The Market Is Growing!
Entrepreneurs play a vital role in stimulating economic growth through innovation and job creation.
According to the latest figures from the Kauffman Foundation, for each month in 2009, 340 out of 100,000 U.S. adults started a new business. That statistic, the highest in the last 14 years, represents a 4 percent increase over 2008, or 27,000 more starts per month than in 2008, and 60,000 more starts per month than in 2007. What that means is that in 2009, 558,000 new businesses were created each month, signaling perhaps that the nation’s entrepreneurs are unabashedly paving the road out of the U.S. recession.
Other key findings include:
- Entrepreneurship growth was highest among 35- to 44-year-olds, rising from 0.35 in 2008 to 0.40 in 2009.
- The oldest age group in the study (55-64 years) also experienced a large increase in business-creation rates from 2008 to 2009, contributing to a two-year upward trend to 0.40.
- Among states, Oklahoma and Montana had the highest entrepreneurial activity rates, with 470 per 100,000 adults creating businesses each month. The other states with the highest rates were Arizona (460 per 100,000 adults), and Texas and Idaho, both with 450 businesses started per 100,000 adults.
- The five states with the lowest rates of entrepreneurial activity were Mississippi (170 per 100,000 adults), Nebraska (200 per 100,000 adults), Pennsylvania (200 per 100,000 adults) Alabama (210 per 100,000 adults) and Minnesota (220 per 100,000 adults).
- Among the United States’ fifteen largest metropolitan statistical areas, Houston had the highest entrepreneurial rate (0.63 percent) in 2009. Seattle had the lowest rate (0.16 percent).
Small businesses are considered the backbone of America and are what many financial analysts predict will be the vehicle to drive us out of this financial downturn. A few small business stats (according to the SBA) that stick out to me:
- There are 27+ Million Small Businesses in the US.
- Between 60% & 80% of all new jobs created in our country can be attributed to Small Business.
An amazing infographic by Intuit that explores the costs of starting a new small business in the United States compared to other markets around the world. The graphic shows that starting a business in the US is relatively easy compared to the largest markets in Asia and a few places in Europe. It also seems that the survival rate of businesses in the US is much larger than any other region in the study. These numbers should go a long way towards small business optimism in comparison to our direct international competitors.
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