One of my favorite newsletters is from Trendwatching.com. Today's edition really hit me with the analysis of a new trend...Minipreneurs.
'MINIPRENEURS': a vast army of consumers turning entrepreneurs; including small and micro businesses, freelancers, side-businesses, weekend entrepreneurs, web-driven entrepreneurs, part-timers, free agents, cottage businesses, seniorpreneurs, co-creators, mompreneurs, pro-ams, solopreneurs, eBay traders, advertising-sponsored bloggers and so on.
In my mind this trend is in sync with what my colleague Michael Pollock calls Savvy Solopreneurs.
The minipreneur's ecosystem is much the same as the Savvy Solopreneur:
Today's aspiring and established MINIPRENEURS truly have a highly-developed network of intermediaries, tools, resources, and processes at their disposal. It's an ecosystem on a much more elaborate scale than anyone foresaw even five years ago when entrepreneurialism was all the rage during the .com boom. MINIPRENEURS have access, for peanuts, if not for free, to:
A. Hardware, software, ICT and skills
B. Design, production and manufacturing
C. Monetizing existing assets
D. Marketplaces
E. Advertising
F. Travel
G. Talent, finance, payment, logistics
If you're an independent service professional, then by Trendwatching's definition you're a minipreneur. Are you a savvy minipreneur? Read this article. It's the trend of the future for entrepreneurs. And it seems, the future is here.
Oh, and don't forget the opportunties this new breed of business brings:
No doubt you've already spotted other drivers and ecosystem categories to be added to our findings. So how to profit from them? One word: FACILITATE! Ask yourself how you can help them to make money by facilitating their admin, their production, their advertising, their insurance, their travel, their networking, their selling, their tech needs, their learning, their payments, their suggestions, their hosting, their new business ideas. Don't ask them to consume; help them to create, to produce. Or (see above) help them to become journalists, banks, human billboards or headhunters! ;-)
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