State of American Entrepreneurship
Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2025 3:42 am
Open any financial or tech news site and you'll see Facebook/Google buying some new company, app makers or robot squirrels, for $5 gillion. Silicon Valley entrepreneurship is going mainstream. We're tearing down doors and replacing them with gold-plated windows overlooking the river. We can't even see out, but we don't care!
American Entrepreneurship
Unfortunately, Silicon Valley is an anomaly. American entrepreneurship as a whole is doing very poorly.
American Entrepreneurship
Source: Gallup.com
For the first time since numbers have been tracked gcash database American startups are coming onto the scene at a slower rate than businesses are closing, meaning America is losing businesses every year .
How is it possible that in an age of automation and human support, Americans are having trouble starting a business?
We have an abundance of resources at our fingertips
Let’s look at what we have before we get to what we’re missing. We do have technology that can take the pain out of our day-to-day business. Accounting software to manage our books. Human resource management software to manage our people. An endless supply of professional services available to fill the gaps.
Americans have never been more productive, even though our growth rate is slowing sharply. In theory, any of us should be able to open a business this week — maybe even today — making our communities and families richer and stronger.
Airbnb is valued at over $25 billion, and its founders started with a couple of air mattresses and a cheap website . The power of the internet is its incredible reach and openness. This gives any business an audience of millions in a matter of seconds.
What's stopping us?
Risk aversion is growing
As my experienced colleague Rachel Burger has noted, millennials are risk averse . As older generations leave the workforce—and move out of startup age—they are being replaced by a generation that spent a lot of time feeling secure. Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart.
In addition to the overall demographic shift, we are still slowly recovering from a long recession. Unemployment has been high for a long time , wages have grown slowly, homes have been hard to sell, and credit has been tight.
Starting a business requires risking many of the things we hold dear, and with the economy running short, we have little appetite for additional risk or expense. More than three-quarters of small businesses are still based on personal savings, and like an old 486 running Windows 95, we have few resources.
American Entrepreneurship
Unfortunately, Silicon Valley is an anomaly. American entrepreneurship as a whole is doing very poorly.
American Entrepreneurship
Source: Gallup.com
For the first time since numbers have been tracked gcash database American startups are coming onto the scene at a slower rate than businesses are closing, meaning America is losing businesses every year .
How is it possible that in an age of automation and human support, Americans are having trouble starting a business?
We have an abundance of resources at our fingertips
Let’s look at what we have before we get to what we’re missing. We do have technology that can take the pain out of our day-to-day business. Accounting software to manage our books. Human resource management software to manage our people. An endless supply of professional services available to fill the gaps.
Americans have never been more productive, even though our growth rate is slowing sharply. In theory, any of us should be able to open a business this week — maybe even today — making our communities and families richer and stronger.
Airbnb is valued at over $25 billion, and its founders started with a couple of air mattresses and a cheap website . The power of the internet is its incredible reach and openness. This gives any business an audience of millions in a matter of seconds.
What's stopping us?
Risk aversion is growing
As my experienced colleague Rachel Burger has noted, millennials are risk averse . As older generations leave the workforce—and move out of startup age—they are being replaced by a generation that spent a lot of time feeling secure. Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart.
In addition to the overall demographic shift, we are still slowly recovering from a long recession. Unemployment has been high for a long time , wages have grown slowly, homes have been hard to sell, and credit has been tight.
Starting a business requires risking many of the things we hold dear, and with the economy running short, we have little appetite for additional risk or expense. More than three-quarters of small businesses are still based on personal savings, and like an old 486 running Windows 95, we have few resources.