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Operating a Small, Sustainable Business: Resources for Ecopreneurs

Posted: admin on Aug 15 | Green Tech

Of the nearly 26 million business firms in the US, about 97 percent have fewer than 20 employees according to the US Small Business Administration. These small businesses account for about half of the non-farm Domestic National Product, or GDP (not that my wife and I agree that this is the best way to measure prosperity and well-being), and generated 60 to 80 percent of the net new jobs over the past decade. While big businesses fired, laid off, downsized and outsourced jobs, in part, to squeeze more profits for shareholders, small businesses added employment.

Entrepreneurial trends are difficult to track and ecopreneurial enterprises even more so. The US Small Business Administration estimates that there are about 4.5 million small businesses with 9 or fewer employees. About three-quarters of all business firms have no employee payroll at all because they’re set up as self-employed persons operating unincorporated businesses. According to the Association for Enterprise Opportunity (microenterpriseworks.org), there are more than 23 million microenterprises (a business with five or fewer employees) in the US, representing 18 percent of all private employment and 87 percent of all businesses. You might be among the 15 million full-time or part-time small office/home office entrepreneurs, or SOHOs, like my wife and I with our diversified small enterprise.

Identified by Dan Pink in Free Agent Nation, there are about 33 million free agents in America. These “job-hopping, tech-savvy, fulfillment seeking, self-reliant, independent” workers represent about 16.5 million soloists, 3.5 million temporary workers (temps) and 13 million microbusinesses that include construction contractors, real estate agents, nannies, direct sales ventures (e.g., Shaklee, shaklee.com), services subcontractors and accountants. Operating as a microbusiness, or what Pink refers to as a “nanocorp” with three employees or less, is both a personal preference and competitive advantage, allowing the owners to downsize to provide incredible adaptability, innovation and creativity. Our sub-chapter S Corporation is a nanocorp committed to ecological restoration and social change while turning a modest profit.