruptcy as a moral failing, as if you cheated your investors, and not a strictly financial one, as in, you ran out of cash before achieving product market fit. It seems rooted in an unusually Victorian ethis, which is ironic, because in that era, businesses started and folded all the time.
Depends on the bankruptcy. Nobody is going to shed tears over investors losing out. Speculate to accumulate, risk and reward.
But IDK how it works in other countries, UK bankruptcies also means customers, unsecured creditors (often other small businesses), and the State (payroll taxes) also lose out.
And it leaves a bad taste when a company run at high risk of bankruptcy ("oh but we're a Start Up") screws over their suppliers which are often more traditional businesses (whether that's print designers, lawyers or tradespeople) by carrying on trading far into insolvency.
That implies a kind of arrogance ("You just have a business which pays it's bills, I have a vision) which UK culture is allergic to.
In the US, most of those suppliers understand the nature of startups and are accustomed to working with them, fully aware they are likely to fail. The deals are structured appropriate for those realities and some suppliers specialize in or have a preference for startups.
In the UK, many suppliers still treat startups like an exotic beast, or worse, a corner shop. US business has a familiarity and comfort with startups, due in no small part from being an increasingly prominent part of the American business landscape since the Second World War. It is the water they swim in.
Here, failing to pay your bills is both a breach of fair play, and what "dodgy" people i.e. criminals and con-artists do.
But equally it means we can operate a bit more of an honour system in terms of lines of credit. Small businesses typically allow one another at least some amount of credit terms, which they would not offer a private individual.
One business thing that really strikes me is that people in the UK treat bankruptcy as a moral failing, as if you cheated your investors, and not a strictly financial one, as in, you ran out of cash before achieving product market fit. It seems rooted in an unusually Victorian ethis, which is ironic, because in that era, businesses started and folded all the time.