The Sin Series V: You Shall Not Despise The Days Of Little Beginnings –Start Small Always

We end this series on the sins we commit when we flout biblical wealth principles leading to poverty. We end with law V: You shall not despise the days of little beginnings –Start small always.

If there is an important business attitude and principle that we should never neglect, it is this –Start small, and do not despise small beginnings! Job 8: 7, Zech 4:10.

Do not look down on yourself or others when in the ‘little beginning’ phase, for most big businesses you see today once were so small that you would not have predicted that they will become as big as they are now.

In 2001, Yahoo was the backbone of internet search, and when Yahoo was told to buy out Google, the executives declined saying that Google could never rival them. You all know the story now.

In 1997, AOL (America online) was so big that half of all US homes connected to the internet through them, and no one thought that they will lose their online influence to newer internet companies. Now they buy smaller start-ups in order not to become totally obsolete and anachronistic- a mere mention in the history of internet.

Facebook was much smaller than Myspace in 2005, but now many will ask, “What is Myspace?”

IBM (the computer giant of the 60s and 70s) was told to buy out Apple at the beginning of the personal computer era, but they never believed a small company could ever rival them. Today, they are playing catch-up. (In reality, IBM came into the PC market long after Apple, Atari and others were already the PC market leaders but eventually surpassed all of them by 1984, so they didn't think there was any need to invest in any of them, thinking they will all die a natural death.)

When Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1984, he had to start again with a new company and was eventually begged by the board of Apple to come back on board in 1995. That was only possible because he started Apple originally from scratch in 1977, and had gone on to start NeXT from scratch which Apple now bought for $400 million when Jobs came back on.

In 21^st century business parlance, it is called Lean Start-up. It refers to new businesses/SMEs -called Start-ups, investing their time into iteratively building products or services to meet the needs of early customers, thereby reducing the market risks and sidestepping the need for large amounts of initial project funding and expensive product launches and failures. It simply refers to being effective at doing the little you can do, and pushing ahead the larger tasks and plans till your business really needs to do undertake them because it has the resources to.

Do not trivialize something, anything that is, simply because it is small or at the start-up stage, for today, even the tallest, mightiest oaks come from seeds so tiny.

When I tell my Forex students to start by trading $10, many think it is too small. I tell them that I once only traded $1 accounts, trying to build it up to more than $1000 (without withdrawing). Of course, you already know that I did that (even though I was withdrawing along the way).

If you are not willing to start small in anything, then you are not fit to handle that same thing at the highest level –be it a top managerial position, the presidency of a country, or great wealth. Luke 16:10.

God delights in taking little and making mighty out of it –be it a life, a nation, a business or a church. And that should also be our delight. From Abraham, to the Israelites, to David, to Jesus and then the early Church, God has long been in the business of making the stone the builders rejected at the quarry become the chief cornerstone in the foundation of the gigantic building. Ps 118: 22-23, Is 8:14-15, Mk 12:10, 1Pet 2:4-8.

You shouldn't be an exception, else you will flout that biblical principle of wealth.