They May Be Mundane, but Low-Tech Businesses Are Booming
By ELIZABETH OLSON

Forget Web sites and molecular imaging. The biggest fields of opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs are the same mundane ventures that have been kicking around for decades.

Think landscaping companies, child-care providers, janitorial services and nail and hair salons. In a generally buoyant market for low-technology businesses, those are four of the biggest winners by far. Altogether, sole proprietorships in the United States, a rough measure of the size of the small-business low-technology sector, grew by nearly 4 percent in 2002, the latest year with statistics available, to 17.6 million, and their combined revenue increased by 5.5 percent, to $770 billion. The figures come from the Census Bureau's Economic Census, a snapshot of the American economy that is taken every five years.

And the trends that drove the increases in low-tech businesses have only accelerated, the bureau's economists say, as the nation's economy has rebounded and employment has recovered.

Growth in housing has increased demand for lawn care, the office construction boom has created a need for cleaning crews, more families than ever have two working spouses and need child care, and more women are treating themselves to trips to the beauty parlor, the economists say.

That reflects a truth about American entrepreneurship that is often lost in the breathless news coverage of the latest Silicon Valley start-up or biotechnology wonder: most of the growth involves tried-and-true undertakings that are unlikely to yield overnight riches but are open to anyone with tenacity and grit.