I've been watching the upward growth of the microbrewery industry for many years now, particularly since my cousin's brand of "Mojo Highway" golden ale was featured in a major hip hop magazine several years ago. Unfortunately, he did not have the funding to expand his brand and the beer company went under, but his experience demonstrated the clear consumer demand for products made by micro-manufacturers of everything from soap to alcoholic beverages.

An MSNBC article today further confirms this. Mega-company beer sales declined 1.6% last year while micro-brewery sales jumped a whopping 9%. So what are the bigger companies doing? Doling out big bucks to snap up the smaller brands and ward off the competition, that's what!

Think about it. You can buy a product that you see advertised on the side of buses, during championship football game halftime shows and in sleek major department store catalogs. Or you can buy a product made by someone who started his or her business from passion to deliver you the best product imaginable. And to top it all off, she used to work at one of the world's mega-companies and became just as tired and burned out as you are, so she started her own business. Now, she supports her family by making and selling to you the products she feels so passionate about. If the product quality and performance are there (and often times, both are better than the major brands), then which would you choose to buy?

The corporate suction of niche brands is happening all over. Remember back in 2000 when the Hain Food Group - the country's largest health food company at the time, and which is now called the Hain Celestial Group -- bought Celestial Seasonings for close to $400 million? (And it has since purchased many more indie companies including a brand of organic baby food.) Or how about when Disney purchased Baby Einstein from mom and entrepreneur Julie Clark for a reported $25 million?

Big companies' products are convenient because they are ubiquitous. When people want to buy a product at a discount price that meets a physical need, they are there. For example, say you're at a football game and they sell big brew in the stands. Your buddies are buying it by the gallon, so you have some too. Or you're running around like a crazy woman on December 24 trying to finish your holiday shopping and you spot mega-brand company lotion on sale at a 50% discount. What are you going to do?

But when you want to buy a product that fills more than a physical need, you act differently. You want to be inspired by the products you spend your money on. You want to identify with the place from when they came, and when they sprang forth from the heart of a person just like you who is pursuing a life-long dream to get a beautiful product into your hot little hands, which are you going to choose?

Lifestyle CEOs, our time has come. Of course it's not easy. Julie Clark spent a lot of time running Baby Einstein before Disney came along. (You can enjoy my Lifestyle CEO interview with Julie here.) But if you do have a quality product, and there is a demand for it, you can grow it to the point where you will have a lot of options.

You'll be able to stay small, and make enough money to support yourself, your family and maybe even have a small business asset to hand off in your will. Or you can work like the dickens for a decade and sell your baby for millions of dollars to a company that will fold it into their own group of brands. And there are a thousand options in between. Partner with someone else. License your brand. Franchise it. Only the length of your life limits the possibilities.

So, again, if you ever worry about whether there are enough people to buy your "indie" product when so many are buying the mega-company brands, use the time you spend worrying about that to take actions to move your business forward -- step by step, day by day.

Now, stop worrying!! And get to work!!