The y-enterprise

Have you ever thought about yourself as a business?

Business Dictionary defines business as an organization where goods and services are exchanged for one another or for money. Every business requires some form of investment and enough customers to whom its output can be sold on a consistent basis to make a profit.

Read the definition and ask yourself:

  • Don’t you exchange your labor for other goods and services, or for money?

  • Don’t you invest time and money in education to be able to sell your labor?

  • Don’t you need employers or other clients to make a profit?

So, you have all features of a business for me. I would call it “you enterprise”, or “y-enterprise” to make it a bit enigmatic.

Let’s suppose that you agree with my definition and we all are “y-enterprises”. What the difference does it make?

If we limit our scope to the individual we see two main problems:

  • Limited income
  • Unlimited wants

Our budget constraints force us to seek an optimal allocation of our income to increase the utility (pleasure, happiness or satisfaction). It seems to be that increasing the income should increase the utility, but we forget that our wants are unlimited. Sure, driving Tesla on highway gives me more pleasure than driving Chevy Bolt, but does owning Tesla gives me the best utility value?

So, let’s switch to the y-enterprise and see what resources we have:

  • Time

  • Labor

  • Money

  • Entrepreneurial ability

Let’s say I have chosen to buy Tesla S and it will cost me $5000 down payment and $1000/month for 72 months, while Chevy Bolt will cost me about half of it. What resources will I free if I choose to buy Chevy Bolt?

  • If I will save $500 every month during 72 months, I will have $36,000 in cash

  • $36000 in cash is more than half of my salary after taxes, or ½ of my working days in a year

  • ½ of my working days in a year is an extra month to my vacation during 6 years

  • $500 every month during 72 months allow me to buy 1,200 hours of piano lessons or 2,500 hours of French lessons

  • $36,000 allow me to hire a designer and a developer on Upwork for a year and implement my online business idea

How would I measure all these resource allocations?

I will measure my y-enterprise production throughput.

The production of pleasure, happiness and satisfaction!

Olga Slipchenko