The State of Entrepreneurship in 2022: Identifying Trends and New Opportunities
Entrepreneurship is on the rise in 2022! The Coronavirus pandemic has sparked a significant shift in the workforce resulting in a ‘Great Resignation’ which has contributed towards an entrepreneurial renaissance.
As someone who has always been interested in entrepreneurship, I found it very interesting that entrepreneurship has been on the decline in the United States for close to four decades. However, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, new business applications grew by 24% between 2019 and 2020. I’m sure that there are many factors that have caused this, but the COVID-19 pandemic was likely the most significant catalyst to this change. Many people were laid off due to their place of work not having the demand to support thier position or the business may have closed its doors permanently. There were also many people who left the workforce to retire, pursue education in some capacity, spend more time with family, take a career sabbatical or pursue other interests. Many of these people started their own businesses, which I think is incredible! The freelance economy has been developing over the course of many years to the point where entrepreneurship is more feasible than it was in the past and many resources and are available for prospective entrepreneurs. With their being no shortage of resources and information, the time for an entrepreneurial renaissance has arrived and I predict that this trend will continue.
One way that I see this continuing to develop is an increase of contract ‘freelance’ workers that will work with companies on either a temporary or agency-based arrangement (as opposed to being directly employed with them), which will create some flexibility that a lot of traditional workers may not have and also allow the contract workers to take on as many clients as they see fit, therefore creating their own independent businesses by offering their specialized services to companies in need. With the rise of platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr and Thumbtack, the access to this marketplace is larger then ever before and I foresee this continuing well into the future.
LinkedIn News recently conducted a detailed study on the state of modern entrepreneurship and gathered some data to illustrate the transformation in the industry. A few interesting trends that were highlighted in the report include an increase in women-founded businesses (27% increase in 2019 year-over-year as well as in 2020), a relatively diverse mix of educational backgrounds for entrepreneurs (with around 40% of founders holding a Master’s degree or above) and a sharp increase in entrepreneurship in many smaller market cities.
As a Pennsylvania native and a resident of the Greater Philadelphia area, I was proud to see Philadelphia listed as a growth market for real estate, manufacturing and finance. It was also noted as a top city for women-founded businesses in the entertainment industry. Philadelphia is the 6th largest domestic market by population and 4th largest media market in the United States.
“Philadelphia is a big community that has a growing and robust base of entrepreneurs, as well as capital sources in multiple industries,” according to PACT CEO Dean Miller. It’s a very encouraging sign as Philadelphia has recently placed 6th in the United States in terms of venture capital deals.
In closing, I would like share a quote from Peter Drucker, a management consultant, educator and author who is credited with creating many modern philosophical and practical business principles.
“Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It’s a practice.” ~ Peter Drucker
What does this mean to you?
My perspective on the quote is that entrepreneurship is unique to everyone. Their is no exact formula for success in business or in creating a new organization. We all create new things in different and unique ways. The processes that we use to concept new ideas and put them into action is a practice.
If you have any questions or comments on the information mentioned in the article, feel free to reach out to Andrew C. Belton via email at info@symmetricalmm.com
Written by: Andrew C. Belton, MBA
Find this topic interesting? I also wrote about The Outlook of the transforming Job Market and wrote about a recent trend as Only 50% of the college Class of 2020 had traditional full-time jobs 6 months after graduation.
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