Small and Medium-Sized Businesses Upbeat Despite New Uncertainties

Digital and email marketing platform Constant Contact released its latest Small Business Now report, which sought information from 1,600 Small and Medium-Sized Businesses that have operated for five years or less.

The headline trend finding emerged was “cautious optimism” among these early-stage entrepreneurs.

The marketing firm also noted respondents’ focus on growing fast. While most companies of this type market via social media platforms, there’s also a shift to using more traditional channels used by more established firms, like email and paid search. Despite their small size and relative newness, these companies are also embracing the buzziest of tech innovations—AI—and feeling optimistic while being “mindful of external pressures like potential tariffs.”

This upbeat vibe is interesting because it arrives against a background of entrepreneurs worrying about burnout and workers worried about an economic downturn based on joblessness growth and the Trump administration’s tariffs.

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As a measure of the “optimism” Constant Contact highlighted, its data show that 95 percent of the entrepreneurs surveyed said they’d choose to be entrepreneurs again if given the opportunity, and 81 percent said being a small business owner “exceeded their expectations.”

Those are personal points of view, of course, and the figures for their businesses reflect a slightly more measured enthusiasm: 48 percent of new and early-stage smaller businesses reported high confidence in their ability to grow, and 83 percent said they felt prepared or at least “somewhat prepared” for unexpected market shifts this year. Following this response, 51 percent expected customer acquisition to be their biggest marketing challenge this year.

Market intelligence platform ZoomInfo has been tracking real-time data on the impact of DOGE-led government spending cuts, for example, and confirmed that contract cuts have impacted third-party businesses—some 65 percent of which were small or medium-sized firms. Underlining this fact, ZoomInfo’s data show nearly half (45 percent) of the companies affected have revenues in the $1 million to $10 million range.

Related: 10 Customer Retention Strategies For Essential Growth in 2025

But this class of entrepreneurs isn’t just looking at existing tech; it’s embracing the incoming wave of AI, too. The survey shows that only 29 percent of the companies surveyed said they weren’t going to leverage AI for their business this year. Of those that are going to, 32 percent said they use it for content creation, and tellingly, 29 percent said they’d use it for “optimizing ads.” Another reference to dramatic changes that are upending traditional online norms is that the ad industry is undergoing a sea change driven by AI. The distinct choices made by market leader Google to embrace the new technology are unsettling companies that have spent years refining their ad strategy.

Despite many uncertainties, Constant Contact’s director of Small Business Success, Dave Charest, confirmed in an email to Inc. that he feels “small businesses are used to working through tough times, and that remains true today,” just as before.

Charest said he thinks the survey shows “the newest wave of post-pandemic entrepreneurs appears to be more adaptable than ever” and that they aren’t “blind to the challenges in front of them, but they are putting their enthusiasm to use and taking strategic actions to ensure they can be successful in any economy.” Despite “some of the challenges in the news right now,” Charest feels the urge to start new businesses remains strong: “That entrepreneurial spirit is still very much alive.”

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