February Startup Sentiment Index™ Shows Entrepreneurs Advancing Startup Timelines

NORFOLK, Va., March 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In February, entrepreneurs expressing intent to start or buy "this month" rose to a record 31.2% of respondents, by far the highest on record, and indexing at 218% of January 2020. Startups planned for the "next 2-3 months" grew to 28.9% in the FranchiseInsights.com Small Business Startup Sentiment Index™ (SSI) of individuals who have recently inquired about businesses for sale.

Summary: Continued Evidence of a Boom in Business Startups and Franchise Purchases Midyear 2021

The survey was conducted February 25-28, 2021, just as the FDA approved emergency Use Authorization of the Johnson & Johnson single-dose Covid-19 vaccine, and interest rates on US treasury bonds began the recent uptick.

Additional highlights:

• Future business conditions: Respondents were more optimistic, with almost 50% of respondents believing that in three months, business conditions will be "better" or "much better" than now, up from 44.4% in January 2021.
• Access to funding: Entrepreneurs' concerns abated some, with those seeing funding "harder or much harder" to obtain dropping back to 33.1% in February from January from 37.6% in January. Nonetheless, a record 75.1% of respondents indicated that "funding" was the biggest barrier to their business startup plans.
• Demographics: 52.7% of respondents are currently employed full-time (highest since August of 2020), and 16% are current business owners. While Gen-X (52.1%) and Gen-Y (27.2%) are the highest percentage of survey respondents, "Baby Boomers" at 18.3% remain in third place.

"Future business owners are adjusting to what they see as better conditions for startup," says Hunter Stokes, president of FranchiseVentures. "The data continues to suggest a healthy rebound in business startups at midyear."

Download a copy of the February SSI report here. See excerpts from prior SSI™ surveys and subscribe to receive the Small Business Startup Sentiment Index™ monthly report when it is released.

The Small Business Startup Sentiment Index™ is based on a monthly survey of individuals who have recently inquired about businesses or franchises for sale on the digital assets of FranchiseVentures.

About Franchise Insights

A unit of FranchiseVentures, Franchise Insights provides research and intelligence to help the franchise industry and investors understand and meet the needs of budding entrepreneurs who want to own their own businesses. With a vast and growing proprietary data set of U.S. franchise inquiries, we use the tools of data science to make inferences and discover best practices to foster the growth of small businesses.

FranchiseVentures is the leading demand generation platform for aspiring business buyers and franchisees to thousands of growing franchise systems in the United States and Canada. Its franchise lead generation brands include Franchise.com, FranchiseSolutions.com, FranchiseGator.com, FranchiseOpportunities.com, FranchiseForSale.com, SmallBusinessStartup.com and BusinessBroker.net, and together they provide the largest aggregation of prospective business and franchise buyers in the U.S.

For more research from the FranchiseInsights.com proprietary data set, subscribe above or follow us on LinkedIn.

Media Contact:
Michael Alston
Phone: 757.351.8808
Email: [email protected]

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Aspiring business owners advance their startup timelines

SOURCE FranchiseInsights.com