The Covid-19 pandemic has affected entrepreneurship and there are still ongoing research on how the pandemic has affected small business around the globe (Dias et al., 2021; Galindo-Martín et al., 2021). Some industries like for instance tourism and travel have taken a huge decrease in sales meanwhile entrepreneurs like for instance in digital meetings and food stores have increased their sales (Boter et al., 2021). Because of the Covid-19 pandemic,the entrepreneurial spirit has experienced tuff times. Even though Covid-19 pandemic have affected entrepreneurs in different ways such for instance new demands, attitudes and collaborations as well as adjustments to new terms there has been hard to run business during the pandemic. There has also been geographical differences as well as industry differences for the entrepreneurs (Boter et al., 2021). Entrepreneurs therefore have continued their business in different ways and have made different decisions at different moments duringcrises (Veselovska et al., 2021).

Research in entrepreneurship is often separate necessity driven entrepreneurship from opportunity driven entrepreneurship as the main two perspectives (Reynolds, 2012; Liñán and Jaén, 2020). There is a larger debate about this difference and entrepreneurs’ motives and this difference is important to study more (Liñán and Jaén, 2020). These two perspectives are interesting to study more especially how especially how different entrepreneurs have adapted their entrepreneurship during the pandemic. The purpose of the study is to examine how small businesses have developed their businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic. What opportunities have entrepreneurs identified and applied during the Covid-19 pandemic? How have entrepreneurs adapted their business to by necessity to survive financially during the Covid-19 pandemic?

The study was designed as a qualitative study with interview as a data collection method. The interview guide was based on previous research with a focus on the following themes; X (REF). Data was also collected from secondary data like homepages and social media. Interviews were conducted with 131 entrepreneurs, mainly from Europe and Asia. The interviews have since been themed in levels of analysis based on Gioia et al. (2013).

The results show that there is a clear division of entrepreneurs regarding necessity driven business development while others have not been affected to the same extent have instead discovered new business opportunities during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study also shows that it is of great importance which social safety net the various countries have had where some countries have offered state support. In contrast, the entrepreneurs who run their businesses in countries where there is a complete lack of state support. For these companies, it is their own responsibility to solve problems with financing, which has often been done with the help of the family and banks. © The Authors, 2022.