I have heard it said that in the early days of our country 95% of the male population was self-employed. I can’t find any independent validation of that number but if you consider that most people were farmers, artisans or merchants and that almost anything in the Colonial period would be what we have defined as either a small, micro, or submicro business I’m inclined to believe that it’s close to the truth. It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution that big business and it’s attendant wage slave mentality took hold.  I can’t help but think that getting back to numbers that look more like that would make the US a better place. Not that I think everybody should be a subsistence farmer but there are a lot of people doing essentially pointless “work” at their jobs that could be running micros to make the world a better place.

That said,  Small Business Trends recently posted 5 Key Microbusiness Trends for 2009 that’s well worth a read. It contains some excellent insight on micro trends for the coming year.