{"id":5394,"date":"2022-07-19T14:51:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T14:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pagely-test.frontdoor.godaddy.com\/ventureforward\/?p=5394"},"modified":"2023-05-18T23:35:34","modified_gmt":"2023-05-18T23:35:34","slug":"under-30-microbusiness-owners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.godaddy.com\/research\/under-30-microbusiness-owners\/","title":{"rendered":"Ambitious, Scrappy and Optimistic: A Look at Under-30 Microbusiness Owners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The most recent Venture Forward survey shows that 23 percent of founders under 30 intend to build large companies, compared to 13 percent of those over 30.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

Many Americans responded to the economic turbulence of recent years by starting microbusinesses. Lots of them<\/a>. But while all of these everyday entrepreneurs need to be scrappy, ambitious and optimistic, one demographic group stands out for these qualities: those under the age of 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the latest 2022 survey<\/a> by GoDaddy\u2019s Venture Forward research initiative, of thousands of respondents these twentysomethings are starting microbusinesses \u2013 loosely defined as companies with ten or fewer employees who use websites as part of their business \u2013 at a higher rate than older groups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They make due with less start-up capital, are more likely to run the business as a side hustle instead of a full time job, and are almost twice as likely as the older cohort to want to scale it past mom & pop size and into big corporations. And even at their young age, many see running a microbusiness as a lifestyle choice, and a superior option to traditional employment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been working since I was 16 \u2013 retail, barista, you name it \u2013 and was always busting my butt for someone else,\u201d says Kat Hernandez, who is a freelance podcast producer and founder of Brooklyn-based Juanita\u2019s Plants<\/a>. “I always wanted to go into business for myself, not just as a choice for making a living but creating a lifestyle. I don\u2019t want to wake up every day saying, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ve got to go to that job I don\u2019t like.\u2019 I want to feel good about going to that job I do<\/em> enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hernandez is one of the 33% of under-30 founders who \u201calways dreamed of starting a business.\u201d That\u2019s a 44% higher rate than overall survey respondents when asked what motivated them. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Hernandez exemplifies the grit and creativity of this generation of microbusiness owners. The first member of her family to attend college, she worked her way through CUNY-Hunter, earning a journalism degree. The idea for \u201cJuanita\u2019s Plants\u201d germinated during the first few weeks of the pandemic, as she tended to the 20 plants that fill her apartment. If there was ever a time that New Yorkers were going to catch the house-plant bug, this was it.

To test her thesis, she posted a photo of a snake plant in a 10-inch pot, accompanied by an asking price of $50 and an offer to deliver it the same day. “Within a few hours I had dozens of emails flooding her inbox. It was a huge, surprising and shocking response.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now, she sells around 300 plants in a typical month, either through her website or at tables she sets up local pop-up events. She has also helped small businesses arrange as many as 50 plants around their office. She still spends around 60% of her time producing podcasts<\/a>, but it\u2019s a fluid back-and-forth existence. If a Juanita\u2019s Plants customer calls mid-podcast, she picks up the phone. Most evenings are spent delivering plants.

For Hernandez and many other under-30s, especially in expensive urban centers, starting a microbusiness is a financial necessity. \u201cI think younger people understand that you need multiple streams of income; you can\u2019t just rely on that one job, especially in a place like New York City,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making things more difficult is that under-30s face greater difficulties raising capital<\/a>. In the Venture Forward survey<\/a>, 35% of under-30 respondents found it \u201csomewhat or very difficult\u201d to find funding. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Entrepreneurs from underserved communities have it even tougher. Hernandez, who has $50,000 in college debt, couldn\u2019t get approval for a credit card for Juanita\u2019s Plants, much less a bank loan. The only financial assistance has been a $2,000 loan from her grandfather to pay for a photo shoot. As a result, she expects to have to reach her dream of opening a brick-and-mortar plant shop on an earn-as-you-go basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Venture Forward survey, the only item ahead of \u201caccess to capital\u201d among under-30s\u2019 most needed growth resources was help with marketing. But digitally savvy young entrepreneurs like Hernandez know there\u2019s plenty of overlap, given the high-cost of digital marketing. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

“You have to put a good chunk of money into ads, like on social media, in order to see a return on what you\u2019ve invested,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cIf you\u2019re just going to put in $200, $300, maybe even $1,000, you\u2019re not going to see the return on your investment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To make ends meet, she saves money by getting help from family members to make deliveries, and by taking every opportunity to participate in street \u201cpop-ups\u201d where she sells directly to passers-by. Still, she calculates that only 20% of her sales are offline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s one reason she wants to grow large enough to afford an actual brick-and-mortar shop \u2013 but not the only one. \u201cI want my business to be part of the community,\u201d says the lifelong Brooklynite, where there\u2019s a lot of foot traffic and street commerce. Indeed, 21% of under-30s listed \u201cI wanted to contribute to my community\u201d as a reason they founded their business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not to say all of these young entrepreneurs are driven by civic or lifestyle priorities. Almost 25% of them said their goal isn\u2019t just to survive but to become a large corporation or even a unicorn, with a market capitalization of more than $1 billion. Only 13% of founders over 30 share these ambitions, but are more likely to want to remain a solopreneur or maybe have a few storefronts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That sounds perfect to Kat Hernandez, as well. She\u2019s more focused on lifestyle and quality of life, and sees enormity as a likely enemy of quality. But her dreams are plenty grand for her. She\u2019d like Juanita\u2019s Plants, when in full bloom, to have multiple brick and mortar locations in the New York metro area, along with delivery service, perhaps some other cities as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See more of Kat’s story and other entrepreneur spotlight videos on the This is Where We Stand page here. <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many Americans responded to the economic turbulence of recent years by starting microbusinesses. While all of these everyday entrepreneurs need to be scrappy, ambitious and optimistic, one demographic group stands out for these qualities: those under the age of 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":5407,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-microbusiness-profile"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAmbitious, Scrappy and Optimistic: A Look at Under-30 Microbusiness Owners - Small Business Research Lab<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Many Americans responded to the economic turbulence of recent years by starting microbusinesses. 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