Maybe we’re just unlucky, but blind dates are—at least in our experience—a rather awkward experience. Both parties show up having no idea what to expect and knowing nothing about the other person, and one tends to spend most of the date alternating between trying to find flaws in the other person and desperately trying to avoid exposing one’s own shortcomings. If you’ve ever been on a bad blind date—or ever watched that cheesy show that used to be on UPN back in the day or landed the “dud” in Mystery Date—then you actually know more about being a small business owner than you realize. That same discomfort that you feel when you try to start a relationship on a blind date is a discomfort thousands of small business owners have to experience every time they look for certain types of workers. We can tell you’re skeptical, so let’s just go ahead and break down both—the parallel will be glaringly obvious.
How Did You End Up in This Situation?
Person on a Blind Date: In many (if not most) cases, a person gets set up on a blind date because he/she was having trouble finding a date on his/her own. If you’re set up on a blind date, chances are you’re either too busy to go out and get a date on your own, and/or you don’t even know where to go to get a date in the first place. Alternatively, you have a meddling friend who “totally know[s] someone perfect for you” and isn’t content to have you make your own choices. This, of course, all assumes that you know somebody who know’s someone who might be a good match for you in the first place. So not only are blind dates often awkward and unsuccessful; they’re also too scarce!
Small Business Owner looking for an employee: Between trying to get your business off the ground, trying to get money to fund your business, trying to figure out how to market your business, trying to figure out how to grow your business if you succeed, etc. it’s a big chore to try to find a qualified employee to hire. What’s worse—in a lot of cases—is that you don’t necessarily know where to look or what to look for. If you’re expertise is in, for example, architecture, how can you tell the difference between a qualified web designer and an unqualified one? In essence, you’re the guy/girl who doesn’t have time to find a date, and doesn’t really know where to look for one. So, in all likelihood, you turn to your friends—you ask around and see if anyone can refer you to a good web designer, and you hope it works out well. At the end of the day, you have to more or less put your faith—and, to an extent, the success of your business—in the judgement of somebody else. Also, like a person who tries to get set up on a blind date, you’d better hope that someone you know know’s somebody who’s a match for you; this is hardly a guarantee.
Where Did it Go Wrong?
Person on a Blind Date: No matter how bad a match the two of you are you are, you’re stuck with this person for the evening. If you don’t stick it out, the person who set you up might be offended that you didn’t even “give [him/her] a chance.” That’s a friday night (and possibly a decent chunk of change) flushed down the drain in the most awkward way possible (okay, maybe not the most awkward way possible)
Small Business Owner Looking for an Employee: You’d better hope your reference set you up with somebody good. If not, you end up spending money on subpar (or possibly even unusable) work that essentially leaves you exactly where you started before you hired the guy in the first place. Like a guy waking up after a bad blind date, you’ll find yourself older, poorer, and still facing the exact same problem you faced before this whole mess started in the first place.
How Can the Internet Help You
Person on a Blind Date: Okay, in a perfect world, you’d go out and find a date on your own. In a perfect world, you’d also have the time to spare to do this. In a perfect world, you’d also know where to go about finding a date. In reality, if you have a lot of blind dates, chances are there’s a legitimate obstacle keeping you from finding dates on your own (if there isn’t, you must just be lazy). Fortunately, the internet age has provided hope for people in this situation. Dating websites like eHarmony are essentially a larger, more scientific means of setting up blind dates. By gathering a large pool of date-seekers, these sites create a larger network of potential matches than your personal network could hope to achieve. Moreover, by establishing objective criteria by which matches can be made (as opposed to “This guy will be perfect for you because you both like the Sun Devils!!1!”) these sites improve on the “blind date” process significantly.
Small Business Owner Looking for an Employee: Okay, in a perfect world, you’d go out and hire the right employee on your own. In a perfect world, you’d also have the time and expertise to do this. In a perfect world, you’d also know how to go about finding an employee who can work within your price range. For most small business owners, this perfect world does not exist, because there are very significant obstacles—the lack of a dedicated HR Department, the need to hire workers on an “on-demand” basis, the lack of time (and expertise) to go through a thorough hiring process—that keep them from finding an employee on their own. If only there were some website thatdid for small businesses what eHarmony does for desperate daters. The ability to gather a large pool of low-cost (yet still qualified) workers into one place would spare small business owners the time and effort of trying to go through their whole personal/professional network looking for a referral (and would give them a much larger pool to choose from). And, the matching of the business’ needs with the skills of potential freelance employees based on objective criteria would give the business a better chance at a good match. [/shameless self-promotion]
So, as you can see, small business owners are not unliked people looking for blind dates. As frustrating as that can be if you’re a small business owner, it also provides room to hope. If you ask us, it also provides a good reason to sign up for our beta too (we launch November 9th). That’s just us though, what about your thoughts? Leave them in the comments if you’re so inclined.
