November kicks off National Entrepreneurship Month in the U.S. to help recognize and celebrate the importance of innovation and the impact of small businesses on the American and global economy.
And that impact is mighty. According to the U.S. Small Business Association, small businesses, defined as companies of less than 500 employees, account for 44 percent of the U.S. economy. Even more importantly, Forbes reports that small businesses account for 62 percent of new jobs created in America over the past 25 years—some 12.7 million new jobs.
These days we tend to associate entrepreneurship with technology pioneers or other innovators who fill or create a niche. Indeed, who could ever have imagined that more than 379 million people worldwide would suddenly have a desperate need to send 144-character text messages, or that the demand to look perpetually young would create a $5.9 billion market in which people gladly pay a cosmetic surgeon to inject a dangerous neurotoxin into their foreheads?
Entrepreneurs, though, include everyone from your local dry cleaner, yoga studio owner, plumber, life coach or favorite restaurateur to the the partners at a law or accounting firm, the 20-physician healthcare practice located near your regional hospital, or the next-door-neighbor who sells hand-crafted jewelry from her sunroom.
With the exception of the largest private equity firms like KKR, Blackstone or the Carlyle Group that are publicly traded, the majority of private equity and VC firms which fuel so much of the entrepreneurship in the United States and around the world are themselves entrepreneurs.
Indeed, Prestidge Group clients include a serial green tech entrepreneur preparing for an IPO on tbe London stock exchange, a imaginative teen innovator turned private equity fund portfolio manager, to a mental health expert who survived the trauma of being raised in a cult and resultant depression, anxiety and addiction when she made the brave decision to leave, who now uses entrepreneurship as a force to help others battling mental illness.
We also run personal branding classes and consulting for entrepreneurs, donate time to mentor aspiring entrepreneurs at the Global Founders Institute and the USA Women’s Cooperative and, of course, Prestidge Group founder Briar Prestidge is herself a highly successful serial entrepreneur with a reach spanning three continents.
Whether you are a fledgling entrepreneur or a highly successful leader who now heads a business empire, we at Prestidge Group salute you and encourage all to never deviate from their vision of a better solution, a better company and a better world.
– Sandi Sonnenfeld, US Account Director
