Confidence Higher Among Business Buyers Than Consumers in May

71.6% of respondents 'more or much more likely' to start a business now than three months ago

Likelihood of starting business now compared to three months ago

While measures of consumer sentiment have been declining recently, optimism about starting a business remains solid. Despite war headlines, stock market declines and inflation woes, 78% of aspiring business owners surveyed in May were resolute about starting their businesses within the coming six months. Not surprisingly, 76.6% of these survey respondents see business conditions about the same or getting better in the next three months. Currently, 67.4% of would-be entrepreneurs agree or strongly agree that "now is a good time to start a business," according to the Small Business Startup Sentiment Index™ by FranchiseInsights.com.

The most recent Startup Sentiment Index™ survey was conducted May 19-26, 2022. 

Additional highlights:

  • Future business conditions: In an acknowledgment of how good business conditions are now, only 29.1% of respondents believe that in three months, business conditions will be "better" or "much better" than now. And 47.5% see conditions "about the same" in three months.
  • Access to funding: The percentage of entrepreneurs concerned about finding adequate funding eased to 68.7%, while those seeing funding "harder or much harder" to obtain in the next three months jumped to 47.7%.
  • Demographics: In May, 50% of respondents were currently employed full-time, and 20.1% were current business owners seeking an additional business. Gen-X (53.7%) and Gen-Y "Millennials" (26.1%) were the largest age cohorts, and "Baby Boomers" followed at 18.7%, with Gen-Z trailing at 1.5%.

"Entrepreneurs are some of the most optimistic people on earth," says Hunter Stokes, president of FranchiseVentures. "The appeal of business ownership is strong despite whatever the current headlines may be."

Download a copy of the May 2022 FranchiseInsights.com 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 recently inquired about businesses or franchises for sale on the digital assets of FranchiseVentures.

About Franchise Insights

A unit of FranchiseVentures, FranchiseInsights.com 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 of 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 worldwide.

For more research from FranchiseInsights.com, subscribe above or follow us on LinkedIn.

Media Contact:
Michael Alston
Follow on LinkedIn 
Email: malston@decisionsmedia.com

Source: Franchise Insights