Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

After falling by 7% in 2020 due to the pandemic, the number of independent workers (freelancers, independent contractors, gig workers, etc.) rose to 51.1 million in 2021, an unprecedented 34% increase. This is the key finding from MBO Partners 2021 State of Independence research study. This is the 11th year this study has been conducted. As the study chart below shows (click to enlarge), the number of full-time independent workers increased by 25%.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 30, 2021

According to the 2020 census, between 2010 and 2020 the white population in America declined  by 5.1 million.   And as the chart below (click to enlarge) nicely illustrates, all of America's population growth in the past decade came from people of color.   The chart comes from Brookings' New 2020 census results show increased diversity countering decade-long declines in America’s white and youth populations.  The article point out that white population

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Small Business Labs

JULY 29, 2021

Regular readers know we like both new buzzwords and pet trends here at Small Business Labs. So it's no surprise we enjoyed Wunderman Thompson's article On-Demand Pet Care , which is a pet trends article (it covers new on-demand pet services) and has two buzzwords that are new to us - petrenthood and petriarcy. Even better, they are in the same paragraph in the article.  Key quote: Rover CEO Aaron Easterly explains that the company’s growth—as well as the growth of the sector—has be

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Small Business Labs

JULY 20, 2021

The high-end combo social club/coworking space Soho House went public last week   under the name Membership Collective Group (ticker symbol MCG). Soho House is targeted mostly at creative professionals and has 30 current locations across the globe.  It's planning on opening 16 more over the next 18 months. Austonia's Peek inside Austin's Soho House, a ritzy new club for creatives on South Congress,  details the amenities at the Soho House in Austin, Texas.

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Small Business Labs

JULY 19, 2021

Sometimes we post articles on topics few people are interested in.  This is such an article.   But you should be interested because the economic and labor data collected by government agencies no longer provide the information we need to properly understand and manage the U.S. economy. Over the past week several sources explained the problems with government data collection efforts and made suggestions on how to improve them.

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Small Business Labs

JULY 15, 2021

Forerunner Ventures was founded about a decade ago with a focus on direct-to-consumer ecommerce brands.  And they've invested in some of the most successful companies in this space, including Bonobos, Warby Parker, Jet, Dollar Shave Club and others. They are now investing in a space they call The Empowerment Economy, which they describe as: "The true power of digital connectivity is set to upend the economy at large, powering a new generation of solopreneuers and financial freedom.

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 15, 2021

CB Insights is a technology analyst firm covering emerging technologies and tech startups.  They just released a creator economy market map , which is below (click to enlarge). CB Insights points out that digital content creators have had to cobble together various tools to build and monetize their activities.  This is quickly changing.  Key quote: " a slew of startups are looking to disrupt the way creators make content, develop their audiences, or grow their businesses be

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Small Business Labs

MAY 27, 2021

Deloitte and the MIT Sloan Management Review recently released Workforce Ecosystems: A New Strategic Approach to the Future of Work.    This research study found that most executives and managers today "consider employees and other workers who create value for the enterprise — including contractors, service providers, gig workers, and even software bots — to be part of their workforce." They also found about 1/3rd (34%) of the firms surveyed plan to increase their use of exte

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 8, 2021

McKinsey's Global Energy Perspective 2021 suggests the global demand for fossil fuels will peak in 2027 and steadily fall afterwards.   As McKinsey's report chart below shows (click to enlarge), global coal demand peaked in 2014 and they are projecting oil demand to peak in 2029, and natural gas demand peaking in 2037. Other forecasts are even more aggressive.  A recent report by the International Energy Agency suggests oil supply and gasoline demand may have already pe

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 30, 2021

The U.S. Census has released new demographic data on nonemployer businesses.   Nonemployers are businesses that have an owner but don't have paid traditional full or part-time employees (W2 employees). The data comes from tax records, and you can think of nonemployers as solopreneur businesses (freelancers, independent contractors. gig workers, etc.).

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 25, 2021

The 2021 edition of the annual Wunderman Thompson Future 100 report was released last year.  It's one of our favorite trend reports.  Here's how Wunderman Thompson, a global advertising and marketing agency, describes the report: The Future 100: Trends and Change to Watch in 2021   highlights  emerging consumer  behaviors  with 100 trend predictions from Wunderman Thompson Intelligence.

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 5, 2021

Last week MBO Partners released their annual future of work predictions for the coming year.  Their forecast themes for 2021 are: Ten : Dip & Climb   Nine : Happiness & Health   Eight : Gen Z Arrives   Seven : It’s All About Control   Six : Exports Not Imports   Five : Make It A Trillion Four : Side Hustle Nation   Three : 

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Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 15, 2020

Last week, MBO Partners released its 10th annual report in the MBO Partners State of Independence research series. Emergent Research (that's us) worked with MBO Partners on this ongoing study across all 10 years. The research was based on surveys of over 23,000 independent workers, gig workers, and micro-business owners and was augmented by 1,500 in-person interviews throughout the decade.  Over the next couple of weeks, we'll be highlighting some of the key findings and insights f

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 26, 2020

One of the more interesting findings of the MBO Partners 2020 Digital Nomad study is the large number of Americans who aren't currently digital nomads who say they want to be. Key quote from Bloomberg's When You Can’t Work From Barcelona, Boulder Might Do , which covers the study: " there is a massive and growing reserve army of digital-nomad wannabes — people who tell the survey-takers they’re planning on going nomadic in the next two or three years, or at least thinking about it.&#

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020

Desktop Metal , a leader in 3D printing with printers than can build metal parts, is going public.  Supporters of the company claim this is the beginning of a much more successful era for 3D printing, which they're calling 3D printing 2.0. As the Crunchbase article 3D Printing Investment Going Vertical As Big Exit Looms points out, 3D printing has been around a long time and, so far, has not lived up to its hype.  Key quote: Transformative technologies often get massively overhyp

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

A recent study by Colliers , a global real estate services company, found that 83% of those working from home due to COVID-19 would prefer to continue doing so after the pandemic ends. As the study chart below shows (click to enlarge), 45% said they'd like to work from home 1-2 days per week. Only 15% said they'd like to work from home full time.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 3, 2020

It's looking much less likely the U.S. will experience a sharp, V-shaped recovery. Instead, a growing amount of data is indicating a slower, "swoosh" shaped recovery is likely. The swoosh refers to the shape of Nike's logo and indicates a recession that starts with a steep decline and is followed by a gradual recovery. According to the Wall Street Journal's Economic Forecasting Survey, 70% of economists think the recovery will be swoosh shaped.

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Small Business Labs

JULY 20, 2020

Last week we had an article on U.S. Census data showing a big uptick in the number of Americans who are self-employed.   s It's likely this increase is caused by people who have lost their jobs turning to self-employment.   Because of this, we found the recent MBO Partners' blog post How to Become a Consultant: 5 Steps to Starting Right to be very timely.

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Small Business Labs

JULY 14, 2020

The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program (PUA) is part of the federal CARES stimulus act passed in March. The PUA extends unemployment insurance to the self-employed, independent contractors, gig economy workers, and others who typically don't qualify. It's clearly been a success, with about 14 million workers receiving aid through the PUA.   The chart below (click to enlarge) is from CNBC's Job losses remain ‘enormous’: Coronavirus unemployment claims are worst in hi

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Small Business Labs

JULY 2, 2020

Morningstar's 75 Must-Know Statistics About Race, Income, and Wealth covers a wide range of U.S. financial indicators by race.  Key article quote summarizing these statistics: "On average, people of color experience significantly lower levels of income, retirement savings, and rates of homeownership than white Americans. Those shortfalls contribute mightily to other ill effects: poorer healthcare outcomes, lower educational attainment, and shorter life expectancies, for example.

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 24, 2020

The Effects of the Coronavirus on Hours of Work in Small Businesses , from Yale's Tobin Center for Economic Policy, shows the pandemic's dramatic and ongoing impact on small businesses.  The study uses data from Homebase , which provides scheduling and time tracking tools for small businesses, to measure the change in overall hours worked by small business employees.

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 15, 2020

Gensler, a large global integrated architecture, design, planning and consulting firm, recently released its U.S. Work From Home Survey 2020 report. The survey was done between April 16th to May 4th and the respondents "were required to be working full time for a company of 100 or more people, to have worked in an office environment prior to COVID-19, and to be currently working from home."  In other words, Gensler's surveyed nicely captured the views of people who typically wo

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Small Business Labs

MAY 27, 2020

According to the  U.S. Census,  the number of   nonemployer small businesses increased to 26,485,532 in 2018, up 3% from 2017.  Nonemployers are businesses that have an owner but don't have paid traditional full or part-time employees (W2 employees). The data comes from tax records and you can think of nonemployers as solopreneur businesses (some exceptions apply - see below).

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Small Business Labs

MAY 26, 2020

Lots of work from home (WFH) surveys have been conducted over the past month.  And one of the most consistent findings of these studies is most people want to continue to work from home, but most of those only want to work from home part-time. For example, the Global Workplace Analytics Work from Home Experience Survey found that "U.S. employees want to continue working from home an average of 2.5 days a week (2 days/week globally)." And as the Harris/Zapier survey chart below show

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Small Business Labs

MAY 18, 2020

MBO Partners recently released its 2020 Client of Choice study results, which found that 7.6 million independent professionals (freelancers, independent consultants, etc.) provide their skills to business clients.   And as the report chart below (click to enlarge) shows, the number of independent professionals in this space has grown rapidly over the past decade - increasing at almost 4 times the growth rate of overall employment during this period.  Independent professional se

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Small Business Labs

MAY 13, 2020

Yesterday we covered a series of recent articles saying it will take 2-3 years for the economy to recover to pre-pandemic levels. One reason for this view is almost all industries are being negatively impacted by the recession. Illustrating this is the BLS's employment diffusion index. This index is calculated by adding the percentage of industries with employment increasing plus one-half of the industries with unchanged employment.

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 27, 2020

It’s clear remote work, and especially working from home , are trends that are being amplified and accelerated by the COVID 19 pandemic and related economic shutdown.   But one group of remote workers are mostly not benefiting from the pandemic - digital nomads.    These are people who embrace a location-independent, technology-enabled lifestyle that allows them to travel and work remotely, anywhere in the world that has decent Internet connections.  But being nomad

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 23, 2020

Each of the past 6 years the trends group at the global advertising giant Wunderman Thompson has released an annual trends report covering 100 trends to follow in the coming year. Yes, they really do have 100 trends. And the JWt Intelligence Future 100 Report: 2020 takes 226 pages to cover them.  The focus is on consumers and the report covers trends across 10 sectors, spanning marketing, culture, luxury, beauty, travel and more.  Our favorite trend comes from the beauty section and

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 14, 2020

The Johns Hopkins Non-Profit Economic Data Project recently released its 2019 Non-Profit Employment Report.  There are two key findings.  The first is the U.S non-profit sector is big, employing 12.3 million paid workers.   As the study chart below shows, this makes the non-profit sector as big in terms of employment as the U.S. manufacturing sector.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 8, 2019

SafetyPIN Technologies is a startup that has created a background check system and trust badge that lets people see at a glance if someone they met online - or elsewhere - is safe to meet offline. According to the company's website, SafetyPIN has: "developed a proprietary algorithm that draws on over 10,000 sources of data – and combines behavioral screening — to identify people you can trust the most – and assure them they can trust you, too." The algorithm checks an applicant's

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 24, 2019

Last week Facebook announced Libra , a new cryptocurrency. It's designed for use in transactions and as an easy and cheap way to transfer money.  Expected to launch next year, Libra is what's known as a stablecoin - a digital currency built to avoid the large fluctuations in value that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies experience.   And unlike Bitcoin, because the value will remain relatively stable Libra will usable as way to buy things.  While Facebook is the driving

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 25, 2019

Gartner's Most Competitive Roles 2019 provides an interesting look at the jobs big companies are hiring for.  The key finding is there is a lot of demand for a relatively small number of critical jobs.  According to the report, "49% of all job postings by S&P 100 companies in 2018 were for just 39 roles. The remaining 51% were for 872 other roles." The report chart below (click to enlarge) lists some of the high demand roles.  Not surprisingly software developer

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 22, 2019

The 2019 U.S. version of the Global Coworking Unconference Conference Series (GCUC) happened last week in Denver. Over 500 attendees showed up to discuss the state of the coworking industry and learn from one another. It was clear from the discussions and presentations that the state of the coworking industry is excellent. The industry continues to grow at a rapid pace, niche and independent coworking spaces are thriving, and the big coworking chains continue to expand.  One thing that cau

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 11, 2019

In case you hadn't heard, podcasting is booming.  According to The Infinite Dial 2019 , an annual survey conducted by Edison Research and Triton Digital, more than half of all adult Americans have listened to one. And as the report chart below shows (click to enlarge), 32% of all Americans aged 12 and older listened to a podcast in the last month.

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 4, 2019

The small and independent Brewers Association released their 2018 Craft Beer Growth Report. Key quote: In 2018, small and independent brewers collectively produced 25.9 million barrels and realized 4 percent total growth, increasing craft’s overall beer market share by volume to 13.2 percent. Retail dollar value was estimated at $27.6 billion, representing 24.1 percent market share and 7 percent growth over 2017.  We first started following the craft beer industry in 2006 because we felt t

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 18, 2019

McKinsey's Bias Busters Collection covers how are decisions are often affected by cognitive and/or organizational biases.  These include being unwilling to cut back on an under performing asset or activity, getting too distracted by shiny new initiatives, sticking with numbers or projections that are out of date or likely incorrect. But our favorite was what they call taking an "outside view" of a project or forecast.

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 11, 2019

Quartz's Life coaches are the new personal trainer highlights a trend we've been tracking since 2008 , the growth of personal services.  These are what noted labor economist David Autor calls "wealth work"   A good example is the growth are personal trainers. Back in 2000 there were so few the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) didn't track them.

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