If there’s anyone who is the embodiment of resilience, it’s a small business owner. Day-to-day, entrepreneurs are faced with fiscal peaks and valleys that can either make or break their brand. This rang particularly true during the pandemic, when millions of businesses were forced to shutter due to the lockdown. Now a few years removed from the height of shelter-in-place mandates, Capital One, Masters of Scale and Morning Consult released a report unpacking exactly what it means for small businesses to be economically resilient.
“At Capital One, we recognize how critical resilience is to a business’s ability to recover or maintain operations when adversity hits,” said David Rabkin, Head of Business Cards & Payments at Capital One in a statment. “By sharing the experiences and lessons learned from business owners that have navigated their own challenges, we hope to strengthen the capacity of other entrepreneurs to cope with stressors and seize opportunities when they arise.”
As previously reported by ESSENCE, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that small businesses in the U.S. dropped 22 percent between February 2020 and April 2020, but Black ownership dropped 41 percent—the greatest decline among all racial groups during the depths of the pandemic. Despite that, recent reports have found that small businesses have significantly rebounded.
After speaking with more than 1,000 small business owners, it was found nearly a third (31%) of small business owners said they diversified their core product or service. The same share said they redefined their target audience, per the report.
“Owning a business can take a toll, with over half (52%) of small business owners saying that their role has caused them stress over the past year and more than a third (35%) feeling mental exhaustion,” the report states. “But despite feeling stressed, over 90% of owners agreed that problems can be solved, that they had an optimistic outlook and that they embodied the spirit of never giving up. Stakeholders can foster that entrepreneurial spirit by supporting small business owners at all stages of their journey.”