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Reports

National Report on Early-Stage Entrepreneurship in the United States (2018)

This report presents national trends in early-stage entrepreneurship for the years 1996-2018 in the United States, as well as trends for specific demographic groups when possible.

This report presents four indicators that track early-stage entrepreneurship for the years 1996-2018: rate of new entrepreneurs reflects the number of new entrepreneurs in a given month, opportunity share of new entrepreneurs is the percentage of new entrepreneurs who created their businesses out of opportunity instead of necessity, startup early job creation is the total number of jobs created by startups per capita, and startup early survival rate is the one-year average survival rate for new firms.

Report Highlights:

  • The rate of new entrepreneurs in 2018 was 0.32%, which reflects that 320 out of every 100,000 adults became new entrepreneurs in an average month.
  • The opportunity share of new entrepreneurs was 86.16% in 2018. This figure is up slightly from 2017, when it was 84.37%, and it is more than 10 percentage points higher than it was in 2009 (73.84%).
  • Startup early job creation was 5.20 jobs per 1,000 in 2018, reflecting an increase from 4.47 in 2010.
  • The startup early survival rate was 79.43% in 2018, essentially remaining constant over the past few years.
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