For most people who start a one-person business, riches don’t follow. The U.S. Census Bureau’s recently released annual report on “non-employer” businesses found that there were 22.5 million “nonemployer firms” in 2011. They had average revenues of $44,000. That’s in the ballpark of the average annual wage in the U.S. of $45,790, though, of course, any overhead the owners must pay comes out of their revenue.
But for some of these one-man or one-woman shops, running a microbusiness is very lucrative. If you’re thinking about going into business for yourself, and worry about how you’ll pay the bills or support your dependents, you may find these statistics about non-employer firms inspiring. Typically, the businesses in this study were sole proprietorships, but a small percentage were partnerships and corporations.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
