Expert insights. Personalized for you.
But 4 years later, coops haven't made a dent in the online talent marketplace industry. Freelance gig economy industry structure Small Business EconomyBraintrust is a new entrant in the online talent marketplace space, but with a twist. MORE
TrueBridge Capital Partners recently released a report on the State of the Venture Capital Industry. The large funds are able to do this because they are garnering a larger share of industry assets. The venture capital industry has been going through a lot of change over the past decade. We've reported on it's problems in the past , but as this data shows the industry is still healthy. MORE
The industry is also growing rapidly, with industry revenues expected to exceed $1 billion by 2022. The report The Rise of the Expert Economy is a interesting look at what it calls a "little-known, high-growth sector, made up of networks that connect experts with companies that need them." " The firms in this sector, such as GLG (Gerson Lehrman Group), Guidepoint and Third Bridge, are surprising large. MORE
Two companies that connect artisan makers with retailers and customers announced large funding rounds last week. The wholesale marketplace Faire raised $100 million while the wholesale and licensing business Minted said they raised $208 million. Both firms connect retailers, who are often small independents, with small and solopreneur maker businesses. Faire reports having "15,000 stores actively buying on the platform?—?more MORE
As industry analysts we are very interested in new and innovative business models and practices in our industry. There are several worth noting: Industry Analyst/Journalism Hybrid : These are firms that are augmenting or replacing their traditional advertising based business models by adding industry analysis and/or research services. It will be interesting to see how this industry evolves. Business Models industry structure MORE
In fact, there are ecosystem companies in almost every industry and most have SMBs and independent workers as important ecosystem partners. The rise of ecosystem companies is one of the drivers behind the shift to barbell industry structures. MORE
The industry with the highest number of applications in April was retail trade, with 96,000 applications. This same shift to solopreneur firm applications is occurring in most industries. Freelance gig economy Independent workers industry structure trends MORE
Key quote: The industry has come a long way since it first took off in the early 2000s. We agree that the term "coworking" is too limiting for what's going in the commercial office space industry. Firms like Industrious, WeWork, Serendipity Labs and many others no longer just provide workspaces where people work alone together. This is part of a much broader trend - the servitization of products - that's impacting most industries. MORE
Business Models Freelance gig economy Independent workers industry structureLast week MBO Partners released their annual future of work predictions for the coming year. MORE
That both Upwork and Fiverr have reached the size and scale to go public shows the maturation and growing importance of the online talent marketplace industry. The online freelance talent marketplace Upwork filed last week to go public. According to the filing, Upwork has 375,000 registered freelancers and 475,000 client businesses located across 180 countries. The company reported sales of $164.4 million in 2016 and $202.6 MORE
The 3D printing industry is at an interesting point, with both good and bad news coming out on a regular basis. But even as it slumps a bit, there's still a lot enthusiasm around the 3D printing industry and no change in the view 3D will eventually fundamentally change how things are made. The question has been when will it finally enter mainstream use for industrial applications. MORE
Based on these numbers, the meetings industry contribution to U.S. GDP is greater than the motion picture/recording industry ($113B), performing arts/spectator sports/museums ($87B) and information and data processing services ($80B). According to a report by the "Big 4" accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), in 2012there were "1.83 MORE
The RV Industry Assn. Cabana rents custom-built Ford Transit vans that include beds, storage, bathrooms, and Internet access. Their tagline is "a hotel that travels with you" They're hoping to tap into the large and growing number of #Vanlifers. MORE
These include: The Stem : a ‘networked consulting’ model that draws on the industry’s leading independent talent to help health companies increase customer/patient engagement. The gig economy continues to spread rapidly and is becoming a key talent source for many industries. MORE
Last week the Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) released The Human Cloud, the Gig Economy & the Transformation of Work. It nicely covers the topics mentioned in the report title. Key quote from the report on the size of the "human cloud": "SIA estimates that total human cloud spending reached between $47 and $51 billion globally in 2016. MORE
This means few, if any, industries won't become part of the on-demand economy. The On-Demand Economy is commonly defined as the economic activity created by online marketplaces that fulfill customer demand via the provisioning of goods and services immediately or much faster and/or easier than traditional firms. Uber, Lyft and ridesharing services are often cited as examples. But Amazon is in many ways a better example. MORE
But despite WeWork's woes, the coworking industry is doing just fine. As we pointed out a few months ago, the coworking industry continues to surge and WeWork's problems won't change this. Having said all that, WeWork's problems will impact the coworking industry. In the short run, there will be a lot of negative press and coworking's naysayers (and there are quite a few) will suggest the industry is not sustainable. MORE
The Ideas Industry is an interesting look at how the marketplace for ideas is shifting due to the emergence of for-profit think tanks and ideas entrepreneurs. The book reaches no firm conclusions whether or not the evolution of the ideas industry and the rise of for-profits is good or bad. " Missing from the book is coverage of the role thought leadership is playing in the rapidly growing content marketing industry. MORE
And, of course, the coworking industry was built on the idea that people need 3rd places to work. The pandemic has accelerated many work trends. But the dramatic and rapid shift to remote work has probably been the most potent trend impacting the way businesses operate. MORE
Paid Content has an interesting article on media becoming a barbell industry. Barbell industry structures consist of a relatively few giant corporations on one end, a narrow middle consisting of a shrinking number of mid-sized firms, and a large and growing number of small, micro and one person (solopreneur) firms on the other end. We've looked at dozens of industries and all have this structure or are moving to it. industry structure MORE
This year’s report also includes 21 exclusive predictions from leading experts across industries to mark 2021. The 2021 edition of the annual Wunderman Thompson Future 100 report was released last year. It's one of our favorite trend reports. MORE
This makes direct selling a relatively bright sector of the retail industry. A couple of other interesting data points on the direct selling industry are women make up 77% of sellers and wellness products are driving the growth of the industry (see chart below; click to enlarge). According to the Direct Selling Association (DSA), about 20.2 million Americans are involved in direct selling the U.S. This is up from 15.8 million in 2010. MORE
I can think of no better way to start 2014 than with a look at 2014 pet industry trends. Multibrief's Pet Businesses Will Prosper: Industry trends for 2014 and beyond provides such an outlook. According to the article, the pet industry is forecast to continue to grow driven in large part by the pet humanization trend. The pet industry is mostly made of small businesses. MORE
In response to this problem a rapidly growing industry focused on providing skills training and job placement has emerged. Expect to see this industry continue to expand in the coming years. The current employment picture is quite interesting. The official statistics say we've got a great jobs market. MORE
Industrial giant GE has been pushing the idea of the Industrial Internet, including publishing a detailed white paper on the concept. GE's definition of the Industrial Internet is primarily focused on big machines like aircraft engines and power generators. The concepts and ideas behind the Industrial Internet are not new. This is a larger scale variation on the concept of the Internet of Things , first coined back in the late 1990s. MORE
Regular readers know the pet humanization trend is driving the growth of the pet industry. See our Pet Trends section for more pet humanization and the pet foods industry. spending on pets reached nearly $100 billion in 2020, up from $95.7 MORE
The K-shape is driven, in part, because industries that employ high percentages of low and moderate wage jobs are not recovering as quickly as other industries. Unfortunately for the small business sector, it over indexes in industries that are not recovering quickly. MORE
Vertical IQ is a leading provider of Industry Intelligence for those advising small- and medium-sized businesses such as bankers, accountants, and other SMB advisors. The chart below shows their high-level industry sector coverage. MORE
Federal Statistical Needs for a National Advanced Industry and Technology Strategy is a report from the D.C. Sometimes we post articles on topics few people are interested in. This is such an article. But you should be interested because the economic and labor data collected by government agencies no longer provide the information we need to properly understand and manage the U.S. economy. MORE
Deloitte University's Industrialized Crowdsourcing is one of the best, relatively short descriptions of crowdsourcing I've read. The key quote is the summary: Enterprise adoption of the power of the crowd allows specialized skills to be dynamically sourced from anyone, anywhere, and only as needed. Companies can use the collective knowledge of the masses to help with tasks from data entry and coding to advanced analytics and product development. MORE
Government Policy industry structure Small Business Economy Web/TechThe Hamilton Project essay The Nature of Work after the COVID Crisis: Too Few Low-Wage Jobs is authored by MIT economists David Autor and Elisabeth Reynolds. MORE
The coworking industry is getting more competitive. According to Frank Cottle, chairman of Alliance Business Centers, "WeWork is nothing but Regus with a paint job" He is also quoted saying it's $20 billion valuation "makes no sense" Regardless of what you think about WeWork or its valuation, it's clear they're having a competitive impact on the coworking industry. The coworking industry is attracting a range of new entrants. MORE
It's targeted at the travel industry and how it can better support the needs of digital nomads. Platform Professional's Platforms and Digital Nomads covers online platforms supporting digital nomads. MORE
YOLO is an acronym for "you only live once", which was popularized by the rapper Drake a decade ago. We learned this interesting fact from the New York Times article Welcome to the YOLO Economy. MORE
McKinsey, which is best known as a strategy consulting firm serving CEOs and seniors executives at large corporations, recently released its top trends in tech list. MORE
The traditional direct selling industry (also known as multi-level marketing) has been around at least since the 1940's, with well known brands such as Avon, Tupperware and Mary Kay. The direct selling industry is also large , with about 6.8 MORE
of the beer industry's 2016 volume. beer industry's revenue. So while the craft beer industry is still growing, the growth is starting to slow. Our interest in the craft brewing industry is due to the fact that it's such a good example of a barbell industrial structure. We've been following the evolution of barbell industry structures for over a decade and we often use the beer industry as an example. MORE
The Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) recently released their U.S. Gig Economy - 2018 Edition report. They found that about 48 million Americans are in the gig economy, which is 31% of the workforce. They also found about 13.7 million Americans are human cloud workers. They define the human cloud as: " all manner of companies that facilitate direct, digitally-enabled work arrangements, from sourcing a worker through payment." MORE
Most (52 percent) are also reporting they plan on visiting fewer locations but spending more time at each stop, which is consistent with trends in the travel industry as a whole. The number of U.S. digital nomads grew from 7.3 million in 2019 to 10.9 million in 2020, a 49% increase. MORE
Interesting study from Accenture on how the industrial internet is changing the competitive landscape of industries. Accenture defines the industrial internet as the combination of Big Data analytics with the Internet of Things. Eighty-four percent feel that Big Data analytics has the power to shift the competitive landscape for their industry in the next year. MORE
Crunchbase's Investors Unleash Millions Into Pet-Tech Startups covers the surge in pet industry venture funding over the past 5 years. The pet industry continues to grow and the pet humanization trend continues to get stronger as pet obsessed Millennials pamper their pets even more than older generations. Key quote: Funding in pet startups surged by 334 percent to $291.8 million compared to $67.2 million in 2012, according to Crunchbase research. MORE
The 1st Annual Local-Mobile Workspace-as-an-Industry conference was recently held in San Jose. The workspace-as-a-service industry includes office business centers, coworking facilities, incubators and other shared office environments and services. The industry is quite large, as shown in the slide below from Scott Chambers' state of the industry presentation. MORE
The article explains why: Giulia Mensitieri is an anthropologist and author of The Most Beautiful Job in the World , which exposed a culture of exploitation across the industry. MORE
The new data provides information by owner demographics such as sex, race, ethnicity and veteran status, geography, industry, receipt size class, and legal form of organization. The U.S. Census has released new demographic data on nonemployer businesses. MORE
Industry Related Topics Small Business Labs
APRIL 20, 2020
Vertical IQ is a leading provider of Industry Intelligence for those advising small- and medium-sized businesses such as bankers, accountants, and other SMB advisors. The chart below shows their high-level industry sector coverage.
Small Business Labs
NOVEMBER 6, 2014
Interesting study from Accenture on how the industrial internet is changing the competitive landscape of industries. Accenture defines the industrial internet as the combination of Big Data analytics with the Internet of Things. Eighty-four percent feel that Big Data analytics has the power to shift the competitive landscape for their industry in the next year.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Small Business Labs
MAY 18, 2021
The industry with the highest number of applications in April was retail trade, with 96,000 applications. This same shift to solopreneur firm applications is occurring in most industries. Freelance gig economy Independent workers industry structure trends
Small Business Labs
SEPTEMBER 23, 2019
But despite WeWork's woes, the coworking industry is doing just fine. As we pointed out a few months ago, the coworking industry continues to surge and WeWork's problems won't change this. Having said all that, WeWork's problems will impact the coworking industry. In the short run, there will be a lot of negative press and coworking's naysayers (and there are quite a few) will suggest the industry is not sustainable.
Small Business Labs
OCTOBER 24, 2017
The coworking industry is getting more competitive. According to Frank Cottle, chairman of Alliance Business Centers, "WeWork is nothing but Regus with a paint job" He is also quoted saying it's $20 billion valuation "makes no sense" Regardless of what you think about WeWork or its valuation, it's clear they're having a competitive impact on the coworking industry. The coworking industry is attracting a range of new entrants.
Small Business Labs
JANUARY 21, 2021
In fact, there are ecosystem companies in almost every industry and most have SMBs and independent workers as important ecosystem partners. The rise of ecosystem companies is one of the drivers behind the shift to barbell industry structures.
Small Business Labs
NOVEMBER 26, 2018
Key quote: The industry has come a long way since it first took off in the early 2000s. We agree that the term "coworking" is too limiting for what's going in the commercial office space industry. Firms like Industrious, WeWork, Serendipity Labs and many others no longer just provide workspaces where people work alone together. This is part of a much broader trend - the servitization of products - that's impacting most industries.
Small Business Labs
JANUARY 5, 2021
Business Models Freelance gig economy Independent workers industry structureLast week MBO Partners released their annual future of work predictions for the coming year.
Small Business Labs
JULY 1, 2021
And, of course, the coworking industry was built on the idea that people need 3rd places to work. The pandemic has accelerated many work trends. But the dramatic and rapid shift to remote work has probably been the most potent trend impacting the way businesses operate.
Small Business Labs
SEPTEMBER 12, 2017
of the beer industry's 2016 volume. beer industry's revenue. So while the craft beer industry is still growing, the growth is starting to slow. Our interest in the craft brewing industry is due to the fact that it's such a good example of a barbell industrial structure. We've been following the evolution of barbell industry structures for over a decade and we often use the beer industry as an example.
Small Business Labs
DECEMBER 17, 2018
Two companies that connect artisan makers with retailers and customers announced large funding rounds last week. The wholesale marketplace Faire raised $100 million while the wholesale and licensing business Minted said they raised $208 million. Both firms connect retailers, who are often small independents, with small and solopreneur maker businesses. Faire reports having "15,000 stores actively buying on the platform?—?more
Small Business Labs
SEPTEMBER 1, 2020
But 4 years later, coops haven't made a dent in the online talent marketplace industry. Freelance gig economy industry structure Small Business EconomyBraintrust is a new entrant in the online talent marketplace space, but with a twist.
Small Business Labs
JUNE 2, 2017
The Ideas Industry is an interesting look at how the marketplace for ideas is shifting due to the emergence of for-profit think tanks and ideas entrepreneurs. The book reaches no firm conclusions whether or not the evolution of the ideas industry and the rise of for-profits is good or bad. " Missing from the book is coverage of the role thought leadership is playing in the rapidly growing content marketing industry.
Small Business Labs
JULY 25, 2017
These include: The Stem : a ‘networked consulting’ model that draws on the industry’s leading independent talent to help health companies increase customer/patient engagement. The gig economy continues to spread rapidly and is becoming a key talent source for many industries.
Small Business Labs
JULY 6, 2021
McKinsey, which is best known as a strategy consulting firm serving CEOs and seniors executives at large corporations, recently released its top trends in tech list.
Small Business Labs
AUGUST 4, 2020
Government Policy industry structure Small Business Economy Web/TechThe Hamilton Project essay The Nature of Work after the COVID Crisis: Too Few Low-Wage Jobs is authored by MIT economists David Autor and Elisabeth Reynolds.
Small Business Labs
SEPTEMBER 10, 2018
That both Upwork and Fiverr have reached the size and scale to go public shows the maturation and growing importance of the online talent marketplace industry. The online freelance talent marketplace Upwork filed last week to go public. According to the filing, Upwork has 375,000 registered freelancers and 475,000 client businesses located across 180 countries. The company reported sales of $164.4 million in 2016 and $202.6
Small Business Labs
JULY 5, 2018
Crunchbase's Investors Unleash Millions Into Pet-Tech Startups covers the surge in pet industry venture funding over the past 5 years. The pet industry continues to grow and the pet humanization trend continues to get stronger as pet obsessed Millennials pamper their pets even more than older generations. Key quote: Funding in pet startups surged by 334 percent to $291.8 million compared to $67.2 million in 2012, according to Crunchbase research.
Small Business Labs
APRIL 4, 2013
Paid Content has an interesting article on media becoming a barbell industry. Barbell industry structures consist of a relatively few giant corporations on one end, a narrow middle consisting of a shrinking number of mid-sized firms, and a large and growing number of small, micro and one person (solopreneur) firms on the other end. We've looked at dozens of industries and all have this structure or are moving to it. industry structure
Small Business Labs
JUNE 29, 2021
The RV Industry Assn. Cabana rents custom-built Ford Transit vans that include beds, storage, bathrooms, and Internet access. Their tagline is "a hotel that travels with you" They're hoping to tap into the large and growing number of #Vanlifers.
Small Business Labs
JANUARY 2, 2014
I can think of no better way to start 2014 than with a look at 2014 pet industry trends. Multibrief's Pet Businesses Will Prosper: Industry trends for 2014 and beyond provides such an outlook. According to the article, the pet industry is forecast to continue to grow driven in large part by the pet humanization trend. The pet industry is mostly made of small businesses.
Small Business Labs
JUNE 17, 2014
The 1st Annual Local-Mobile Workspace-as-an-Industry conference was recently held in San Jose. The workspace-as-a-service industry includes office business centers, coworking facilities, incubators and other shared office environments and services. The industry is quite large, as shown in the slide below from Scott Chambers' state of the industry presentation.
Small Business Labs
JULY 19, 2021
Federal Statistical Needs for a National Advanced Industry and Technology Strategy is a report from the D.C. Sometimes we post articles on topics few people are interested in. This is such an article. But you should be interested because the economic and labor data collected by government agencies no longer provide the information we need to properly understand and manage the U.S. economy.
Small Business Labs
FEBRUARY 26, 2014
Based on these numbers, the meetings industry contribution to U.S. GDP is greater than the motion picture/recording industry ($113B), performing arts/spectator sports/museums ($87B) and information and data processing services ($80B). According to a report by the "Big 4" accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), in 2012there were "1.83
Small Business Labs
MARCH 30, 2021
The new data provides information by owner demographics such as sex, race, ethnicity and veteran status, geography, industry, receipt size class, and legal form of organization. The U.S. Census has released new demographic data on nonemployer businesses.
Small Business Labs
APRIL 9, 2014
As industry analysts we are very interested in new and innovative business models and practices in our industry. There are several worth noting: Industry Analyst/Journalism Hybrid : These are firms that are augmenting or replacing their traditional advertising based business models by adding industry analysis and/or research services. It will be interesting to see how this industry evolves. Business Models industry structure
Small Business Labs
APRIL 22, 2021
YOLO is an acronym for "you only live once", which was popularized by the rapper Drake a decade ago. We learned this interesting fact from the New York Times article Welcome to the YOLO Economy.
Small Business Labs
APRIL 27, 2021
The article explains why: Giulia Mensitieri is an anthropologist and author of The Most Beautiful Job in the World , which exposed a culture of exploitation across the industry.
Small Business Labs
SEPTEMBER 19, 2017
Last week the Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) released The Human Cloud, the Gig Economy & the Transformation of Work. It nicely covers the topics mentioned in the report title. Key quote from the report on the size of the "human cloud": "SIA estimates that total human cloud spending reached between $47 and $51 billion globally in 2016.
Small Business Labs
OCTOBER 11, 2018
The Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) recently released their U.S. Gig Economy - 2018 Edition report. They found that about 48 million Americans are in the gig economy, which is 31% of the workforce. They also found about 13.7 million Americans are human cloud workers. They define the human cloud as: " all manner of companies that facilitate direct, digitally-enabled work arrangements, from sourcing a worker through payment."
Small Business Labs
JUNE 8, 2021
It's targeted at the travel industry and how it can better support the needs of digital nomads. Platform Professional's Platforms and Digital Nomads covers online platforms supporting digital nomads.
Small Business Labs
MARCH 6, 2014
Deloitte University's Industrialized Crowdsourcing is one of the best, relatively short descriptions of crowdsourcing I've read. The key quote is the summary: Enterprise adoption of the power of the crowd allows specialized skills to be dynamically sourced from anyone, anywhere, and only as needed. Companies can use the collective knowledge of the masses to help with tasks from data entry and coding to advanced analytics and product development.
Small Business Labs
APRIL 25, 2017
This makes direct selling a relatively bright sector of the retail industry. A couple of other interesting data points on the direct selling industry are women make up 77% of sellers and wellness products are driving the growth of the industry (see chart below; click to enlarge). According to the Direct Selling Association (DSA), about 20.2 million Americans are involved in direct selling the U.S. This is up from 15.8 million in 2010.
Small Business Labs
OCTOBER 6, 2020
Most (52 percent) are also reporting they plan on visiting fewer locations but spending more time at each stop, which is consistent with trends in the travel industry as a whole. The number of U.S. digital nomads grew from 7.3 million in 2019 to 10.9 million in 2020, a 49% increase.
Small Business Labs
MARCH 23, 2021
Regular readers know the pet humanization trend is driving the growth of the pet industry. See our Pet Trends section for more pet humanization and the pet foods industry. spending on pets reached nearly $100 billion in 2020, up from $95.7
Small Business Labs
AUGUST 25, 2015
The 3D printing industry is at an interesting point, with both good and bad news coming out on a regular basis. But even as it slumps a bit, there's still a lot enthusiasm around the 3D printing industry and no change in the view 3D will eventually fundamentally change how things are made. The question has been when will it finally enter mainstream use for industrial applications.
Small Business Labs
SEPTEMBER 14, 2020
The K-shape is driven, in part, because industries that employ high percentages of low and moderate wage jobs are not recovering as quickly as other industries. Unfortunately for the small business sector, it over indexes in industries that are not recovering quickly.
Small Business Labs
JANUARY 25, 2021
This year’s report also includes 21 exclusive predictions from leading experts across industries to mark 2021. The 2021 edition of the annual Wunderman Thompson Future 100 report was released last year. It's one of our favorite trend reports.
Small Business Labs
JANUARY 19, 2021
The traditional direct selling industry (also known as multi-level marketing) has been around at least since the 1940's, with well known brands such as Avon, Tupperware and Mary Kay. The direct selling industry is also large , with about 6.8
Small Business Labs
DECEMBER 20, 2012
Industrial giant GE has been pushing the idea of the Industrial Internet, including publishing a detailed white paper on the concept. GE's definition of the Industrial Internet is primarily focused on big machines like aircraft engines and power generators. The concepts and ideas behind the Industrial Internet are not new. This is a larger scale variation on the concept of the Internet of Things , first coined back in the late 1990s.
Small Business Labs
AUGUST 18, 2015
TrueBridge Capital Partners recently released a report on the State of the Venture Capital Industry. The large funds are able to do this because they are garnering a larger share of industry assets. The venture capital industry has been going through a lot of change over the past decade. We've reported on it's problems in the past , but as this data shows the industry is still healthy.
Small Business Labs
JUNE 9, 2015
In response to this problem a rapidly growing industry focused on providing skills training and job placement has emerged. Expect to see this industry continue to expand in the coming years. The current employment picture is quite interesting. The official statistics say we've got a great jobs market.
Small Business Labs
MARCH 9, 2017
This means few, if any, industries won't become part of the on-demand economy. The On-Demand Economy is commonly defined as the economic activity created by online marketplaces that fulfill customer demand via the provisioning of goods and services immediately or much faster and/or easier than traditional firms. Uber, Lyft and ridesharing services are often cited as examples. But Amazon is in many ways a better example.
183 
Let's personalize your content