Stuart has a piece on the difference in treatment of small business in the UK and the US, no real surprises here but still a timly reminder - here just one small fact:

In the USA a minimum of 23% of government contracts are awarded to small businesses compared to less than 4% in the UK.

You should read the rest on Stuart’s blog. We can not hope that the Government is going to join our On-demand Small Business Infrastructure anytime soon.

Tags: Accountants, Business Development, Business Start Up, Contractors, DIYPreneurs, Entrepreneur, Free Agents, Freelancers, Government, Home Business, Lifestyle Business, Micro Business, MumPreneurs, Office 2.0, On-Demand Small Business Infrastructure, Personal Business, Self-employed, SMB - Small Medium Business, SME - Small Medium Enterprise, SocialPreneurs, SOHO - Small Office Home Offie, VSB - Very Small Business, WinWeb

I got a comment today from Ian Denny, to one of my earlier posts Success or Failure - Who cares? I then went to his blog to read about him, I think you should too. He calls his blog Phoenix from the ashes and writes:

Thoughts and feelings from a company founded from the ashes of one that had died. A story I intend to be one of hope for those who find themselves in “business despair” or as a consequence, potential financial ruin personally. At least at the time of creation, we had turned the corner and had hope for the future. So please read on to find out if the story had a happy ending.

I admire him, his candid reality check, very public goals and the hope for an happy ending. I wish him luck and from reading his posts I would say he is on the right way.

One can just hope that people like Ian find the strength to get up and do it again, despite the doubts and worries. There is only one person who can make Ian give up, that is Ian himself.

Tags: Business Failure, Client Relations, DIYPreneurs, Entrepreneur, SOHO

This is a great post by Jeff Williams on a blog I have just discovered - StartupNation - you should read it.

He talks about another group of entrepreneurs, I shall call them the Boomerpreneurs. This is one of the more interesting entrepreneur groups we are seeing at the moment. For many the reason to get into business is as mentioned in the post:

“….many 50+ Boomers in particular are being pushed into early retirement, being downsized or being told by their corporate employers that there really isn’t room for them after age 60. …”

Many Boomers have a different entrepreneurial outlook:

“Although entrepreneurs of all ages tend to share some common traits, such as unbounded optimism, many Boomer entrepreneurs differ from their younger counterparts in the their willingness to balance income-producing potential with the freedom to enjoy their desired lifestyle.”

Jeff goes on:

“For example, some Boomer business owners specifically create business operations that can be run from more than one physical location, or run part of the year.”

But for me this is the real highlight:

“Many of the most generous donors to worthy causes in the U.S. and around the world are Boomer entrepreneurs who share their time and financial support with a wide variety of deserving organizations, ranging from Big Brothers and Sisters to Unicef.”

I love this, to say it with Bob Dylan: The Times They are A-Changin’. Big corporations have played with peoples lives, now these lives are setting up in business, great. This way small business will get more experienced entrepreneurs with a social aspect - it will also help to bring small business mortality down.

There are times when I love what I do, reading stories like this certainly makes me feel good and gives me hope for the future.

Tags: Boomerpreneurs, Business Start Up, Business Success, Contractors, DIYPreneurs, Entrepreneur, Free Agents, Freelancers, Home Business, Lifestyle Business, Micro Business, MumPreneurs, On-demand Small Business Infrastructure, Personal Business, SaaS, Selfemployed, smb, sme, SocialPreneurs, SOHO, Very Small Business, WinWeb

Our workplace is going to change more and more, not only because of the SaaS wave building like a Tsunami, but because the way we interact with the internet is going to change as well.

Instat says there will be 110 million WiFi equiped notebook PCs shipped in 2007, a 30+% growth rate over 2006. They also expect WiFi equiped cellular phone sales to reach 27 million in 2007. This is up from just 6 million in 2006, and Instat is predicting very rapid growth for WiFi enabled cell phones.

I remember not so long ago, Dennis ranting on about his new wifi enabled mobile, and why shouldn’t he. He is probably sitting in Starbucks - coffee, one sugar, milk and wifi - calling his mates in US on Skype for free - get the picture.

This is going to change they way we work with our clients, partners and if you will be able to hire new staff. People are increasingly seeing their mobile phones and other mobile devices as their internet access method of choice and also as a lifestyle choice.

Tags: Business Tool, Contractors, DIYPreneurs, E-Commerce, Entrepreneur, Free Agents, Freelancers, Green IT, Home Business, Lifestyle Business, Micro Business, MumPreneurs, Office/IT, On-demand Small Business Infrastructure, Personal Business, Mobile Devices, SaaS, Selfemployed, smb, sme, SOHO, Very Small Business, Virtual Assitants, Web 2.0, WiFi, WinWeb

One more time for the slow to understand, I am not only talking about many accountants in practice here, McKinsey Quaterly (registration required) noted:

….., almost every software category has either started to migrate or will migrate to software as a service over the next 3 years. McKinsey says this migration is even more pronounced for small and medium sized firms than large corporations.

This will hopefully not come as surprise to you, if it does, then you are in trouble.

If you are an accountant, then this is even more worrying, because your clients are in trouble too - they will lose out on competitiveness, because some accountants could not be bothered - this in turn will increase the mortality rate of small business start-up.

If you are a business owner, make sure you have a good long look at the people who advice you - there are some really good advisors/accountants out there, you just need to look and ask questions! If they only want to do your accounts (past) and not help you with your cash-flow forecast (future), then it’s time to leave.

DO NOT become one of the over 50% of business failures in the first 12 month after start-up. It is easy to survive - just get some good solid advice and plan your future.

Tags: Accountants, Business Mentoring, Business Start Up, Contractors, CPAs, DIYPreneurs, Entrepreneur, Free Agents, Freelancers, Home Business, Institute of Business Advisors, Lifestyle Business, McKinsey, Micro Business, MumPreneurs, On-demand Small Business Infrastructure, Personal Business, SaaS, Selfemployed, smb, sme, SocialPreneurs, Software as a Service, SOHO, Very Small Business, Web 2.0, WinWeb

I have been arguing for a long time that many of my customers are not necessarily running their business to make more money. USAToday has a story about a survey done by the Discover’s Credit Card, here are some findings:

* 46% of owners started a small business to have more flexibility with their time or to be more independent. Just 19% cited making more money as their main reason.
* 61% would still choose independence over working for someone else -– even for more money than they make now.
* 64% of owners agree it’s riskier to run a business than to work for a large company.

Which is exactly the point, when we look at small business we should not assume they want to grow their business and why should they. What is wrong with making a few thousand a month and being happy with that. Why is that so difficult for people to understand.

Maybe if we focused more on these businesses, then on the guys who scream about VCs and loans before they even have a business idea, we could concentrate on getting this horrendous mortality rate among business start-ups down. That would do us all good in the long run.

I am very encouraged by these findings, it tells me that many people have realised we need to make choices, before they are made for us - good for them.

Tags: Business Start Up, Contractors, DIYPreneurs, Entrepreneur, Free Agents, Lifestyle Business, Micro Business, MumPreneurs, Personal Business, Home Business, Selfemployed, smb, sme, SocialPreneurs, SOHO, Very Small Business

A study by the Center for Woman’s Business Research found that business ownership among women is growing twice as fast as all businesses combined. I would thing there are many reasons for this, like:

• Income Security - just as good if not better than being employed;
• Time flexibility - being able to care for your family;
• Personal fulfillment - no explanation needed here;
• Professional challenge - enjoying the ride;
• Work-Life balance - working flexibility adds to a better lifestyle.

I believe that women more than men realise that our society is very sick with antisocial behavior. These problems are not only prevalent in under-priviliged families, but also in well off middle class families. IMO this has to do the stresses of our existence’s - in particular financial stresses.

Women know that to combat these issues we have to stop calling on the state to sort these problems out - let’s be realistic, which problems have our Governments solved in the past!? If our children are looked after in their families, then many of our current problems will vanish. I think women need to be applauded for this conscious or unconscious insight!

Needless to say that on-demand business tools help achieving these goals - just as I believe internet technology will help us with a number of other problems in our society, like global warming, travel exodus, etc.

I am sure we men will get there too, eventually and I’m sure our Governments will take the credit for the positive effects women are creating, like always.

Tags: Business Start Up, DIYPreneurs, Entrepreneur, Free Agents, Global Warming, Green IT, Lifestyle Business, Micro Business, MumPreneurs, On-demand Small Business Infrastructure, OSBI, Personal Business, SaaS, Selfemployed, smb, sme, SocialPreneurs, Software as a Service, SOHO, Very Small Business, Virtual Assitants, WinWeb

The BBC just announced that Sir Alan Sugar has been asked to “advice” the new PM Brown on business related issues. So not good news for small business and personal business then.

Maybe the PM should get another “Tycoon” to help him out. I think this all is a cunning plan, lets face it - all these guys have ever done for small business is make sure that more and more people start their own business, in fear of having to work for one of them.

It is a sad world we live in, when the small business sector is the fastest growing segment in our economy and nobody, Government and all these so called roll models have no idea what it means to run a small business today. Take the money, contacts and infrastructure away from them and bitch them against other start-ups, now that would be something I would like to see on TV.

As I have been saying for years, what small business needs is infrastructure and timely advice, it is so simple. Allow people to make mistakes and then give them the chance to learn from them and not have someone on an ego-trip tell you what a failure you are.

Believe me, these people have not got a clue about what makes small business tick today, which looking at Sir Sugar’s resume, surprises me. I remember when I started out someone told me that I would not succeed without making big mistakes and having a business failure. They were right - the secret then is to survive these mistakes and try again. Years later I said during a talk I gave at a Business Start-Up Show in London that:

Success is a staircase of mistakes and failures.

Looking back on my three decades as a small business guy, who made it big during the .COM boom, I can only say I would not be here today if I had listened to the so called experts.

Tags: Business Start Up, DIYPreneurs, Entrepreneur, Free Agents, Lifestyle Business, Micro Business, MumPreneurs, On-demand Small Business Infrastructure, OSBI, Selfemployed, Sir Alan SUGAR, smb, sme, SocialPreneurs, SOHO, Tycoon, Very Small Business, Virtual Assitants, VSB, WinWeb

Thomas Friedman wrote in his book The world is Flat, that we have entered the third phase of globelization:

“… the new found power of individuals to collaborate and compete globally….”

This power stems from the internet and the availability of on-demand services and software.

It is also fueled by immigrants into the the “Western Economies”. This is certainly a side-effect I had not thought of before - a very positive one at that. The fact that many immigrants find it difficult to get into the job market combined with the above mentioned new found power creates businesses that are highly valuable for any economy - starting a business is often easier than finding a job.

These businesses link markets, maybe on a micro scale, but put them all together and we are talking very serious turnover. Our immigrants are not leaving their connections and culture behind and they use these connections to run small businesses.

To me this is another example how free markets can work on many levels. Maybe when we next scream about shout about globelization and how big business is homogenizing our world, think about these businesses. Globalization 3.0, works for very small and personal businesses too - an opportunity not only for businesses run by our immigrants.

I would love to see some numbers on this, if anyone has some?

Tags: Business Start Up, Contractors, E-Commerce, Entrepreneur, Free Agents, Lifestyle Business, Micro Business, MumPreneurs, On-demand Small Business Infrastructure, OSBI, Outsourcing, Personal Business, Globelization 3.0, SaaS, Selfemployed, smb, sme, Software as a Service, SOHO, VAs, Very Small Business, Virtual Assitants, VSB, WinWeb

Now here is a sentiment I do share:

“As the digital infrastructure matures and becomes widespread, small businesses - traditionallly late adopters of technology - will need to aggresively use new technologies to create, build, and market their products and services. Small businesses that fail to embrace technology will be under increasing competitive pressure from more technologically savy firms.” - from Intuit Future of Small Business Report.

This story was written on a new small business blog I have just subscribed to - Small Biz Labs - great blog.

Wonder if these guys have every heard of our On-demand Small Business Infrastructure? However, I don’t think my clients, over 200′000, can be called late adopters.

Tags: Accountants, Business Start Up, Client Relations, CPAs, DIYPreneurs, Entrepreneur, Micro Business, MumPreneurs, On-demand Small Business Infrastructure, OSBI, Personal Business, puppy, SaaS, Selfemployed, smb, sme, SocialPreneurs, Software as a Service, SOHO, VAs, Very Small Business, Virtual Assitants, VSB, WinWeb