A variety of associative algebras over a field of characteristic 0 is called minimal if the exponent of the variety which measures the growth of its codimension sequence is strictly larger than the exponent of any of its proper subvarieties, i.e., its codimension sequence grows much faster than the codimension sequence of its proper subvarieties. By the results of Giambruno and Zaicev it follows that the number [Formula: see text] of minimal varieties of given exponent [Formula: see text] is finite. Using methods of the theory of colored (or weighted) compositions of integers, we show that the limit [Formula: see text] exists and can be expressed as the positive solution of an equation [Formula: see text] where [Formula: see text] is an explicitly given power series. Similar results are obtained for the number of minimal varieties with a given Gelfand–Kirillov dimension of their relatively free algebras of rank [Formula: see text]. It follows from classical results on lacunary power series that the generating function of the sequence [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], is transcendental. With the same approach we construct examples of free graded semigroups [Formula: see text] with the following property. If [Formula: see text] is the number of elements of degree [Formula: see text] of [Formula: see text], then the limit [Formula: see text] exists and is transcendental.