More “S” than “M” in SMB

I was told today that there are 28 million companies in the U.S., and that 96% of them have fewer than 10 employees.  Of course it’s not surprising to learn that most companies are not huge (they don’t call it the Fortune 500 for nothing!) but despite having seen similar data before, I was still caught off guard by how dominant the “small” are amongst the small-to-medium business universe.  So, SMB is mostly S.  When the next U.S. Census data on businesses comes out, expect the number of fewer-than-10-employee businesses to be even higher: the Internet has spawned so many micro online businesses, and enabled others via cheap marketing and infrastructure, that I don’t see how the rate of new busineess formation can’t be increasing.