Small Business Labs

Business Week on the Local Food Movement

BusinessWeek's excellent article Entrepreneurs Keep the Local Food Movement Hot covers the growing trend towards local food.  Key quote:

"Just as consumers focus new attention on what we eat and where it comes from, farmers, foodmakers, restaurateurs, retailers, distributors, and processors are rethinking the business models behind it."

As a former Kansas farm boy and current suburban farmer, this is one of my favorite trends.  We cover it often in our Small Farms category. 

Part of a broader new localism trend, consumers are increasingly looking to goods and services produced locally with local food being a major interest category. 

Local food has become so trendy that according to New York Magazine local farmers are becoming cult heroes and "New Yorkers are beginning to fetishize farmers the way we once did chefs."  Fetishize farmers???

The article references Community Food Enterprise, a good source of information on the local food movement. 

Tablet Computing Trends - Lessons from OLPC

The rumor mill is abuzz about Apple releasing a tablet PC early next year. 

But I'm more excited about One-Laptop-Per-Child's (OLPC) planned release of a tablet in 2012. 

For those not familiar with OLPC, it is a non-profit founded years ago with the goal of creating a laptop computer that would be cheap and rugged enough to supply to millions of children in the developing world.

OLPC is not well known, but I consider them one of the most important technology companies of the last decade. 

I say this because their impact on the computer industry has been enormous.  OLPC effectively invented the netbook PC category and their relentless focus on costs spurred Intel and others to create cheaper PC componentry, laptops and desktops. 

Their design focus - very low costs, ease of use, portability, ruggedness and connectivity - has led to breakthrough ideas and designs that have been quickly copied by the rest of the computer industry. 

And along the way, millions of children who would not have had access to computers and the Internet have it due to OLPC.  Not bad for a small, under-funded non-profit. 

Their new tablet will be made of a single sheet of flexible plastic that will be unbreakable.  The hook on the corner will be used for carrying the PC and the price goal is less than $100.  Low cost components mean less power than a full sized PC, but plenty of juice for almost all PC users. 

Expect to see variations of this design from a variety of computer manufacturers over the next couple of years. 

The NY TImes on One-of-Kind Gifts

The New York Times article On the Web, Workshops to Create One-of-a-Kind Gifts covers the many sites that allow consumers to customize and personalize products.  Key quote:

"Easy customization of so many products is possible because technological advances on the Web and in digital printing have made it possible to create one-off items for much less money than it used to take."

The article reports that the customization sites report sizzling sales this holiday season. 

Home-based Mobile Phone Repair Illustrates Mulitple Trends

I got an interesting comment on our Top 10 Homepreneur Trends for 2010 list.  It is from a company called Intelligy.  I don't know anything about the company beyond what is in the comment, which says they make training materials that teach people how to repair mobile phones. 

I'm fascinated by the company because it illustrates at least 5 different small business trends:

1.  The trend towards home-based businesses (they evidently sell to home-based businesses).

2.  The trend towards mobile computing

3.  The trend towards corporations outsourcing and using contractors or other 3rd parties for non-core operations.  Key quote on this trend from the comment, which explains why their business is successful:

"The reason it seems is that the large corporation controlled mobile phone repair offices have been downsized or simply closed to to cost cutting."

4.  The trend towards just-in-time, distributed training.  The Internet and video technology is fundamentally changing how training and education is done.  Formal classes are no longer required and students can now study what they want, when they want or need it.

5.  The globalization of small business:  Intelligy is UK based and their business is global.

Top Homepreneur Trends for 2010

Our list of the Top 10 Homepreneur Trends for 2010 is posted at Small Business Trends.  They are compiling 2010 trends lists on a number of small business topics, so be sure to check back often at Small Business Trends over the next few weeks.  Their annual trends list round-up has a lot of great information.

The quick summary on the growth of home-based businesses is: (1) they are fueled by technology, (2) enabled by low costs and (3) created due to a need or desire to run a business. 

The top 2010 top 10 homepreneur trends all reflect one of these three broader drivers.  Technologies like cloud and mobile computing continue to improve home business capabilities, while also cutting the costs of operating from home. 

Social trends around aging baby boomers and greater interest in work/life balance are increasing the number of people interested in home businesses.  And the economy, of course, is forcing some to create home businesses. 

The shift towards home-based businesses is a long term trend that we are forecasting to accelerate in the coming decade. 

For more on home-based businesses and homepreneurs, see our research report Homepreneurs: A Vital Economic Force and the broader information on small and home-based businesses contained in the Network Solutions Small Business Success Index.

Also see the Intuit Future of Small Business forecast research brief Today's Hobbyists are Tomorrow's Hobbypreneurs for another angle on the trends driving the growth of home businesses.   

The Growing Power of Social Data

Mint, the personal finance company recently acquired by Intuit, released data showing that selected retailers had strong black friday sales. 

The data comes from Mint users.  Mint is an online personal finance tool used by over 2 million people to help manage their finances.  Mint aggregates user spending data to create indices - in this case showing black friday sales versus last year for a group of major retailers including Best Buy, Sears, Target and others.

This is an excellent example of social data, which is actual information or data aggregated from a large number of sources.  With the growth of the Internet and cloud computing (also called software as a service), there are a steadily increasing number of large databases that contain actual data on a wide variety of topics.

Most social data is collected by aggregating customer data.  WalMart, for example, is famous for their vast point of sale and inventory databases.  Their data is so comprehensive that the US Center for Disease Control monitors use their sales data on health products to help identify potential epidemics and other health problems.

Other firms that make extensive use of social data and data mining include American Express, Safeway, airlines, banks, insurance companies and many others. 

Most of these companies keep their social data to themselves. Social data often creates substantial competitive advantage.  Just ask WalMart's competitors and suppliers. 

But increasingly firms are releasing social data to partners, customers and the public.  Mint, for example, allows its users to compare their spending patterns with others.  This is a valuable benefit for their customers. 

With more and more online data being created and stored, the amount of social data and social data applications will continue to rapidly grow.  With it comes a wide range of privacy issues and concerns - especially when data is collected and aggregated from multiple sources.  But we save those issues for another time.  

Disclosure:  Emergent Research has done work for Intuit over the past year.

Space - The Final Small Business Frontier

Two recent and interesting articles about the commercialization of space.  Popular Science's cover story for January is on the emerging private space industry.  The article focuses on private companies building alternatives to the NASA space shuttle. 

For those not following the private spaceship market, it's getting close to reality.  Over the next couple of years Virgin Galactic and others will be offering trips to space (around 380,000 feet up) for around $200,000 per trip.  Virgin's ship is shown below. 

   
  
A bit further out is the space elevator.  CNN/Money has an article on entrepreneurs and others trying to build this device.  Long a staple of science fiction, the space elevator appeared in the latest Star Trek movie.  Young Kirk and Sulu fight bad guys on top of a moving space elevator. 

The science behind the space elevator is real.  All it takes is:

1. A large counter weight in geosynchronous orbit
2. A tether line made of carbon nanotubes stretching from space to the ground
3. A freight car propelled by a laser beam
4. A location where no one would mind if this thing fell on them

OK, there are a few technical hurdles and land use issues to overcome before the space elevator is commercially available.  The industry says a space elevator could be built by 2020, but my guess is it will be much longer - maybe 2040, or 2050, or Star Date 2443. 

So if you are in a hurry to get to space, sign up for the rocket ship ride. 

Both articles talk about small businesses pursuing space-based opportunities.  It is interesting to see that even when the odds are enormously stacked against an idea, there are still entrepreneurs willing to take the chance. 

Great Essay on New Localism Movement

As part of the background research for our Hobbypreneur report, I revisited an essay on the new localism movement written last year by Chapman University Presidential Fellow Joel Kotkin.

It is one of my favorite descriptions of the new localism movement - a broad movement that includes many of the Makers and Hobbypreneurs we discuss in our report.  Key quote on the role technology is playing in this movement:

"The final factor driving the localist trend is technology, which has led to a rapid expansion of home-based work and to companies' setting up work locations closer to where their employees live. The number of home-based workers has doubled twice as quickly in this decade as in the last and is now about 9 million. Nationwide, 13 million people telecommuted at least one day a week in 2007, a 16 percent leap from 2004. And more than 22 million people run home-based businesses."

The essay is well worth reading as the New Geography website it posted on.  New Geography covers a lot of trends and issues of importance to small business, but does so from an urban planning/geography perspective. 

The New DIY Movement Creating Hobbypreneurs

The new Intuit Future of Small Business research brief Today's Hobbyists are Tomorrow's Hobbypreneurs describes the growing trend towards passion-driven hobbyists starting small businesses. 

 

***Update:  click here to go to Intuit's post on the report***

 

Stemming from the new do-it-yourself (DIY) movement and enabled by technology, hobbypreneurs are turning their passions into businesses.  They are also creating new and innovative products, services, methods and business models. 

 

The new do-it-yourself movement is comprised of builders, crafters, digital tinkerers, green advocates and others looking to create alternatives to mass-produced goods.   Make Magazine coined the term "Makers" to describe this group.   

 

Unlike earlier DIY movements focused on home improvement and fixing things, Makers are about inventing and making things.  Their techniques often cleverly combine traditional methods with digital technology and tools. 

 

They are also highly entrepreneurial, with many starting part and full-time businesses based on their hobby. 

 

The research brief describes the key trends driving the growth of hobbypreneurs: 

 

1.    It is easier and cheaper to make things.

2.    It is easier and cheaper to start and run a niche business.

3.    Online social networks and Web sites enable small business makers.

4.    The down economy is driving up the need for part-time and niche businesses.

5.    Baby boomers are turning to hobby-based small businesses.

6.    Growing interest in sustainability and unusual products spurs demand for customized goods.

 

For more on hobbypreneurs and to download the report, click here. 

 

Emergent Research co-authored this report.

Boomers and Technology

Good report on Boomers and technology from Microsoft and AARP.  They teamed up to do a series of focus groups with baby boomers across the US.

Some of their insights include:

• boomers like online dating
• over half use online banking
• boomers are 98% more likely to visit a health website
• the Internet is a great tool for charitable research and contributions
• boomers are the fastest growing group on Facebook

The report ends with a series of projections on how boomer lives will be impacted by technology in 2019. 

The report is quite interesting and well written, but is also 29 dense pages of block text with no graphics, charts, pictures or summary.  It is worth wading through if you are interested in boomers.  If you are mostly interested in the forecast, skip to page 26.