By Joyce M. Rosenberg
AP Business Writer
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. states had an increase in new businesses last year, as did a majority of the metropolitan areas studied by the Kauffman Foundation.
Thirty states saw gains in business startups, with larger states showing the biggest increases. The top five were Texas, Florida, California, New York and Colorado. Eleven smaller states saw a decline in new companies.
Twenty-three out of the 40 metro areas tracked by the foundation also showed gains. The areas with the highest number of new companies were Austin, Texas; Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas.
The geographic breakdown, released last week, offers more details from the foundation's report in June that the national rate of entrepreneurship rose in 2015, ending a decline that began in 2010.
"While there is considerable variation from one locale to the next, the aggregate data bodes well for business startup activity around the country," said Arnobio Morelix, an analyst at Kauffman, which conducts research on entrepreneurship and education.
Small business owners who hope to sell their companies - either soon or in the far-off future - should be thinking about how to maximize the profit from a sale. That means making the enterprise more attractive to prospective buyers. SCORE, the organization offering free counseling to small businesses, is sponsoring an online seminar about preparing a company for sale on Thursday, Sept. 15, at 1 p.m. Eastern time. Learn more and register at http://tinyurl.com/zp34ns6.
Published: Tue, Sep 06, 2016
