Overlooked Entrepreneurs

Disrespect for the Self-Employed

Solo Entrepreneurship in America

Photo by Windows on Unsplash

I was a solo entrepreneur for most of my working life, though that term wasn’t used when I began; I was just self-employed.

I soon hired a few employees, but only one was worth keeping. I made him a partner, but he moved cross-country soon after. We tried operating that way for a while, but dealing with the paperwork, taxes, and fees in two states was difficult, so we dissolved the corporation and went our separate ways. I was a lone wolf again.

I have Google Alerts set for a number of subjects, and for many years, one of them was “self-employment”. Alerts on that subject arrived almost every day and were usually announcements of encouraging or helping people to start small businesses. These came from all over the world, but I noticed that very, very few came from the United States.

That seems odd to me. Small businesses are the lifeblood of the U.S. economy. I remember listening to a radio show about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; the lack of small businesses was discussed as a major problem. The mega-corps could roll back into New Orleans whenever they wished, but the mom and pop stores and services had a much harder time.