We’ve always known that South Florida is a small business economy. Florida SBDC at FIU even put out a report, Small Business, Big Impact, about that just before the pandemic, a report that showed just how important small businesses are to the economy.
But did you know that Miami is the top spot in the US for microbusinesses? That’s according to new research from Venture Forward, an initiative from web hosting company GoDaddy.
According to the research, an estimated 800,000 microbusinesses call the Greater Miami area home. South Florida has the highest density of microbusinesses in the US: an average of 10 per 100 people. This is followed by the San Francisco metro area at 9.2 per 100 and then Phoenix, Arizona at 9.
In Miami-Dade specifically, there are 15 microbusinesses per 100 people.
Microbusinesses have fewer than 10 employees. GoDaddy services about half of the 40 million microbusinesses in the US, Survey information it collected enabled researchers to drill down on the data down to a zip code level.
Microbusinesses can supercharge economic growth because adding one microbusiness per 100 people increases average household incomes by $485 while reducing the unemployment rate by 0.05%. Each new entrepreneur creates two or more jobs in their community, the research found.
Another finding: During the pandemic, microbusinesses rose rapidly. In the US overall, 17% of new microbusinesses started during the pandemic. But in Miami the fiture was 20%. And when it comes to Black entrepreneurs, the number in Miami is 25%.
Across the US, 55% of women surveyed said they started their microbusiness in 2020 or later; however, in Miami that figure rose to 63%.
