OLYPHANT, Pa. — The pandemic has created a lot of worry about the future of small businesses, with some forced to close their doors, citing the restrictions and lost revenue.
But 2021 could be a much better year.
One expert says the health crisis may just have created opportunities for many start-ups.
“I actually think the depths of a recession are a great time to start a business. There’s a lot of really great well-known very successful businesses like Uber, like Airbnb, like FedEx, that were all started in the midst of very large depressions or recessions," said LJ Suzuki of CFOShare.
Suzuki says President-elect Joe Biden may make for new changes, too.
"One of Joe Biden’s really big campaigns was the Green New Deal, renewable energy. And the renewable energy sector has seen a lot of growth in the last eight years even under the Trump administration. And a lot of that growth has been small businesses, people that are installing solar panels, people that are manufacturing solar panels.”
Biden has also talked about tax increases for some, and Suzuki says there is no telling right now how those will affect small businesses.
Suzuki also says business owners really need to stay flexible.
“You need to constantly be pivoting and juking and changing your plans, realizing you may not stick to those plans, but the sheer act of planning alone is the right thing to do to ensure the survival of your business.”
Suzuki adds that getting a COVID-19 vaccine out to as many people as possible this year is also key to the success of so many small businesses.
