Yeah, this last year amounted to an enormous wealth transfer. I know a lot of small business owners and am a business owner myself. I've done just fine through the pandemic mostly due to the industry I'm in (coffins - ha, kidding), but there are some observed lessons - keep your business records very up to date and handy, keep a savings account for unexpected expenses, treat business continuity planning (BC) with some respect.
When first round PPP money was available, the businesses that got it were those that could pull all their info together on a moments notice and jam out an application with supporting material quickly (like literally within hours of finding a bank taking apps) - P&L statements, tax returns, payroll reports, other vital records. I saw business owners who didn't have their stuff together miss out on first round funding because they just weren't able to pull that off quickly enough. It was a land grab and for some it was an early make-or-break moment.
Businesses that were set up from the beginning to treat their offices as "disposable" from a BC/DR perspective were a-okay switching to remote work. As in - if you were planning to be able to continue work if an asteroid hit your building, you were fine with the WFH shift. Mostly this meant very asset-light approach to infrastructure, cloud services, laptops, etc.
Restaurants that could drop ready cash (savings) on outdoor accommodations (tents, heaters, etc) were more likely to maintain a revenue stream, assuming they had land or city-granted street space to set that up.
That last point though - I've seen some businesses leverage political connections to get special permitting, wealthier business owners of course were better positioned innately. The lockdowns disproportionately impacted businesses - like the established and wealthy (read large chains, primarily) were in a far better spot, while the ones already struggling to survive (locally owned) were not.
One aspect of the devastation that may not be fully appreciated is that locally owned small businesses don't necessarily just "come back". Many business owners are of an age where they are hanging up their spurs rather than going through another round of creation and growth. It takes a special kind of person (e.g. highly risk tolerant) to step out of the corporate employment world and have a go on your own, and I think the market lost a sizable quantity of those people over the last year, along with the jobs they provided, who just aren't anxious to have another go at it again.
I see a lot of people talking about inflation concerns. I don't feel I know enough about that to predict one way or another. I do see the job market starting to bounce back a bit where I live, dining rooms starting to fill up again.
To some degree I'm going to miss the society the pandemic created - people walking their neighborhoods more, meeting their neighbors, generally being more patient with each other, empty middle seats on airlines, people less likely to sneeze on the vegetables at the grocery store, more attention to sanitation, less traffic. Ah well.
When first round PPP money was available, the businesses that got it were those that could pull all their info together on a moments notice and jam out an application with supporting material quickly (like literally within hours of finding a bank taking apps) - P&L statements, tax returns, payroll reports, other vital records. I saw business owners who didn't have their stuff together miss out on first round funding because they just weren't able to pull that off quickly enough. It was a land grab and for some it was an early make-or-break moment.
Businesses that were set up from the beginning to treat their offices as "disposable" from a BC/DR perspective were a-okay switching to remote work. As in - if you were planning to be able to continue work if an asteroid hit your building, you were fine with the WFH shift. Mostly this meant very asset-light approach to infrastructure, cloud services, laptops, etc.
Restaurants that could drop ready cash (savings) on outdoor accommodations (tents, heaters, etc) were more likely to maintain a revenue stream, assuming they had land or city-granted street space to set that up.
That last point though - I've seen some businesses leverage political connections to get special permitting, wealthier business owners of course were better positioned innately. The lockdowns disproportionately impacted businesses - like the established and wealthy (read large chains, primarily) were in a far better spot, while the ones already struggling to survive (locally owned) were not.
One aspect of the devastation that may not be fully appreciated is that locally owned small businesses don't necessarily just "come back". Many business owners are of an age where they are hanging up their spurs rather than going through another round of creation and growth. It takes a special kind of person (e.g. highly risk tolerant) to step out of the corporate employment world and have a go on your own, and I think the market lost a sizable quantity of those people over the last year, along with the jobs they provided, who just aren't anxious to have another go at it again.
I see a lot of people talking about inflation concerns. I don't feel I know enough about that to predict one way or another. I do see the job market starting to bounce back a bit where I live, dining rooms starting to fill up again.
To some degree I'm going to miss the society the pandemic created - people walking their neighborhoods more, meeting their neighbors, generally being more patient with each other, empty middle seats on airlines, people less likely to sneeze on the vegetables at the grocery store, more attention to sanitation, less traffic. Ah well.