Minipreneurs Test the Entrepreneurial Waters with Online Ventures
— reported by Monster.com
Entrepreneurial projects can consume your life. No wonder so many people with limited time and funds defer their dreams of starting a business. But with the help of online technologies, millions of people are keeping their day jobs while trying entrepreneurship as minipreneurs.
As defined by trendwatching.com, a firm that tracks and analyzes consumer trends, minipreneurs are a “vast army” of consumers-turned-entrepreneurs operating minibusinesses, often as part-time ventures, with the aim of experimenting with entrepreneurship and making extra cash.
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According to trendwatching.com, several factors have converged to cause a boom in minipreneurial ventures. The most prominent include the Internet-enabled global marketplace, making niche markets profitable, and a highly developed “network of intermediaries, tools, resources and processes.”
Included in this “ecosystem,” as trendwatching.com terms it, are open-source software; free or inexpensive Web hosting systems; Google Talk, Skype and other free telephony systems; inexpensive Internet advertising and bartered ads; PayPal and other online payment systems; and product-selling services, such as Lulu.com for on-demand publishing and CafePress.com for peddling mugs, T-shirts and other items.
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