Is The 518 Small Business Boom Legit?

With the social media boom there has also emerged a group of individuals throwing their collective hats in the ring as prospectus small business owners. This is not just happening in the 518, in fact it's happening all over the United States. Social media gives ordinary people like you and I the ability to promote ourselves and products to prospective clients in numbers that were ordinarily reserved for marketers with million dollar budgets. Thanks in no small part to the Covid-19 pandemic, malls are all but gone and shopping as we used to know it is all but memories of a not so distant past. Enter small online businesses.

The idea of small online businesses is perfectly suited for aspiring business owners with very little startup capital and no real experience running or managing a business. The process for starting a business has become so simplified that almost anyone can do it. Due to the fact the retail/commercial space does not have to be a consideration, A business can be up and running in a matter of days. Advertising budgets are being circumvented because of the shear power of social media. Inventory can be kept right in the home or (thanks to drop shipping) not at all. This system is perfectly suited for new business volume, but equally set up for new business failure.

The success of any small business venture is directly correlated to several basic business truths that don't necessarily exist because of the ease of starting a business in 2020. These new business owners often time lack business knowledge, business etiquette, knowledge of the industry they are entering, knowledge of customer service, understanding of industry trends and a viable blueprint to success also known as a business plan. Without a understanding of these basic business truths most of these new business ventures are destined to fail. Let me caution you, the word fail here should not be understood to mean finality. The difference in failing in this climate, is that a failure doesn't cost you your name (as in bad credit), your savings, or even a huge embarrassment. Simply put, because of low a low initial investment (monetarily and other) one will not find it challenging at all to simply rebrand and start again. This is what creates the double edged sword.

This weird corona virus economy has decimated what can only be described as traditional brick and mortar shops. So that void in the economy has been filled with a record number of startup filings all over America. This boom in self startups has a major downside and structural flaw that cannot be overlooked. A boom in startups doesn't necessarily mean it's a boom in quality startups. Traditionally when a person looked to start a new business because of the amount of capital involved, time investment, and hoop jumping that had to get done, planning and execution was not overlooked. In most situations there was a premium on customer satisfaction because with the amount of investment put out a customer could not afford to be dissatisfied. Fast forward to a covid-19 economy and little to no investment could mean little to no customer service or focus on good customer relations. I'm not saying that you will have a bad experience with all of these small new startups but what I am saying is buyer beware.

Still there exist another side of this coin. This low monetary investment startup boom doesn't have to mean no "sweat equity". Low monetary investment also allows for some hungry talented individuals to enter the market. Some may lack the business knowledge but be fast and proficient learners. Others work ethic can overcome lack of business knowledge. Still others may learn from their previous failures and because of low monetary start up cost be able to take another swing at the plate with better knowledge from their last failure. I think we can comfortably say this is definitely a mixed bag.

So is this small business boom legit? I think I can comfortably say it is, but with a few caveats. Yes there are some pretenders out there. They lack the drive, knowledge or perseverance to thrive working for themselves. After all owning and running your own business is probably the best indicator that exists for the notion of getting paid what your worth. Then there are those that are presented with the opportunity to showcase that inner fortitude and character that a covid-19 climate has provided to absolutely knock it out the park. Those are the ones to keep your eye on because there are no shortage of dead Facebook business pages that blaze a path right back to the pretenders.