Entre-U Class #1 – Small Business America

This is the first installment of a series called Entre-U (or Entrepreneurship University). Other installments and future videos of each installment will follow. Think of this as the most straight to the point Entrepreneurship degree you can get without the $20,000 price tag. Most entrepreneurs learn by the school of hard knocks anyway so save yourself the time, energy and money and get started!

Next: Entre-U Class #2 – Are You An Entrepreneur? >>

Between 2008 and 2010 The United States GDP hovered around $15 Trillion Dollars.  Small Business has been responsible for about 50% of that economic impact here in the U.S or about $7.5 Trillion Dollars.  The World’s second largest economy is tied between China and Japan at around 5 Trillion dollars.  In effect, this makes Small Businesses in the United States the world’s second largest economy.   

Further, Over the last 30 years from 1980 to 2010 big businesses have experienced a net loss in employment while small businesses have been the driver of our economic growth.  A Kauffman Foundation March 2010 study entitled High Growth Firms and the Future of the American Economy supports this view.  One of its key findings is: “…the top-performing 1 percent of firms generate roughly 40 percent of all new jobs.”  The study also found that high growth young firms – or firms that are less than 10 years old – create most of the new jobs.  

Clearly changes in technology have brought this revolution in entrepreneurship to the forefront.  What only five or six years ago cost millions of dollars to start can be done with $10, some open source software and a few hours of work.   

But also changes in social norms have affected the entrepreneurial landscape.  According to a Center For Women’s Business Research from 2008-2009:

A major shift in societal norms has made women owned businesses, minority owned businesses, and (the super growth combination of) minority owned women businesses the fastest growing segments amongst entrepreneurs in the United States.  

If we look at the stock market as a proxy for economic growth we can see more clearly the stages of the United States Economy in the past and future:   

Ignoring the 200 years before World War II when the economy was dominated by agriculture we can see clear parabolic economic growth cycles that are spanning time periods that are smaller by half or less.  The Ag economy was 200 years, followed by a 50 year Industrial Revolution, a 20 year Technology Bubble and a 10 Year Housing Bubble.   

It is my opinion that the Age of the Entrepreneur is upon us.  One could argue that the entrepreneur has been present since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution with Innovation leading the way.  However, it was the vast changes of the Technology Revolution that brought affordable, powerful technology to the forefront. 

The massive unemployment and economic hardship brought on by the Housing Crisis has also brought with it great opportunities for those with an entrepreneurial spirit.  The unemployed and underemployed can be a boon to Small Business America if they would apply their creativity with collaboration and new technologies to become the job creation of tomorrow.  I believe in this country’s economic future because I believe that our citizens are the brightest most innovative people on the planet.  I believe in the American Entrepreneur.