Then We’ll Build Our Own
Feb 8th, 2010 | By Dawn Rivers Baker | Category: Policy MattersThere really is a reason why I fell in love with microbusinesses.
You can see that reason in the research I released last week, which I cover in this week’s newsletter.
Microbusinesses have transformed themselves from business tadpoles into game-changers.
You see, up until recently, small businesses have had to grow to a certain point so they could transform themselves operationally into something approximating a large firm in order to “fit in” to the U.S. economy.
That is why it is sometimes said, among us microbusiness advocate types, that a small business with 40 employees has a lot more in common with a “small business” that has 400 employees than it does with a small business that has 4 employees.
The 4-person business, the microbusiness, is just too small to even have the option of approximating something like a large business. So, it’s owner has two options: grow enough to “fit in” or thumb your nose at all that and figure out something else.
Over the last twenty years or so, increasing numbers of microbusinesses have chosen to explore what’s behind Door Number Two.
Since microbusinesses don’t fit into the mainstream economic infrastructure, you might expect them to fail a lot more often than they do. The fact that there are still more than 26 million of the alive and well in these United States suggests that microbusinesses must be developing a new economic infrastructure, one that works for them.
In fact, I know they are. I just can’t prove it. That evolving grassroots economic infrastructure is a matter for further research.
Eventually, somebody will look into it. Eventually, somebody will establish that the other economic infrastructure — the one for the rest of us — is there.
I might even do it myself.
The point is that, once what is there is established and becomes a subject for study and mapping and understanding, the politicians are going to have to stop talking about jobs, for at least a minute.
That’s because there are an awful lot of us … and we do things differently.
Hi Dawn — There’s actually a few local players that have studied the economic impact of microbusiness, but nothing on a larger regional or national scale (yet) that I’m aware of. One study that I specifically recall studied northeastern Massachusetts (particularly the seaboard communities), where independent fisherman make up a huge segment of the local economy. If I recall correctly, there’s an entrepreneurship center at one of the local colleges (Salem State, perhaps?) that was the force behind the study. If you’re interested, I’m sure I’ve got a copy and would be happy to forward it along for your reading pleasure… it really has some interesting findings.