Report: Small Business Success

Back in Nov ’14, the Center for an Urban Future, an NYC-based think tank focused on growing and diversifying its local economy, released a terrific report entitled,  SMALL BUSINESS SUCCESS: A blueprint for turning more of New York City’s small businesses into medium-sized and large businesses.  

Why does this matter?  Because if our small businesses grows, jobs grow, our middle class grows and our economy grows.  A corporation like Amazon that makes $89 BILLION in sales annually employs 110,000 employees.  Now, 110,000 employees sounds like a lot, but imagine if we were to combine employment numbers for a group of small businesses that generated $89 BILLION in sales.  The combined employment would be closer to 600,000.  (Paraphrased from Robert Reich, Inequality For All.)

Back to the report… It profiles 21 NYC-based businesses that have successfully expanded and how they achieved their success. It’s a long report (44 pages)but easy-to-read and chock full of great information and resources.  What I found most interesting are the different opportunities the business owners pursued.  For some, that meant exploring corporate or government contracts, while others invested in new technology.  But one of the common themes throughout it that the business owner had help.