Small Business Labs

MAY 31, 2018

As the article chart below shows (click to enlarge), the 9.9% The article is not positive about this group (which the author says he's part of). The 2016 median for this group was $2.4 million and the top members have net worth's in the $10 million range. Above that and you graduate into the top 1%.

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 24, 2017

This increase is clearly due to Obamacare, which took effect in 2014. Hoffman's article references a recent U.S. Treasury study that shows in 2014 1 in 5 ACA marketplace consumers was a small business owner or self-employed.  This means about 3.3 million more independent workers have health insurance than in 2013. 

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 6, 2015

The Pacific Standard's interesting article What Was the Job? claims 2014 was the year the job broke.   THIS PAST YEAR, 2014 , was the year the job broke. Needless to say, the article does not see this shift as a good thing. Or, at least, we accepted a re-interpretation of its fundamental bargain.

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Small Business Labs

NOVEMBER 11, 2014

The article The Contingent Workforce Management Program of 2016 provides their view of how corporate contingent labor programs will evolve over the next couple of years. Key quote from the article: In 2009, the estimated percentage of contingent workforce utilization within the average enterprise hovered around 16% or 17%. The

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 21, 2016

In 2014 we reported on a Pew study showing only 44% of Americans consider themselves middle class, down from 53% in 2008. in 2002 to 34.8% This is part of a broader trend of fewer Americans in general seeing themselves as middle class. So it's not just millennials.

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 9, 2017

Simply put, the article explains why coworking is working. A third of the average company’s workforce was contingent or contractual in 2014, according to the supply management firm Ardent Partners, which expects this percentage to rise to 45 percent this year. The third trend is corporations are quietly hollowing out.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 8, 2016

So we will refer you  to the article for the descriptions of these trend areas the technologies behind them. It's also been referred to as "emotional computing" The Telegraph has a good article that explains affective computing in more detail. 

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 2, 2016

  Having said that, our 2014 coworking forecast turned out to be way too low.   Our 2015 was also too low, but better than 2014.    Prior to 2014 our forecasts were low to on target. See our 2010 article What's the Definition of a Coworking Facility in our old Coworking Labs Blog for our definition. 

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 6, 2015

Key quote from Nielsen's article: While the average American adult spent nearly a week (149 hours 14 minutes) on average watching traditional television each month in fourth-quarter 2014, other ways to connect with content were desirable as well. In that same quarter, U.S. In that same quarter, U.S.

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 15, 2015

Which is why I'm so disappointed by their article  American Entrepreneurship: Dead or Alive?  Key quote from the article: Let's run some numbers. economy are covered in the 2014 MBO Partners State of Independence report.  I'm a big fan of the Gallup organization and often reference their work.

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 8, 2017

Key quote from the New York Times article Blue Apron Has a Good Product. Founded in 2014, it already has 1200 employees and is growing very rapidly.  Beware the Stock: Yet similar services are proliferating wildly. Another good example is the organic meal kit delivery company Sun Basket.

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 7, 2014

  The Fast Company article Why Being Engaged at Work Isn't as Simple as "Being Happy"  covers the issue of low employee work engagement, pointing out that only 30% of U.S.   The article suggests that the reason so few are engaged is because few are given the opportunity to flourish. employees are engaged. 

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 17, 2016

So many that one article says you can't swing a cat these days without hitting one. up from 53 million in 2014. Lots of recent studies on the gig economy. We're dog fans here at Small Business Labs, but we still wouldn't swing a cat. The key finding is there are 55 million freelancers in the U.S.,

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 20, 2014

They just released a presentation on The Most Important Small Business Trends in 2014. They have an article summarizing the trends on their blog.   For anyone interested in small businesses and/or small business trends the article and trend presentation are well worth looking at.   trends'

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 15, 2015

Key quote from the KQED article: "“More conscientious eating — meaning organic, sustainable and healthy food — is a huge trend, much bigger than many people realize,” said Ali Partovi, an investor in food companies. " My favorite example from the article is Bitty Foods , which makes cricket-based flour and cookies.

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 27, 2015

Tanya Mohn's New York Times article Coworking on Vacation: A Desk in Paradise  hit a cord with readers.   The article focuses on coworking facilities in exotic or tourist oriented locations that also provide accommodations. It lit up social media with thousands of tweets and Facebook posts. 

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 26, 2015

As of December 2014, Uber had 162,037 active drivers on its platform. There are many articles on the study, including: The Atlantic has my favorite article, mostly because it points out how small Uber and the sharing economy are relative to the U.S. 81% of the drivers work part-time as Uber drivers. Uber drivers agree.

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Small Business Labs

JULY 16, 2014

CoinDesk, an online site that covers the Bitcoin industry, released their State of Bitcoin Q2 2014 report. It shows that despite setbacks and negative press, the Bitcoin industry continues its rapid expansion. The chart below (from CoinDesk's report) shows their summary of the key things that happened Bitcoin wise in Q2.

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Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 22, 2015

Key quote from the HBR article: America is producing ample prosperity. Large   Further supporting the articles listed above, the Pew study found the share of Americans with middle class incomes has declined from 61% in 1971 to 50% in 2015.   Both focus on the failure of the U.S.

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 30, 2014

According to several recent articles the financial problems of millennials is leading to changing behaviors and purchase patterns as well as broader societal shifts.   For example, the New York Times article No Picket Fence: Younger Adults Opting to Rent focuses on the shift away from home ownership and towards renting by young adults.

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 3, 2015

My guess is this term will have 3x or so the number of citations in 2015 than it did in 2014.  There's been a number of good articles on digital nomads lately. The number of citations has accelerated since, with Google reporting more hits on this term this month (January 2015) than all of 2010.

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 22, 2015

The Ardent Partners chart below from the article shows survey data on this shift. According to the article, the big shift is away from traditional staffing firms and towards: Private Talent Pools. This source of talent is something that is already known to employers. Online labor marketplaces.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 31, 2015

But since I called them a "leading, global analyst firm" and pitch them again at the end of this article, I'm hoping they'll be OK with me "borrowing" a bit from their report. SIA estimates the total revenue for the Human Cloud industry in 2014 to be between $8.9 - $11.1 It's only available to their members.

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 24, 2014

.  The upper class has also taken a hit, dropping from 21% in 2008 to 15% in early 2014. The New York Times article The Middle Class is Steadily Eroding. The decline in the middle class has profound business impacts.  Instead, businesses are increasingly focusing on either high end consumers or those with limited incomes.

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Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 11, 2013

According to Tech Crunch, by 2014 250 million Apple smartphones and tablets will be capable of using iBeacon.  Key quote from their article: every iOS device since the iPhone 4s and iPad 3rd gen is already capable of being either an iBeacon  receiver  or  transmitter , as long as it’s properly configured.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 1, 2013

An alert reader sent me to the article  Market Trends Show the Power of Pet Humanization. They recently released their 2013 - 2014 U.S. It's from the research folks at Packaged Facts. They do studies on consumer markets, including pet spending. Pet Market Outlook.  According to the report, the U.S. over 2012.

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 27, 2011

" The media and entertainment section of the article focuses on the growing role of disintermediation and the growth of online advertising.  According to Gartner, a leading IT consulting firm, the combined market for cloud services such as SaaS is projected to top $20 billion by 2014, up from a little over $5 billion in 2009."

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 2, 2014

I can think of no better way to start 2014 than with a look at 2014 pet industry trends.  Multibrief's Pet Businesses Will Prosper: Industry trends for 2014 and beyond  provides such an outlook. This is the growing trend of people treating their pets as family members and more like humans instead of animals.

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 21, 2010

The article suggests this industry consolation will lead to "architectural mediocrity" and less innovation. .  mobile app sales alone at over $18 billion in 2014.    There are thousands of new, small "apps" companies  generating real revenue.    A recent forecast has U.S.

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 4, 2016

The Forbes article Financial Planner Takes Tough-Love Money Advice On The Road  reports on the first financial planning truck I've heard of.  From the NYT article: Ms. The use of trucks as mobile commerce platforms continues expand. Just in the last week the press have reported on two interesting examples.

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 23, 2017

million, up from 53 million in 2014. Justin Fox, in his Bloomberg View article  The Rise of the Not-Just-Freelancing Freelancer on the study, adds this non-Silicon Valley description of a diversified worker: someone who works part-time at Wal-Mart, babysits, and knits sweaters for sale.  This is the 4th year of this study.

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 26, 2015

The Economist article  Pharaonic creations covers the growing multi-level marketing industry and the various legal battles around whether or not they are illegal pyramid schemes.  According to the Direct Selling Association  (DSA), the industry's trade group, in 2014 these firms generated $34 billion in U.S.

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 8, 2018

  The peak recent year for job creation was 2014, when an average of 250,000 jobs were created each month. job growth comes from the Yahoo Finance article Challenge for Trump: Job Growth is Slowing. .  U.S. 2017 was also had the lowest U.S. job creation total since 2010.  The chart below on U.S.

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