Incoming credit laws mean that every time you’re late in paying a bill, a black mark will essentially be registered against your name. Ouch.

I can hear the entrepreneurial despair from far away. I have a very strong passion for entrepreneurship and I do not believe in the myth of financial freedom only being available in the ‘go get a good job’ story. I believe that the world is still very conventional in many ways and shaped for 9-5 people with regular paychecks and regular lives – nothing wrong with that but definitely not fitting for entrepreneurs.

Most entrepreneurs I know who have just started have spent the maximum available on their cards, live on noodles and have borrowed from their mortgages, many of them are late on their bills and are struggling within the first 1-2 years. However when they reach tipping point they employ one person, then two, then three etc. some of them are even growing very fast. Our start up story was no different. Many start ups I know employ 6 – 10 people and have a founder sacrificing all they have to make the business grow.

Being a new entrepreneur is risky, stressful, isolating and uncertain. It’s a big leap of faith but it is one which might bring jobs, feed families, contribute to the economy and create business circles sustaining communities. So not only is it hard to start and to get funding (if any) but now you need to feel even more pressured and be permanently (financially) scarred.

I believe that as business owners we should oppose laws which would affect other people’s capacity to go and take the same leap of faith we took when we started. Entrepreneurship a lot of the time is for those who couldn’t fit in or who found it hard to stay in a 9-5 job but who are good..very good at what they do. Should the economy force these people to stay in their rut?

How will this directly affect SME’s and new entrepreneurs?

• Business owners who have to wait to be paid – start ups, builders, architects, web designers etc will be subjected to additional pressure.
• B2B operators will have to force their clients to pay on time all the time and might risk damaging relationships.
• People will be reluctant to go and open businesses.
• Partners of entrepreneurs will feel subjected to additional pressure when it comes to the lifestyle choice of their partner.
• Companies might not grow and progress as fast because people will become risk averse.

So as business owners who have gone down the route of starting a business – should we be firmly opposing those new laws? I would dare say so.