What percentage of American households includes someone who has started, tried to start, or helped fund a small business? One percent, five, or even ten percent? Well guess again! Thirty-seven percent, more than one-third, of American households are involved with some form of entrepreneurship.[i] Entrepreneurs were once considered folks who couldn’t work in a big company because they were seen as business misfits, even a little disreputable.
Well, how things have changed! Many start-ups are now big companies who are dusting old, in-bred organizations. Small business Brand U’s morphed into entrepreneurs, the makers of companies, the adders of value, the employers of people, and the actualizers of dreams. They’re now our business icons. And women are starting businesses in ever-greater number, albeit sometimes for different reasons. Women launch businesses primarily for freedom and flexibility, not money.[ii]
[i] Hopkins, Michael, “The State of Small Business, 1997,” Inc. Magazine, June 1997, p. 11.
[ii] “Work Week,” Wall Street Journal, June 8, 1999, p. A1.