Michigan Entrepreneurship Score Card - Good entrepreneurial Climate, Fewer New Biz Startups

Michigan Entrepreneurship Score Card – Good entrepreneurial Climate, Fewer New Biz Startups

LANSING – The thirteenth annual Michigan Entrepreneurship Score Card – 2017 Edition reports the state continues to improve its national ranking in “Entrepreneurial Climate” – the factors that support the entrepreneurial economy. But a significant year-to-year drop in the direction and momentum of Entrepreneurial Change underscores the challenge of maintaining entrepreneurial growth – especially startups and their survival rate – in a dynamic and relatively prosperous economy.

“The robust activity in Michigan’s entrepreneurial economy has shifted from startups and early stage companies to the expansion, hiring, and profitability happening with growing companies,” says Rob Fowler, President & CEO of the Small Business Association of Michigan. “The Score Card results mirror what we hear from entrepreneurs – we have a good entrepreneurial climate, businesses are growing and hitting new levels of sales and there’s a high demand for technical talent.”

But at the same time, this year’s Score Card reports fewer new business establishments even while existing businesses grow and there are improved overall small business resiliency and survival rates. “Having fewer startups impacts our ranking in entrepreneurial change,” Fowler says. “In a healthy economy, entrepreneurship competes with other career and employment options. With Michigan’s low unemployment and many growing firms, those opportunities become more numerous and attractive. For example, nearly a hundred thousand men and women were forced by economic circumstances to become sole proprietors in the 2007-2009 era. They have now left entrepreneurship to become employees. That’s not necessarily a negative development in light of our overall healthy entrepreneurial economy.”