The Dangerous Myth Holding Small Businesses Back
- Feb 12
- 4 min read
Written by Jagroop Sahi, Founder & CEO
Founder of KIDDYKIND, a curated marketplace for sustainable baby and kids brands, Jagroop Sahi writes on sustainability, conscious capitalism, and why supporting small businesses is essential to building ethical, future-ready economies.
When we say small business, what are we really saying? Because small doesn’t just describe size. It shapes expectations. It subtly suggests limited impact, reduced importance, and, whether we mean it or not, replaceability. And that is where the danger lies.
We claim to support small businesses. We celebrate them in speeches, hashtags, and shopping campaigns. But the moment decisions are made about funding, procurement, infrastructure, or policy, they are treated as peripheral. Encouraged, not enabled. Praised, not prioritised.
The gap between what we say and what we do is widening. And small businesses are paying the price.
The majority we still treat as marginal
Small and medium-sized enterprises are not a footnote in the economy. They are the economy. In the UK, 99.8% of all businesses fall into this category. They provide around 60% of private sector jobs and generate more than £2.8 trillion in turnover. Globally, small businesses account for roughly 90% of all companies and over half of total employment.
Yet despite these numbers, they are still framed as a side act, something to protect sentimentally rather than invest in seriously. When the economic majority is treated as a minority, resilience becomes an illusion.
“Support small business” has become performative
The phrase is everywhere. On tote bags. In political manifestos. In glossy corporate campaigns. But real support is structural, and that’s where it falters.
Access to finance remains harder and more expensive. Public procurement favours scale over substance. Payment delays are normalised. Compliance, tax, and digital systems are designed for businesses with legal teams, not founders juggling payroll at midnight.
Calling these businesses small makes this imbalance easier to justify. After all, if they’re small, limited support feels proportionate. But if they’re foundational, then under-supporting them isn’t just unfair, it’s reckless.
Job creation we take for granted
Small businesses don’t just create jobs, they hold communities together. They employ parents who need flexibility. Young people who need a first break. Career returners finding their way back. In many towns, they are the difference between a living high street and an empty one.
In emerging economies, micro and small enterprises account for around 70% of total employment when informal sectors are included. Entire labour markets depend on them.
And yet, in times of crisis, large corporations are stabilised while small businesses are told to be “resilient.” Resilience without support is just exposure by another name.
Innovation without a safety net
We talk about innovation as if it lives in boardrooms and billion-pound R&D budgets. In reality, it often starts with a founder spotting a problem no one else is solving and deciding to do something about it.
Ethical supply chains. Circular business models. Community-led platforms. These ideas rarely come from the top down. They emerge from small businesses operating close to real people, real needs, and real consequences.
But innovation without backing is fragile. When we celebrate ingenuity while starving it of capital, infrastructure, and visibility, we turn creativity into a survival strategy instead of a growth engine.
The real cost of getting this wrong
Small businesses don’t just drive GDP. They shape culture. They build trust. They give people alternatives to systems that no longer serve them.
But narratives matter. When we keep calling these businesses small, we lower the bar for policymakers, investors, and consumers alike. We normalise late payments. We accept thin margins. We treat failure as inevitable rather than preventable.
The result isn’t sudden collapse. It’s slow erosion. Fewer independent brands. Less innovation. Less choice. Less community. By the time we notice what’s gone, rebuilding is far harder than sustaining what already existed.
Small is a size, not a value
Small describes headcount or turnover. It does not describe courage. These businesses are often built by one person, or a handful of people, starting with nothing but an idea and a belief. Frequently self-funded. Frequently under-protected. Always personally exposed.
They generally carry more risk than large corporations: reputational, financial, emotional. They don’t hide behind shareholders or safety nets. When things go wrong, it’s personal.
And yet, many still choose people over profit, values over volume, and long-term impact over short-term gain. That is not small. That is mighty. These businesses are not a “nice-to-have” alongside big business. They are essential infrastructure.
If we mean support, it has to show up
If we truly believe small businesses matter, support cannot remain rhetorical. It has to show up in fair payment practices, access to finance, procurement that rewards values, not just volume, and systems designed for how most businesses actually operate.
Because if we keep calling them small and treating them accordingly, we shouldn’t be surprised when they struggle to survive.
They are mighty. But mighty things still need backing, and if we continue to get this wrong, the cost won’t just be economic, it will be cultural, social, and deeply human. And this is exactly why, at KIDDYKIND, we choose to champion these mighty businesses.
Many of the brands on our platform were founded by parents who saw a gap: safer materials, more ethical production, a lighter footprint on the planet, and decided to do something about it. They didn’t start with scale in mind. They started with responsibility.
They were building better products for their own children and, in doing so, for yours too, while remaining mindful of the world those children will inherit.
Supporting these businesses isn’t a trend for us. It’s a commitment to backing the kind of courage, care, and long-term thinking the future actually needs.
Read more from Jagroop Sahi
Jagroop Sahi, Founder & CEO
Jagroop Sahi is the founder of KIDDYKIND, a curated marketplace championing sustainable and ethical baby and kids brands. She is a sustainability entrepreneur and contributing journalist writing on conscious capitalism, corporate responsibility, and the role of small business in building future-ready economies. Known for bridging values-driven purpose with commercial reality, she offers practical insights for leaders navigating impact, scale, and consumer trust. Through her work, she challenges businesses to move beyond performative sustainability toward meaningful, measurable change.
