This paper presents a study of the software development processes of very small software companies, with a focus on the company's Software Process Improvement (SPI) activities. SPI has gained an increasing importance in software engineering domain. However, recent studies show that the obligation and commitment towards SPI especially in small companies is weak and not always taken seriously. This situation is often related to insufficient availability of resources either in term of financial, human and time in this type of companies. Accordingly, this paper explores the current situation in very small companies and gauges their acceptance levels towards SPI actions and the underlying reasons behind this. In this research we carried out a survey which contains open and close ended questions in a series of very small software development companies in Ireland. A quantitative analysis; that use a statistical analysis, and qualitative analysis; that adopt the qualitative content analysis method have been followed throughout this study. The results indicate that the SPI initiatives in very small software development companies are done on a small scale manner, informally and indirectly. In addition, the results also indicate that commitment and involvement of people in these organizations towards SPI is high. © 2010 IEEE.