I'm looking for information on the size of the small business
marketplace within the US. My definition of "small business" is based
on 1-100 employees.
Specifically, I'm looking for:
How much money is spent by the small business marketplace every year in total?
What percentage of the US GDP is made up of small business goods/services?
How many patents come out of the small business sector every year?
How does this compare with the number of patents filed by General
Electric?
What percentage of new jobs are created in the small business sector?
What is the demographic profile of small business CEO's? How is it changing?
What percent of small businesses sell/market their businesses online?
What are the fastest growing segments within the small business marketplace?
What are the fastest shrinking segments within the small business marketplace?
What segments within the US small business marketplace are poised for
the greatest growth in a global economy?
How many times bigger is the small business marketplace than Google as
a company? Microsoft? Yahoo? General Motors? Ford? GE? |
Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
23 Feb 2006 09:57 PST
ravenlangley-ga,
I hope to be able to provide an answer for you.
But before diving into this, it would be helpful to clarify a few things.
1. There is not a single, official definition of "small business" in
the US, so not all statistics will use the 1-100 employee definition.
Is it OK to make use of what statistics/information happens to be
available for small businesses, even if the definition doesn't match
the 100-employee cutoff?
2. Many of the questions you asked can probably be answered, but not
all of them. Is it OK to make a 'best effort' attempt at gathering
available information and answering as many questions as possible, as
close to the target as possible?
As an FYI, here is an example of another question I answered a while
back involving a small business:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=428768
Let me know what you think,
pafalafa-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
ravenlangley-ga
on
23 Feb 2006 10:45 PST
I'm okay with data that falls outside the 1-100 employee definition,
but the parameters need to be called out in those cases.
"Best effort" is fine as long as 80% or more of the questions are answered.
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Request for Question Clarification by
pafalafa-ga
on
23 Feb 2006 12:34 PST
Thanks for getting back to me.
Though I might be able to answer most or even all of the questions, I
can't work with the 80% constraint, I'm afraid (e.g. if there's no
info on small business patents, I lose two questions right there!).
Perhaps another researcher will pick up on this, though.
Best of luck.
paf
|
Clarification of Question by
ravenlangley-ga
on
23 Feb 2006 14:44 PST
Fair point, but I can't commit to $200 for someone who did their best
but came up with nothing.
Any suggestions on how we can get to a middle ground?
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