Future of Small Business

Yes, small businesses have a future. It is NOT an oxymoron.


Why? Because entrepreneurial spirit is a strong human characteristic. People take chances to gain something of value. You and I worked hard to buy a house, have a family, buy a car, build a career and believe in the future. We have hope for the better, the bigger, and the more powerful.


We take a chance on a career choice. We take a risk in choosing a house or neighborhood. We benefit from those choices, or maybe we don’t. If the latter, we take further risk and make changes for a better future.


An entrepreneur risks money, effort and time to build a small business. If successful, it makes enough money to pay all expenses of the business and yield a livable income for the risk taker. Meanwhile, the business may accumulate asset value for later expansion or sale. Risk is compensated in many forms.


The small scale is important. Small means a low cost entry to the ‘market’ and agility to change to meet market demands as they change. Starting small allows faster competitive responses. Over time the business settles into the marketplace and is likely to grow.


Americans embrace a social system of risk-taking. The system is biased to support business startups. Other entrepreneurs build businesses to help small businesses, and the system grows. Job opportunities grow as a result. Other competitors see related opportunities and open their own businesses. More growth of jobs and commerce.

This is also invention of new products and services. Innovation is the hallmark of small businesses.


Given more time, the smalls become intermediate businesses. More time and they either grow into modest corporations, or they are bought and sold to merge into ever larger corporations. Jobs expand exponentially. Products and services expand. Commerce develops in new and exciting dimensions.

All from the small business startup.


Large corporate structures do not start large. Apple began life in a residential garage. Microsoft was formed by ideas hatched in a college dorm room. Look at them now. Look at what they spawned!

Fresh business ideas have caused a tidal wave of small business formations over the past 2 decades. Technology continues to birth amazing changes in society and business. Jobs are created and expand in due course.


The future of small business? Enormous. As it always has been. They may be delicate and fragile in early days of startup, but they gain a foothold and hang on through thick and thin.


If the coronavirus deals a death throw to a small business, its successor comes to life soon after to take its place in meeting the demands of the market. You see, the demand doesn’t go away. It remains. As long as that is true, someone must open a door to satisfy demand. When that happens, supply is created.


Supply and demand. Poetry in action. An American ideal, too. With hope and determination great futures are made. And there’s that ‘future’ again. Hard to put down; impossible to destroy.


May 22, 2020