• Four in 10 U.S. young people ages 8 to 21 have or would like to start their own business someday, and 63 percent believe they could successfully start their own business.
• In the past decade, the group with the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity is adults between the ages of 55 and 64. The lowest activity is among those 20 to 34.
• Entrepreneurship does not necessarily run in the family. More than half (51.9 percent) of those surveyed were the first in their families to launch a business.
• Founders tend to be middle-age -- 40 years old on average -- when they start their first companies. Most came are from middle-class or upper-lower-class backgrounds, well-educated and married with children.
• More than a quarter of technology and engineering companies started in the United States from 1995 to 2005 had at least one key founder who was foreign-born.
• `Building wealth' is a the primary motivation cited for starting companies, along with `capitalizing on a business idea,' `the appeal of a start-up culture' and `a desire to own a company.' Very few (4 percent) cited the inability to find traditional employment as a factor in starting businesses.
• More than half of the companies on the 2009 Fortune 500 list were launched during a recession or bear market, along with nearly half of the firms on the 2008 Inc. list of America's fastest-growing companies.
• Across the U.S. in 2008, 530,000 new firms were created each month. South Florida ranked No. 5 among large metropolitan areas in entrepreneurial activity.
SOURCES: Kauffman Foundation studies: Harris Interactive Survey, 2007; The Coming Entrepreneurship Boom, 2009; Education, Entrepreneurship and Immigration, 2007; The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur, 2009; AThe Economic Future Just Happened, 2009;The Entrepreneurial Activity Index, 2009
Email Story
Printer Friendly 
Quick Job Search
@Nyx.replyAnswerText@