March Startup Sentiment Index™ Shows Aspiring Business Owners Increasingly Confident

NORFOLK, Va., April 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Entrepreneurs who agree or strongly agree that "now is a good time to start a business" grew in March to 69.3% of respondents, the highest recorded since February 2020, before the pandemic became headline news. FranchiseInsights.com compiles monthly the Small Business Startup Sentiment Index™ (SSI) of individuals who have recently inquired about businesses for sale.

The most recent Startup Sentiment Index™ survey was conducted March 25-30, 2021, as news of accelerated vaccination timelines was tempered by reports of increasing Covid cases, following a significant jump in air travel associated with spring vacationing in the U.S.

Additional highlights:

• Future business conditions: Respondents see further improvement ahead, with almost 58% of respondents believing that in three months, business conditions will be "better" or "much better" than now, increasing four months in a row from 42.6% in December 2020.
• Access to funding: Entrepreneurs' concerns abated some, with those seeing funding "harder or much harder" to obtain dropping back to  30.1% in March from 33.1% in February 2021. Nonetheless, a new record of 76.9% of respondents indicated that "funding" was the biggest barrier to their business startup plans.
• Demographics: 49.7% of respondents are currently employed full-time (highest since August of 2020), and 16% are current business owners. Gen-X (49.2%) and Gen-Y (30.9%) are the largest age cohorts, while "Baby Boomers" follow at 16.8%.

"Business conditions as perceived by aspiring business owners haven't been better since the pandemic unfolded," says Hunter Stokes, president of FranchiseVentures. "The next several months should show a wave of startups based on this data."

Download a copy of the March 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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Now is a Good Time to Start a Business

SOURCE FranchiseInsights.com