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Beyond the bottom line: The importance of understanding how small firms define success
When we talk about what makes a small firm “successful,” we usually think about familiar financial metrics like profit margins and revenue growth. These measures are intuitive, easy to quantify, and deeply embedded in how lenders, policymakers, and analysts evaluate firm performance. But many small firm owners don’t define success solely in financial terms. They weigh financial viability with other factors like community impact, financial stability, and personal values. This
Tracy Cole
Apr 23


A New Framework for Understanding Small Firms
We launched the Small Firm Diaries because after decades of work trying to help microenterprises to grow into small firms, there was still very little work to describe and understand existing small firms . Given the dearth of data on small firms we created a simple dividing line between micro and small: at least one paid worker. Our delineation between small and medium was a bit more nebulous: no full-time, non-owner managers (we used less than 20 paid workers as a fuzzy prox
Rachael Eplee, Laura Freschi, and Tim Ogden
Sep 9, 2024
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