If you want to avoid conflict, do not become an entrepreneur. There are much more peaceful vocations one can pursue: working as an artist perhaps, or a software engineer, or even a gardener. For those hardy characters engaged in building an enterprise, life can often feel like a constant battle.
Business is a struggle on many levels. There is the fight to gain market share from competitors – to seize their customers. You can gain an edge through price or quality or innovation, but often this contest descends into litigation. James Dyson’s autobiography Against The Odds is dominated by his patent disputes with various rival makers of vacuum cleaners. Even Apple, everyone’s favourite big corporation, participates in an apparent war of attrition with Samsung across several continents.
Then there are negotiations with suppliers – haggling and bullying, threats and promises unfulfilled, unilateral retroactive discounts, and on occasion being held to ransom. Buyers for big retailers are hated and feared because of their power and ruthless tactics. A number of Britain’s food producers are impoverished because they hold a weak bargaining position with the supermarkets. Similarly most shopkeepers complain that their relations with property landlords are by nature adversarial and one-sided. No wonder so many high streets are gradually becoming ghost towns – after all, no one signs a lease with upwards-only rent reviews when they can create a website.