There's "big business." And then there's "small business," and the often-discussed "small-to-medium business" (SMB) marketplace. The Small Business Administration publishes a grid of what defines "small" business, based on NAICS code. You may be surprised to note that the government defines a small business as one that has under 500 employees. This means a company can have tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue and is still considered a "small business." That's a definition that's hard to swallow for someone who's running a business out of a garage.

The vast majority of us own very small businesses, or “micro-businesses” which are defined as having fewer than 10 employees. In fact, there are over 24 million business entities filing income tax returns but nearly 60 percent reported annual receipts of less than $25,000 and 92.2 percent of the these US businesses have less than $500,000 in annual sales! A significant percentage of small businesses are part-time ventures, with many small business owners also employed full-time at "day" jobs.

Notwithstanding the definition of a micro-business, it’s actually more typical for a small business to have five or fewer employees. Most often, businesses are operated exclusively by the proprietor with no employees at all, and were launched with little more than pocket change.

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