: tools & methods for small businesses

The entrepreneurial landscape is about to experience tectonic shifts.  

This is important to all of us because, quite simply, it means there will be more businesses started, there will be more sold, and in order for both these to happen, financial and technological tools and infrastructure will grow. 

Three reasons.

Boomers:  In the United States, individuals aged 55 to 64 start small businesses at the highest rate of any age group.  At the moment, Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) represent 25% of the US population.  (that percentage is higher in Europe, significantly higher in Japan, and lower in developing countries). This group, driven by their interests, their financial needs, and their long-standing interest in social goals, will fuel business creation for the next 10 to 15 years.

Digital Natives-Generation Y:  This group, currently between 5-and-20 years old, has all the makings of a phenomenally business oriented group.. These are the people who’ve grown up with a thoroughly digital technology backdrop.  ‘best guess is that this perspective will give them a unique approach to information, society and the workplace.  While its too early to be certain about this slice of our population, there’s already evidence they could become a generation of serial entrepreneurs – wary of big organizations and linear career patterns, and entirely comfortable with serial failures before coming up with business formulas that work.  

Women:  Women – 46% of the 2007 US labor force – are currently under represented at the highest levels of management and while progress has been made in the last decade, shrinking that gender gap is taking a long, long time.  Entrepreneurship offers an alternative to women with corporate experience, savvy, and ambition. And the good news is that women tend to be more likely to succeed in starting a new businesses than men.  Look for Boomer Women to become a driving force in new company formation.

The ‘so what’ question comes back to us.  And the answer is that these are the people who will be forming –and buying — companies.  They’ll be the people who will sell what they’ve just created as they move on to their next challenge. 

For all of us involved with the world of companies changing hands, these are the people and opportunities for our future.