A small pasta maker in Utrecht. The founder, brilliant at sourdough, terrible at order. Staff never know if wages will be late, suppliers wait weeks for payments, and customers sense the tension behind the counter. Nobody speaks openly, but the air is heavy. The pasta is still good, but the soul of the place is already broken.
THE WHY
For many micro and small businesses in the Netherlands, the founder is not only the visionary but also the bottleneck. The problem is not ambition, it is chaos. When the founder’s energy becomes unpredictable, everyone around them pays the price: employees, partners, even clients. Chaos might look like creativity, but in a small enterprise it quickly becomes a governance failure. And governance failures do not stay “internal”, they erode trust, which is the currency of survival.
THE NUMBERS
Chaos has a cost you can count:
- €1,500–€3,000 per year in late-payment penalties for missed invoices.
- 10–15% productivity loss when staff constantly wait for decisions or redo work after sudden changes.
-
20–30% higher turnover risk, as talented employees do not endure instability for long.
Multiply these by just two or three years, and the hidden “founder’s tax” quietly exceeds what many firms pay in real taxes.
WHAT NO ONE TELLS YOU
The Dutch entrepreneurial culture often celebrates independence and improvisation. “You do you, just get it done.” But when the founder’s chaos is normalized, it creates a silent social tax on everyone else’s life. Employees carry financial stress home, partners spend hours in damage control, and customers lose confidence in the smallest details, an unanswered email, a delayed delivery, a founder who always arrives late.
No advisor, accountant, or coach usually dares to say it: the problem is not the market, nor the system. The problem is the founder’s refusal to govern themselves.
DECISION COMPASS
Ask yourself today:
- Do I leave unfinished tasks that force others to clean up after me?
- Have I ever been late on staff salaries, even once?
- Are my suppliers waiting for me, instead of me waiting for them?
- Do I change directions so often that my team no longer trusts my word?
- Would I want to work under me, not just with me?
FINAL REFLECTION
The real cost of founder’s chaos is not financial, it is moral. A business without structure corrodes the dignity of those who depend on it. Bread may still come out of the oven, invoices may still get paid, but trust is already gone. To govern is not to control others; it is to first discipline oneself. Without that, entrepreneurship is not leadership, it is just noise, amplified at someone else’s expense.
Co-Creator of Xtroverso | Head of Global GRC @ ZENTRIQ™
Paolo Maria Pavan builds systems that balance rules with freedom, clarity with transformation. In his third life, he writes and speaks openly about markets, governance, and risk, not as a trader chasing price, but as a reader of patterns, behaviors, and distortions. A serial entrepreneur shaped by failure and reinvention, he sees governance as a living force for trust and progress, and refuses to avoid the hard conversations that make it real.
