Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 23, 2021

The reasons we like it so much is the article's 8 insights for freelancers are all things we regularly hear in our interviews and survey research. .   One of our recent favorites is What they never tell you about becoming a freelance creative from Creative Boom.     The 8 are: You're running a business.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 1, 2020

For those who want to learn more, Harvard Business School's Future of Work project has an excellent podcast interview with the founders of Braintrust. Alternatives are always good, especially ones that are worker-friendly.

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 3, 2020

  It's based on extensive surveys and interviews across 33 countries and updates similar efforts conducted in 2013 and 2016.  The large, global market research firm Ipsos recently released its Global Trends 2020 study.    These are: Climate emergency and antagonism.

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Small Business Labs

MAY 5, 2020

   We're hearing two things in our interviews and conversations with older small business owners on this topic.   Because so many owners are near or past the traditional age, what this cohort decides will likely have a major impact on the recovery.     This group gave two reasons for this.

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 19, 2021

  Key quote: In a Zoom interview on Thursday with  Barron’s  from his office in Redwood City, Calif., .   In the Barron's article Poshmark CEO Sees Huge Market for Used Goods. Investors Agree  the firm's CEO described the trends driving their growth and opportunity. 

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 27, 2020

Key quote from his recent interview in the business travel magazine Skift : “A whole new generation will look for multi-month stays so they can work for a San Francisco company, for example, but engage in extended stays in other cities …”.   Airbnb’s CEO nicely sums up this trend.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 9, 2016

We didn't even have questions on the use of coaches in our interview guide. But while conducting in-depth interviews with 26 successful small business owners, we kept hearing about business coaches. And when we went through the interview transcripts, we found almost all had mentioned using business coaches.

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Small Business Labs

JULY 31, 2019

The video below is a TV interview with the founders. Joshin's founders are twin sisters who have a special needs brother.    So they understand the challenges facing families who need this type of assistance. It does an excellent job of describing the service.   

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 24, 2018

  But based on interviews, the answers would have been the same if we asked the respondents to look out a decade or more.  .  This survey, which is part of a broader deep dive on how automation technology is impacting small businesses, only asked the respondents to look out 5 years. 

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 5, 2015

I did an interview  with the folks at Zen99 last week.    They also offer advice through online guides at Zen99 University , which is where the interview appeared. The interview covered a lot of ground related to the growing freelance economy. .   Click here to read the full interview.

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Small Business Labs

JULY 15, 2019

  The Washington Post also has an excellent podcast interview with the article's author.  In response to financial shocks like these, a growing number of people turn to gig work to generate extra income.    We cover this topic in more detail in our Economic Uncertainty section. 

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Small Business Labs

FEBRUARY 6, 2018

We also reviewed our coworking interviews and found many references to coworking reducing the social isolation of independent and remote workers. The most common comment of this type is "it's so nice being around people"   This, by the way, is also what we hear from people who work in coffee shops.

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Small Business Labs

NOVEMBER 15, 2018

The research was based on digging through the data at the knitting community site Ravely.com,  which is known as the "Facebook for knitters" Key quote from a Washington Post article on the study : analyzed almost 100 interviews and 403,168 profiles of knitters and crocheters.

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Small Business Labs

DECEMBER 6, 2012

As part of this project, Emergent Research conducted in-person interviews with 272 food truck customers. The team also interviewed 27 food truck owners or managers in person, by email or on the phone. All of these interviews were conducted in San Francisco or nearby suburbs. 

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 4, 2016

NPR Marketplace has an interesting interview with the president of Ikea about their research on the American Dream. It echos the idea of peak stuff.    Their work shows that Americans care more about experiences and what they call "small dreams" than they do stuff.

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 14, 2017

These two lists almost completely overlap, with the obvious exception being "greater stability and job security"   Given these lists, it's not surprising that the self-employed consistently tell us in interviews they are trading job security in exchange for greater work autonomy, control and flexibility. 

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 22, 2019

Based on our digital nomad interviews, the vast majority of job holding digital nomads have been allowed to do this outside of any official corporate policy.  .  According to the findings of the 2019 MBO Partners digital nomad study , there are about 7.3 million American digital nomads. Of these, about 3.1

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Small Business Labs

JULY 22, 2014

Upon reflection - and with the help of a few follow-up interviews - we realized this makes perfectly good sense.  Follow-up interviews led to an interesting explanation.    The folks we interviewed explained that networking has replaced sales and marketing as their key source of work.

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Small Business Labs

MARCH 24, 2015

Follow-up interviews confirmed this with many of the interviewees saying they weren't getting training from their primary employer and felt they needed to do side jobs to learn the skills required for career advancement. But out interviews from a decade ago shows a much smaller percentage of side giggers citing this reason.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 8, 2017

It includes an interview with Thomas Friedman, who also authored one of the future work articles. .  Deloitte released a lot of material and it's all well worth reading. But those not interested in wading through it all, their Navigating the Future of Work podcast provides an excellent overview and summary.

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 1, 2015

But as HBR's  excellent interview  with Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee - faculty members at the MIT Sloan School of Management - describes, starting around 2000 the growth in labor productivity "decoupled" from job and wage growth. These 4 factors used to move more or less in unison.

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Small Business Labs

JULY 25, 2016

  The study consisted of a survey of over 400 small business owners coupled with a set of 26 in-depth interviews with "successful" business owners.   Most do want to grow - 76% of those surveyed and 71% of those interviewed reported having a growth goal - and almost all (over 90%) have explicit financial targets. 

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 4, 2012

.   Our research approach is to conduct a series of structured, survey interviews with a representative number of San Francisco based food trucks.  We will do these interviews in person, over the phone and via email, depending on the availability and choice of the food truck owners/managers.

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Small Business Labs

JULY 30, 2015

We did that based on our interviews with independent workers. Fusion's There are probably way more people in the 'gig economy' than we realize covers a major shift in thinking about how many people in the U.S. This led to about a 4X increase in the number of survey respondents reporting multiple sources of income.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 20, 2014

Our workforce surveys and interviews have shown a clear increase in the number of on-call workers over the past 5 years. In interviews they self-describe as independent workers who move from gig to gig. People working on-call and on fixed term contracts are mostly counted as traditional employees in government statistics.

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 9, 2015

We've interviewed dozens of people who haven't taken these courses and the vast majority report being highly satisfied. And the reason is almost everyone we've interviewed found a job in their field of study and many had multiple job offers. Because of this, they work hard on job placement.

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Small Business Labs

NOVEMBER 1, 2016

  The study is based on a survey and series of interviews with mostly HR and procurement professionals at large corporations.  Ardent Partners recently released their 2016-2017 State of Contingent Workforce Management report. 

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 9, 2013

  To better understand this age group, as part of the MBO Partners State of Independence study we surveyed and interviewed a group of independent workers (self-employed, independent consultants, freelancers, etc.)   Our interviews with Matures provide some more details. aged 67 and older.

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 30, 2018

  In fact, in the interview below she says: “I hate it. While the FIRE movement is definitely gaining momentum, it's not without it's critics. Famed personal fiance guru Suze Orman, for example, doesn't like it.  I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.”.

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Small Business Labs

APRIL 27, 2015

  According to an interview with Godin on the Gaping Void blog , here's reason he's done this course: This is the golden age for freelancers. The class is available on Udemy at a cost of $57. More opportunities, more tools, more leverage than ever before.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

In interviews people like this consistently tell us they are happy to trade off the benefits of a traditional job (predictable income, benefits, higher pay, etc.) " In other words, independent workers with autonomy and control are highly satisfied and like their work. to experience the autonomy and control independence provides.

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Small Business Labs

JANUARY 22, 2013

One of the interesting things we found interviewing Big Data experts is how they define Big Data. Because of these interviews we're thinking differently about Big Data.  The "Big" in Big Data is situational - what's big to one firm or person may be very small to another.

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Small Business Labs

SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

The Observer's When It Comes to Age Bias, Tech Companies Don’t Even Bother to Lie  covers how one tech company's CEO talked about not hiring older people in a New York Times interview.

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Small Business Labs

AUGUST 28, 2012

  We've interviewed a lot of food truck owners and prospective owners.   Visit the Dummies site for video interviews with Richard and highlights from the book. Our research on food trucks show almost all food trucks use social media and most owners consider it their main way to reach customers and prospects.

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Small Business Labs

JULY 8, 2014

Freelancers consistently tell us in interviews they are willing to trade income and security for the autonomy, control and flexibility freelancing provides. The .  Freelancers Plan on Staying Freelancers. Nearly 9 in 10 independent workers (88%) reported they would keep freelancing even if they were offered a full-time job.

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Small Business Labs

OCTOBER 2, 2014

 Key quote from an interview with him in the Wall Street Journal : "I think that Silicon Valley as a whole, or that the venture-capital community or startup community, is taking on an excessive amount of risk right now—unprecedented since '99," said Bill Gurley, a partner at Benchmark, referring to the last tech bubble.

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Small Business Labs

JUNE 2, 2011

" We often hear in interviews with freelancers that they consider their jobs more secure than if they had a traditional job.  Our anecdotal, interview-based evidence is about 1/3rd of freelancers love freelancing, about 1/3rd would rather work full-time for someone else and about 1/3rd aren't sure which is better.

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