The myriad of issues that are essential to the running of a business but which are foreign to the entrepreneur, make the challenge of setting up on your own enormous.

It is therefore important that you are prepared to be minimally involved in matters as disparate as taxation or human resources...

The success of your project as well as the degree of "quiet" (or not) you will live in, will directly depend on how aligned you are with the partners you decide to work with!

Transmitting to them the global vision of their organisation (strategy) and building fluid and trusting daily relationships (operationality) should therefore be priorities.

There are activities without which it is practically impossible to survive... in Portugal you will need, for example, the services of a consulting company in hygiene and safety at work (this is a legal requirement), the services of a chartered accountant (except for sole proprietorships that adhere to the simplified regime, all other company formats have this obligation in Portugal), the services of a designer (crucial in creating the company's visual identity)... and we could go on enumerating areas of expertise that you do not necessarily have to master because they are not your core business but for which you should surround yourself with specialists if you want to compete with larger organisations.

Of course, you can simply do everything yourself and "save a lot of money" but this is a strategy that doesn't work because you are increasing the probability of error and, on the other hand, you are wasting essential time to focus on what is really your business and what generates real value (we point out the undeniable fact that it is possible to start building a valid and sustainable business almost without capital).

If we draw a parallel between what happens with an entrepreneur who uses partners and the reality in larger structures with their own departments that deal internally with design, marketing, accounting, etc., we see that in both cases their leaders must be able to share the vision of the company and build a network of trust composed of specialists.

Is it an exaggeration to say that the keywords are leader, partner, vision and trust?

Does having a small size really mean being small?

Article on (not so) small business.