Meet the Future--Now

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What will life be like in 10 years? Will our cell phones be able to give us a backrub or fix us a burrito? No one knows for sure, but if you're curious about the climate of the business world, consider reading the Intuit Future of Small Business Report.

According to the report, over the next decade, entrepreneurship will continue to increase, with more entrepreneurial-specific education in academics, more freelancers than ever and more diversity among small business owners. The white, middle-aged men who traditionally start small businesses will be outnumbered by other types of entrepreneurs like the mompreneur and, until we can come up with a better name, those young folks known as Generation Y.

Why should you care, especially if you're already an entrepreneur? "How we serve and partner with these customers will be significantly different than how we do today," says Brad D. Smith, senior vice president and general manager of Intuit's small business division. "If you're going to serve these customers well, you have to change and adapt."

So we decided to take a look at some entrepreneurs who fit the profile of the changing faces of business ownership. As the saying goes, the future is now.--Geoff Williams

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Why this is an up-and-coming category: While many baby boomers have started their own companies, made millions and are thinking about retiring, many more are just getting started. "As boomers mature, they will form smaller businesses at higher rates than prior generations," according to the Intuit study. "Baby boomers have been the target of serious corporate downsizing, outsourcing and job loss due to increased domestic and international competition." So for some baby boomers, entrepreneurship is a way of finally grabbing the reins.

The future now: Patricia Curry

Her story so far: Curry, 43, the youngest of the baby boomers, owns Wellhaven.com, an online retail store aimed at customers buying gifts for senior citizens. Like many of her peers and the baby boomers that came before her, Curry spent most of her adult life working for someone else until she began Wellhaven in 2002.

Unlike her parents, she didn't just work at one company. Curry shuttled from company to company--six in all--toiling for employers large and small. Now that she's a business owner, Curry is grateful she spent so much time as an employee. "I have some frame of reference to make a decision, having had 25 years experience working in five or six different industries," she explains. Her most recent job was at a small, internet-based firm.

Wellhaven has grown to include four employees, including Curry and her 52-year-old husband, Bill, the company's vice president. And while Curry predicts a bright future for her business--"people are just going to get older, and they're living longer"--she wouldn't be completely averse to becoming an employee again if she had to. "It wouldn't be a problem," she says. "Even when you're self-employed, you always have someone to answer to. Nobody ever truly works alone."

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Why this is an up-and-coming category: The Intuit study notes that even though immigrants often have education, professional experience and even a network of friends and family when they come to United States, it's still not the easiest transition. "Starting a business is often easier than finding a job," the study found. The U.S. Census reports that immigrants are currently the fastest-growing segment of small business owners.

The future now: Reza Khorramian and Sunny Rajab

Their story so far: Khorramian, now 36, arrived from Iran when he was 15 years old. At the time, Iraq and Iran were at war, and Khorramian's parents knew their son would be drafted into fighting what they felt was a senseless conflict. Rajab, now 26, was five when she came to America, because her parents were similarly concerned for her older brother. Both went to college, worked in the corporate world, married and then launched their own telecommunications firm, Irvine, California-based Business Communications Solutions, in 2004. The firm now has 21 employees and is expected to bring in $4 million by the end of the year, up from $3.2 million last year.

Khorramian and Rajab credit their parents, who served as entrepreneurial role models, for a large part of their success. After moving to Anaheim, California, Rajab's mother and father promptly opened a restaurant, and Khorramian's father, a mechanic in Iran who came to America with $4,000, began working for a mechanic and within a year, opened his own garage.

Rajab, the company's CEO, has a theory about why their families were able to succeed in their ventures. "What's different about us is that we see that there are a lot more opportunities than in Iran," she says. "A lot of people who were born here don't see that."

Khorramian, the company's president, adds, "You also start with nothing, so you have nothing to lose, and that's another advantage."

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Why this is an up-and-coming category: Working moms who want to have a career and still be available for their children have found that virtual companies often provide the solution to their dilemma. They can parent, wear their bathrobe and slippers and ship out 58 orders a day to customers around the world.

What surprised the folks at Intuit, says Smith, was just how much mompreneurs are willing to help each other in sharing information about growing their businesses. The study also found that because time management is a struggle, "the vast majority of these businesses remain part-time, but some grow into sizeable organizations."

The future now: Theresa Kiene

Her story so far: Kiene was a vice president of programming, helping to develop series such as The X-Files, Six Feet Under, Ned and Stacey and other shows for networks like FOX, CBS and Lifetime Television. She made good money, lived an interesting life, loved her job and yet something was missing--usually her three children.

Fortunately, an opportunity presented itself. After first becoming a mother, Kiene started thinking about what she was feeding her child and, not happy with what stores offered, began making her own baby food. By the time she had a third baby, the food preparation was practically a second job. About the same time, her friends began asking for recipes or for Kiene to cook a little extra for them. So in October 2005, she started Homemade Baby with her husband, Matt, a former TV writer. The company's certified organic baby food has received media coverage ranging from The Today Show to The New York Times.

In the last six months, the food has gone from being available in two stores to 60, including Whole Foods and will be in 400 stores nationwide by late 2007. "That means more production, more space, more machines, more oversight, more staff, less sleep," says Kiene. But that doesn't mean she wants to return to working for someone else. "You're swapping a different kind of stress for a better kind," she says.

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Why this is an up-and-coming category: One reason, according to the Intuit study, is that women are still under-represented at the top levels of the American labor force, despite the fact that they make up more than 46 percent of the workers. And those glass ceilings aren't expected to shatter for at least another 40 years.

The future now: Amy Nichols

Her story so far: In 2001, Nichols, now 33, realized that she simply wasn't happy in her sales job. She did, however, enjoy the competitive nature of sales. "When you close a sale, particularly a big one, there's a great feeling of success," says Nichols.

What she also enjoyed was spending time with her dog, Griffin. Those combined passions inspired her to sell her house and use the money to open a day care for dogs. Fortunately, her fiancé, who also lived in the house she planned to sell, was supportive of the idea.

It took awhile, but Dogtopia, based in White Flint, Maryland, made $1.5 million in 2006 and recently began franchising. The company has eight Dogtopia locations around the country, which means Nichols has been having plenty of fun closing deals. Meanwhile, her husband, Mike Schlegel, has since given up his own job in sales to work with the company, heading the franchising portion of the business. The reason we may be seeing more women like Nichols starting their own companies: "I think the idea of following your dreams and your heart is more acceptable," she says.

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Why this is an up-and-coming category: Intuit, which also calls this group the Digital Generation, says this cohort "is leery of working in the corporate world. They see traditional big company jobs as both constraining and risky. They have a clear wish to be the captains of their own destiny."

But Patricia Curry, our baby boomer entrepreneur, has another thought: "They have more resources available. We didn't have the internet when we were really young. The entry points into business are lower. They just have a different set of opportunities than we had." And some are making the most of them.

The future now: Jared Isaacman

His story so far: It wasn't just that his son began talking in full sentences at 14 months old. Don Isaacman knew his son was different from most kids--and his three other children--the day he went to kindergarten. When Jared Isaacman's teacher met him, she asked, "What's your name, little boy?" She repeated the question three times before asking, "What's the matter, little boy? Cat got your tongue?"  Isaacman finally answered, "I don't speak to people who talk to me in baby talk." 

Now 23, he's the president and founder of United Bank Card, a credit card transaction processing company that handles more than $4 billion a year and grossed more than $56 million last year. Isaacman, who fronts a company with 144 full-time employees, began the company when he was 16 in his parents' basement. By then, he was already an established teen-preneur. In middle school, when paint ball was popular, he was calling the manufacturers directly, buying the kits and selling them to his classmates. When he was about 13, Isaacman ran a business setting up computers for doctor's offices. He left high school early, got his GED and only spent two years in college.

Don's advice to parents of other children with an entrepreneurial spirit: "Don't stifle your kids. Not that your kids should leave high school, but if they have a passion, they should follow it."