Barry is a very funny and smart entrepreneur and writer. As his bio says, "Barry J. Moltz has been running small businesses with a great deal of success and failure for 15 years." He's even been dubbed the Bill Cosby of entrepreneurship, because of his humor. Of course, I like the description on his business card best of all: "passion, courage and a streak of craziness."

So, with that introduction, we are very fortunate to have Barry provide his trend insights today here at Small Business Trends.

We asked Barry to give us some pithy takes on key trends he sees among entrepreneurs and small businesses in the new millennium. Here are the trends Barry Moltz identified:

• Our 1990's hangover is almost over
  
  We are finally back to realizing it is better to get customers than money if you are an entrepreneur serious about building a business. We realize we won't get money for our business by writing our ideas on the back of a napkin. We need to dig into our bank accounts and invest our own money first to get real paying customers that are not our relatives. Thick business plans and excellent products don't always mean a financially successful business. Think marketing. Think sales and distribution. Just because you build it, does not mean people will come! If you solve a real problem, people will pay you for it. But beware, consumer paradigm shifts take forever.



• We are downsizing our dreams
  
  More of us are lowering the personal financial expectations of our businesses. We realize that we do not need to build and run publicly traded companies. Few of us should be Michael Dell or Bill Gates and that is fine with them. We know there is nothing wrong with choosing a lifestyle business that generates several million dollars in sales. We have stopped trying to keep up with the Joneses or whoever it is we are meeting on the chat boards these days. We just want to build something we are proud of. The key question we face is "Can we merge our personal and business goals into one fulfilling life?"

=============