April Startup Sentiment Index™ Shows Increasing Confidence About the Business Environment

NORFOLK, Va., May 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Entrepreneurs who agree or strongly agree that "now is a good time to start a business" settled in April at 65.4% of respondents, slightly off of March's 12-month high reading of 69.3%. 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 April 22-29, 2021, as news of vaccination rates surpassed 50% of adults in the U.S.

Additional highlights:

• Future business conditions: Respondents see further improvement ahead, with almost 51% of respondents believing that in three months, business conditions will be "better" or "much better" than now.
• Access to funding: Entrepreneurs' concerns over acquiring adequate funding grew, with those seeing funding "harder or much harder" to obtain rose to 34.8% in April from 30.1% in March 2021. In fact, a new record of 87.6% of respondents indicated that "funding or access to credit" was the biggest factor in their business startup plans.
• Demographics: 46.9% of respondents are currently employed full-time (the highest seen since August of 2020) and 17.7% are current business owners. Gen-X (53.1%) and Gen-Y (29.9%) are the largest age cohorts, while "Baby Boomers" follow at 14.7%.

"Business conditions are seen as favorable to startups, and expected to improve in the months ahead," says Hunter Stokes, president of FranchiseVentures. "Credit and access to funding are still viewed as the biggest barriers to almost all aspiring startups, despite low interest rates."

Download a copy of the April 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 Franchise Insights

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