There’s a growing number of startups and prospective entrepreneurs in today’s workforce. In fact, since about July 2020, the number of new applications for EIN (Entity Identification Number) for business purposes were the highest we’ve ever seen in this country for many years. A census.gov data report on year-over-year business applications show that from April 2020 to April 2021, there was a 108.5% increase in new business applications submitted (source). In just that period alone, we can see a very specific trend and impact. It’s pretty apparent what this trend may be a result of. U.S. Chamber illustrates just how much of an effect the COVID-19 pandemic actually had in the workforce, and the surge of new business creations during the periods of 2020 and 2021 particularly (source).
Even still, there’s reports you can read on the current growth or sustainment of businesses being created (or initialized, at least), established businesses and facilities losing out on workers (turn-over rates are interesting to study over), and other trends that don’t seem to be letting up or reversing at all, in the foreseeable future. This all being said, it’s a safe bet to make that you reading this; you either would like to branch away from your current employer and startup your own thing, you are anticipating and planning to do so currently, or you’ve already made the big leap, and have began making your dream reality. Wherever you may fall in categorization, with regard to the trends and reports on all the new businesses being created and people leaving their traditional jobs and roles, the chances of success are all dependent on these few factors:
- Your industry: the industry you are in, the market trends of that industry
- Demand: whether or not you’re actually solving a problem or mending a gap (simply called opportunity, in the business world), and your approach at solving that problem/mending that gap
- How, not what, you do: finally the viability or effectiveness of the resources and practical methods you incorporate for your professional or personal growth.
Let’s dig a little deeper into each of these factors.
The industry you are in
In order to see the most growth and success, you’re going to want to make sure you are in an industry and line of work that you first and foremost are proficient in and incredibly capable. A field you have years of experience in, possibly from all the time and effort spent with previous employers, for example. Branching away from that, and into your own thing would then make more sense; especially statically regarding entrepreneurial success.
Market trends & analysis
Further, is this industry promising? That question is probably more important than the first point. You’ll know your industry’s potential from when you conducted or begin to conduct your market analysis. For optimal growth and success, you’d want to be well informed on the industry of the business you are forming/running. You’d want to consume as much data as possible to equip yourself with higher levels of understanding and navigate through the business world in a finite, concentrated and confident manor.
The SBA suggests, in market research and competitive analysis, you should answer these 6 questions:
- Is there a desire for your product or service?
- How many people would be interested in your offering?
- Economic indicators: What is the income range and employment rate?
- Location: Where do your customers live and where can your business reach?
- Market saturation: How many similar options are already available to consumers?
- Pricing: What do potential customers pay for these alternatives?
The best way to analyze the general growth of the field of your business is analyzing occupation growth projection reports (here is a great resource to explore regarding growth projections). Employment growth in any field is a good indicator of demand.
Use this tool to look at the size of your industry and stats on potential customers you could have, or check out this resource for more help with conducting effective market analysis.
Using effective resources to reach your goals.
This last point can make or break many businesses, new or established. It is often said, it’s not what you do but how you do it. This is spoken often regarding those who have gone on to become exuberantly successfully in their fields or business/operations. Of course, of all the information you gather, none of it matters unless work is being done. Even with the sources of data you consume being credible and official, the resources you use to practically take you from point A to point B will be the difference in amount of success you accomplish.
If you’ve left the your job (or are planning to) in hopes of starting up something of your own that is remotely as successful as the very employer you have seperated from, your biggest obstical is not just having all the data you can obtain, or seeing how many customers you can acquire to get busy working, your immediate task is to do something truly differnt and offer something siginificantly more benefitcial to customers that your old boss or competitors in your industry has not or can not offer. That’s your ultimate focus. You want to team up with and incorporate resources and services that will help you with that ultimate focus.
Even in the new businesses report we discussed earlier, we can change the parameters to year-over-year for April 2021 to April 2022 and see that there has been a 13.6% decrease of new business being legitimately created. This is an indicator of slow-down in growth in that, while the U.S. isn’t seeing as low of an amount of entrepreneurs as years prior to the 2019 pandemic, we are seeing less that the height of the pandemic and lockdowns. So, as the country started to open up for businesses, people started to crawl back into work with established businesses. Another reprot shows that this period of entrepreneurial show-down was also when established businesses switched up their formatting and became adapting to the times and enabling telework, increased virtual services, decreasing overhead to sustain payrates and other adaptations; giving less of a reason for workers to leave and do their own thing.
You have probably also noticed these occurrences. In all, if you are under the impression entrepreneurship is for you, or you’ve already embarked on that journey, you want to be sure you are equip with all the right data but also connected to sources that help you reach your end goal ultimately, which of course is growing your business, gaining as much customers/clients as possible and attaining towards having leverage over the others in your line of work.
Conclusion
Ferguson Technical Solutions started up recently to help meet this requirement of the many new or growing entrepreneurs out there. It was a simple mission from the start; connect with startups and established businesses and facilitate the process of getting them to their goals as effective, efficient and focused as possible. Being that we are an IT and technical services company, our solutions come in the form of modern technology usage, development and support. From data analytics to web development and design. If the topics discussed in this article resonate with you or someone you know, begin with a free consultation from us and let’s accomplish goals, together!
Thank you for taking the time to read this analysis and discussion. We hope that there is something you can take away from this, even if it’s simply to be inspired in following your dreams and reaching your goals in business development.