Almost Three-Quarters of Aspiring Franchisees Expect Their Startups Within Six Months
By: Michael Alston for Franchise Insights
August 7, 2024 – About 58% of aspiring business owners either agree or strongly agree that “now is a good time to start a business,” with optimism about conditions ahead. In the July 2024 survey, 79.5% of respondents see conditions for business and franchise startups “the same or better in three months” and those seeing the conditions “better or much better” rose to a five-month high at 31.5%
Of this month’s respondents, 74% planned their startups for within the next six months, and 56.2% within the next three months, up from 50.6% last month. Further, 57.5% of entrepreneurs surveyed say they are “more or much more likely to launch their startups than three months ago.”
FranchiseInsights.com compiles monthly the Small Business Startup Sentiment Index™ (SSI) of individuals who have recently inquired about businesses for sale. The most recent Startup Sentiment Index™ survey was conducted July 25-31, 2024.
Concerns about “political changes” were elevated for the third consecutive month.
Additional highlights:
- Future business conditions: Reversing a multi-year downtrend in sentiment about future business conditions, about 79.5% of respondents see conditions no worse – staying the same or getting better in three months– with 47.9% seeing conditions “about the same” as now, which they view as good. This month only 16.4% see conditions getting worse or much worse..
- Access to funding: The percentage of entrepreneurs concerned about finding adequate funding rose to 64.4%, and those who see funding “harder or much harder” to obtain in the next three months grew to 30.1% of respondents. But “political changes” again ranked third among concerns for July as in May and June, up from fifth in April.
- Demographics: Of the survey respondents, a typical 47.9% are currently employed full-time, down from the record 61.7% in June. Another 19,2% of respondents were current business owners seeking an additional or replacement business. Freelancers and consultants were 20.5%, followed by part-timers at 12.3%. The Gen-X cohort was a more normal 47.6% of respondents, down from the record 63.9% seen in June. Millennials were 30.2%, Baby Boomers slid to 19%, and Gen-Z were 1.6% of respondents, respectively, in the month of July.
It is clear now that the record shares for Gen-X and full-time workers among franchise-seekers in June were an outlier, perhaps a factor of weather-related events, seasonality or some other unknown influence on the candidate pool.
Download a copy of the latest FranchiseInsights.com Small Business Startup Sentiment 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 have recently inquired about businesses or franchises for sale on the FranchiseVentures lead generation platform.
FranchiseVentures is the leading franchise lead-generation platform for potential franchisees to thousands of growing franchise systems in the United States and Canada. Its franchise lead generation brands include Franchise.com, Franchise Solutions, Franchise Gator, Franchise Opportunities, Franchise For Sale, SmallBusinessStartup.com and BusinessBroker.net, and together they provide the largest aggregation of prospective franchise buyers in the U.S.
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Published on Tuesday, August 6th, 2024.