Small Business Labs

JUNE 14, 2021

Last year early in the recession, there was quite a debate about what shape the U.S. economy pandemic recovery would take. The two candidates that got the most support were a V-shaped recovery and a swoosh-shaped one. A V-shaped recovery indicated a steep, but very short recession with a quick and robust recovery. The swoosh-shaped recovery was named after the famous Nike logo.

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 27, 2021

Most gig economy and freelance studies cover a broad range of independent workers, so it's interesting when someone does a segmented, vertical market study on a freelancers.   Vogue's Fashion's freelancer problem exposed covers a recent survey on the effects of the pandemic on fashion industry freelancers'    The survey results show that the pandemic had a strong negative impact on them, with 66% of fashion freelancers reporting their financial situation h

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 18, 2021

After losing a U.K. Supreme Court case,  Uber this week announced it would be classifying its U.K. drivers as "workers."  This means Uber's 70,000 UK drivers will get a minimum hourly wage, holiday pay, pensions and other benefits.  Unlike the U.S., which has two worker legal classifications - self-employed and employee - the U.K. has three.   The "worker" classification is the 3rd, and "w orkers" get some, but not all, of the protections

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 25, 2021

In 2020 professional services applications from independent workers (freelancers, independent contractors, etc.) increased by 21% over 2019. Most of the 2020 increase came in the second half of the year and continued into 2021, with professional services applications from independents increasing in January by a stunning 51% over January of 2020. This data comes from Independent Workers Lead Recent Surge in Professional Service Business Applications , a research brief from MBO Partners that is ba

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 16, 2021

A SPAC is a special purpose acquisition company.  A good description comes from CNBC's SPACs used to be a joke in Silicon Valley — now they’re going mainstream. Key quote: In a SPAC, a group of investors raise money for a shell company with no underlying business. The SPAC goes public, generally at $10 per share, and then starts hunting for a company to acquire.

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 5, 2021

We haven't seen all the Super Bowl ads yet, but we know independent workers will be featured in two of them. Squarespace's ad (below) features Dolly Parton singing 5-9, a take off on her hit song and movie 9-5.  It shows a variety of side giggers pursuing their passions. Fiverr also has a Super Bowl ad, but we haven't seen it yet.  But no doubt it will feature creative independents.

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 26, 2021

The World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Risk Report identifies the top risks faced by businesses and society over the next decade.   This the 16th year WEF has issued a global risk report and the results come from an extensive risk survey of a wide range of risk related professionals. As the WEF chart below shows (click to enlarge), they group the risks by likelihood and impact.

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 6, 2021

Both the New York Times and the BBC have recent articles claiming that flying cars, in the form of flying taxis, will soon be common.  And it could be true this time. The reason we say "this time" is people have been predicting flying cars will soon be in the air for over a century.  So far, they've been wrong. Both Ford Motor Company and the Curtis Aircraft Company built flying car prototypes as early as 1915.  The picture below is from a 1917 newspaper article and

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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

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 22, 2020

Thrasio is a large and fast-growing acquirer of small consumer product companies that are part of Amazon's Fulfillment by Amazon program (FBA).  They recently raised $260 million in a funding round that values the company at $1 billion.   Thrasio's business model is fairly straight forward.  They find and buy category-leading consumer product small businesses that operate on Amazon's platform.  Key quote from Crunchbase's article on Thrasio's rec

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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 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 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 5, 2020

According to the research firm Barlow Research Associates , the average small business owner is 60 years old. And as the Barlow chart below shows (click to enlarge), almost 40% are aged 65 or older.  This raises an interesting question.  How will older small business owners react to the pandemic? Will they continue operating their businesses, or will they shut them down?

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 7, 2020

Based on an industry by industry analysis (1), our base case estimate is 21% of U.S. employer small businesses will close in 2020 (2) (3).  This is about 1.2 million small businesses.   In our optimistic case, 14% close and in our pessimistic case, 34% close.   The table below (click to enlarge) shows the scenario data.  The scenarios are briefly described in note (4) below.   By way of comparison, the SBA chart below shows small business closure a

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 29, 2020

Last week Congress passed and the president signed the CARES Act, a $2 trillion stimulus bill designed to help businesses and Americans weather the economic storm caused by the COVID 19 pandemic. Independent workers (the self-employed, freelancers, gig workers, etc.) qualify for a number of assistance programs contained in the bill.  We'll be covering these over the next couple of days.   But we want to specifically call out that under the bill most independent workers qual

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 27, 2020

The San Diego Union Tribune's Would you live in a van? Two San Diego women launch startup for boho traveler movement covers a new app - conveniently called The VanLife App - targeted at VanLife nomads. The article provides a good description of VanLife: "For those who haven’t heard of it, “vanlife” refers to a recent bohemian trend of people buying cargo vans, old ambulances, school buses and other boxy vehicles, and converting them into livable apartments on wheels (think of it as a do-

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 13, 2020

Landing recently raised $30 million to provide a "living as service" service.  The firm's founder describes this as : " an all-inclusive long-term living experience that allows a new generation of renters the freedom to choose where and how they live." Landing partners with property managers and apartment owners to offer apartments in 13 different cities in the U.S.  Renters join Landing by paying an annual fee of $199 a year.  This gives them the ability to

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 13, 2020

Quibi is a startup entertainment company that has raised $1.4 billion in venture funding to build a new content streaming service designed exclusively for mobile devices.  Founded by Hollywood titan Jeffrey Katzenberg and led by CEO Meg Whitman, a Silicon Valley titan, the company has additional star power because of who they've signed up to provide content.  According to TechCrunch : "Quibi has attracted big-name talent to help kick off its first year, including Academy Awar

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 7, 2020

California's new labor law, AB5, was meant to help Uber and Lyft drivers - and others - get hired as traditional employees with the hope this would increase their pay and financial security.  But the broadly worded and vague language of the new law is leading to a wide range of unintended negative consequences. It's also resulted in a growing backlash among independent workers as well as organizations that hire them.

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Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 22, 2019

We'll be back in 2020.

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Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 17, 2019

Skift is one of our favorite publications. It covers the travel, dining, and wellness industries from a business perspective. Because of their remit, they report on a wide range of interesting trends. The recently released their 10 Business Travel Trends for 2020. The 10 are: The Power of Being There in Person. Designing Great User Experiences to Boost Adoption.

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Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 10, 2019

HBR's Now to Negotiate as a Freelancer provides an excellent overview of this important topic.  Key quote on 3 things that tend to cause freelancers negotiation problems: First, they focus on the business aspect of the relationship to the detriment of building a personal rapport; second, they attempt to differentiate themselves from their competitors with price discounting, and third, they waste their negotiation time on the wrong clients.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

California recently passed AB5 , a law that changes how workers are classified. AB5 establishes an “ABC” test to decide whether or not a worker is an employee or a contractor. The law starts with the assumption that everyone is an employee. To be considered an independent worker, a worker must: Be free of the hirer’s control; and. Do work that is “outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business”; and.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 3, 2019

According to a survey from the National Foundation for Credit Counseling , military service members and their spouses are turning turn to the gig economy to supplement their income.  Key quote from the study site : The findings of this year’s survey are a clear indication that military households are turning to the private sector for supplemental income.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 15, 2019

WeWork released its S-1 this week, which is the legal document a company files prior to going public.  WeWork going public is a bit of a watershed moment for the coworking industry. It's the first of the new wave of coworking spaces to do so. It's also a highly watched and controversial company, particularly due to its high private valuation and steep losses.

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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

MAY 28, 2019

"Risk shift" is the trend towards economic and other risks - and the responsibility for risk management - being shifted from institutions to individuals.  Examples include corporations shifting more responsibility for retirement, career planning and healthcare to their employees and governments reducing social safety net programs. Political scientist Jacob Hacker explored this trend in-depth in his 2006 book The Great Risk Shift.

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 23, 2019

The Federal Reserve recently released its 2019 Small Business Credit Survey.  A key finding is the use of online lending sources by small businesses is rapidly expanding.  As the study chart below shows (click to enlarge), in 2018 32% of small businesses seeking credit applied to an online lender. This is up from just 19% in 2016. The top reasons small businesses say they turned to online lenders is their speed of decision making and the view that they had a better chance of being fu

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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

MARCH 19, 2019

We're often asked what the most popular professions are for freelancers and independent workers. This is not as easy a question to answer as it seems. Independent workers serve all industries, work with both businesses and consumers and participate in pretty much every job type and profession. They also tend to self-identify in very specific and often idiosyncratic ways.

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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 12, 2019

MBO Partners recently released their 3rd annual Client of Choice study.  Like prior years, the 2019 study focuses on the growing group of highly-skilled independent professionals (freelancers, independent consultants, etc.) who provide services to businesses on a regular basis. And the number of independent professionals has grown quite rapidly.

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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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