Trends in U.S. Small Business

Posted On: 2005-12-13
Length: 60:00

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Hi. This is Anita Campbell and welcome to the Small Business Trends radio program. I am so glad you could join us today. This radio program is a companion to the Small Business Trends website where we explore the trends that drive small business. You can find us on the web at www.smallbiztrends.com. And that's small biz b-i-z trends.com, and smallbiztrends is all one. And, as a reminder, you can find podcasts of the archives of this radio program at our companion website, SMB Trendwire.com. That's www.smbtrendwire.com

Ok. We're coming towards the end of 2005. Hopefully it's been a great year for you. And I also hope that you're looking forward to another great year in 2006. At this time of the year, on both the website and in this radio program, we like to look ahead. We want to take a look at the trends that you can expect to see that are going to have an impact in 2006 on small businesses. So, today, what I would like to do instead of our normal Today's Trend segment, which normally runs between a minute or two, I'd like to spend an in-depth period of time taking a look at some of the trends that you can see in 2006, and discussing how those trends can be taken advantage of, what you can do to leverage them, what they'll mean to you.

So with that, let me start with Trend number one, which is bootstrapping is in. Now, if you are a regular reader of our website, this will not be any surprise to you. You'll have read a number of articles we've written about how today's startup, especially any kind of web startup or software startup or technology startup, is wearing its low startup cost as a kind of badge of honor. And that's what I'd like to talk about here and what that means.

It's become a kind of reverse competitive thing today to brag about how little money you've spent to start your business. Now this is an interesting and important mentality shift...