Celebrating Entrepreneurs: How Startups and New Businesses are Thriving
The Stats. The entrepreneurial spirit in the U.S. is strong, even amid unclear economic conditions.
Business ventures that were open a year or less reported ongoing success at a relatively high rate. Meanwhile, businesses increasingly were born through opportunities instead of necessity, according to early stage measures within the Kauffman Indicators of Entrepreneurship.
The results show a very strong entrepreneurial ecosystem and a sustained increase in self-starters among developing majorities, including Latino entrepreneurs, explains economist Rob Fairlie in a .
In 2021, the number of new businesses increased to all-time highs, in part due to demand and job loss during and after COVID. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 5.4 million new business applications were submitted last year, breaking the previous high of 4.4 million set in 2020.
Gross employment growth from opening and expanding private-sector businesses totaled 9.6 million in the last quarter of 2021, reported the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. There were 6.7 million net job losses as a result of shuttering and contracting private-sector businesses.
Role of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs all over the world make contributions to business and have an impact on the residents of their communities, from new products and ideas to positive economic impact.
The commercialization of new ideas, especially radical innovations that create wholly new markets or significantly disrupt current markets, is primarily the responsibility of new enterprises, says the .
Additionally, entrepreneurs boost productivity and create jobs, which both benefit the economy of a country.
Entrepreneurship brings new, higher-productivity enterprises into the market, enhances competition among already-established companies, and drives out underperforming ones, says the CAE post.
"New and young businesses are the engine of net job creation in the economy," the center adds.
Economic lifeline. The CEO of the microbusiness network CAMEO, Carolina Martinez, stresses the vital contribution that entrepreneurs make to the general economic security of residents in the places where they live and work.
"Small businesses function as an economic lifeline — especially for disadvantaged communities," she says in a .
"For women, immigrants and people of color — who are often excluded from other means of wealth-building — entrepreneurship can be a path to prosperity," she says.
Citing startups' innovative role in the U.S., the SBA announced an initiative aimed at helping them "scale, grow, and thrive."
Entrepreneurs are driving innovative solutions to the nation's most critical problems on a daily basis in communities all across the country, the SBA said in an April press release.
"The SBA is committed to helping ensure that those good ideas from everywhere and anywhere connect to federally-supported ecosystems and partners to commercialize and grow into resilient American businesses."
Best places for entrepreneurship. A U.S. World and News Report list ranking countries seen as innovative with enterprising citizens puts Japan, Germany, and the U.S. at the top, respectively.
"For countries to spread prosperity to citizens, governments must find industries where they can compete globally in the digital age – the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution," says t.
The Best Countries for Entrepreneurship list by CEOWORLD magazine puts the U.S. in the top spot.
The United States consistently receives good marks for having a highly skilled workforce, business-friendly policies, and easy access to funding for start-ups, the magazine says in a
According to the post, CEOWORLD evaluated 100 economies that together account for 95% of the world's gross domestic product in order to create the index. Germany and the United Kingdom placed second and third on the list, respectively.