1. Business & Finance

Predictions for Entrepreneurship in 2009

From Randy Duermyer, About.com GuideJanuary 8, 2009

Follow me on:

Kelly Spors of the Wall Street Journal discusses her predictions for entrepreneurship for the year ahead.

The piece looks at 7 predictions on what may lie ahead for entrepeneurs this year. While most are not very surprising, the last two may be most telling:
  • The Focus Shifts to Online - Because more businesses will look for cost-effective ways to market themselves, more will build Websites and experiment with online marketing tools such as local search, pay-per-performance ads and mobile marketing. I think she may be a little late on this one, as it seems to already have occurred, but its conceivable growth could explode based on some of her other predictions. The point is, online is where it's at, especially for home businesses and other startups with very limited budgets.
  • Entrepreneurship will Take Off - Because layoffs are expected to continue across the board, millions of the unemployed - at least those who are not capable of pitching in on what will likely be a surge of public works projects in the Obama administration - will be scrambling to start their own businesses, despite foreseen difficulties in getting the necessary funding to start a new business in a down economy.
In addition to layoffs, I've got to believe that there are millions of people out there who are approaching retirement who have lost their nest egg due to the poor performance of financial markets and/or who needed or will need to tap into their retirement accounts early to keep a roof over their heads. Even those who are not unemployed or those who had not planned to retire are likely to get on the entrepreneurial bandwagon to try to earn some extra cash and online is the cheapest way to do so.

Even if these masses don't start an online business, Internet marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways of doing and promoting nearly any business. And, with the wild growth of electronic devices and the increasing capabilities of cell phones and PDAs, mobile marketing is a very logical next area of rapid growth. Therefore, individuals and businesses who service these markets should also do quite well, such as search marketing consultants, website promotion firms, freelancers and others.

Instead of looking at 2009 as a grim year ahead, entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs would do well to think long and hard about potential ways to profit in a down economy. Those visionaries are the ones who are likely to come out on top in the end and will be very well positioned to continue their success when the market finally turns around.

Will you be one of them?

Related topics:
Comments
January 18, 2009 at 4:43 pm
(1) Jennifer Eden Cruz :

Hi,

I do agree with your predictions. Even here in Dubai thousands of their employees have been sent back home because of limited resources. I observed a lot of companies are now promoting their products online. Internet marketers are growing fast everyday. But i do believe that there are a lot of untapped potentials over the net as long as we know how to find it and how we can execute the plan.

Cheers,

Jennifer

Leave a Comment

Line and paragraph breaks are automatic. Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title="">, <b>, <i>, <strike>

©2012 About.com. All rights reserved.

A part of The New York Times Company.