BUSINESS MONDAY: ‘help small businesses’

Local entrepreneur and CEO of Shine Automotive, Dario Greenidge, is calling on banks and other financial institutions to do better and be more open for young start-up companies on the island, as these innovators are often met with road- blocks when seeking financial assistance.

This as the young businessman officially launched his new business called ‘AutoBox’, located in the Carlton Shopping Complex. It is a one-stop automotive shop which intends to sell Shine Automotive’s locally made products to consumers.

During the brief opening ceremony recently, the CEO expressed concern about the way average businessmen and women usually have a hard time when asking banks for help in new ventures.

“The banks are liquid, they have hundreds of millions of dollars of our money, and they lend it unfortunately to who they think will be a success; who they think will repay them or not pack up and leave.

The truth is, the average black entrepreneur, who has an idea, who has that business plan, just needs that little support and nudge. It’s just those kind of entities that the banks need to evaluate and support, because the truth is…as much as they will sit and wait on a couple of the big boys to come and borrow money to do projects, if they had to get behind a hundred or a thousand small entities, the economy would grow and there would be no such thing as unemployment for those who want work,” he said.

It’s his view that the general perception persons have of entrepreneurs is that they have an easy time. With the flexible hours these business owners have, persons like to believe that schedules are undemanding.

However, Greenidge said it is quite the contrary for entrepreneurs, adding that Barbadians are very unforgiving toward entrepreneurs when they try and fail at a new venture.

“You are risking everything, because in Barbados we have an unforgiving society. If you start a business today and you don’t succeed as a black entrepreneur in Barbados, you are guaranteed that people will almost scorn you.
That is one of the reasons I could not give up because I can’t deal with people saying he should have never tried to do this or to do that, he should have stayed in his lane,” Greenidge revealed.

It is his wish that Barbadians would in the future look to invest in these small- and medium- sized businesses – in the same way the United States and other territories have invested heavily in start-up projects that have flourished in the last decade.

Minister of Small Business, Entrepreneurship and Commerce, Dwight Sutherland, lauded Greenidge for his tenacity over the years in sticking to his business idea, and encouraged him to keep expanding his product offering as his Ministry continues to support the growth of entrepreneurship.