Section 3 Key Findings

3.1 Demographics

About a third of current and prospective business owners who participated in the survey had a Bachelor’s degree, a quarter had a high school diploma or GED, and 21% had an associate’s degree as their highest level of education.
52% of current and prospective owners identify as men, while 48% identify as women.
40% of current and prospective owners participating in the survey identified as having a Mexican heritage.
71% of current and prospective owners spoke a language other than English at home. Of those respondents, 43% speak English well, 29% speak English very well, and 28% do not.
64% of current owners describe their businesses as family-owned.
70% of current owners describe their businesses as being in the start-up and/or growth stage of business development.

Nearly two-thirds (64%) of current owners describe their businesses as family-owned.
58% of current owners describe their business as being in the growth stage, and 23% describe their business as being in the startup stage.
64% of current owners have fewer than ten paid positions in their business, and about half report an annual revenue of less than $250,000.
1 out of 4 current owners (28%) report dramatic up-and-down swings in growth from year-to-year.
3 out of 4 current owners (75%) use personal savings as a funding source for their business. Other common funding sources include personal credit cards (29%), family / friend’s savings (25%), and business loans from a bank or credit union (21%).

88% of prospective owners plan to launch their business within the next year or less.

More than three-quarters of current and prospective owners describe accessing capital / financial resources, inflation / increasing costs and growing the business / product development as financial management challenges. Nearly all prospective owners (92%) identify accessing capital / financial resources as challenging compared to 72% of current owners.
73% of current and prospective owners describe marketing / advertising challenges, and just over two-thirds indicate that writing a business plan is challenging for them.
Several current and prospective owners highlighted the need for more favorable policies for new business owners and opportunities for continued learning, such as entrepreneurship training, consulting support, tax training, and legal advice for licenses and insurance based on their experience.
At least half of the current and prospective owners indicated that language barriers were challenging across this section’s varying issues. The percentage ranged from 50% to 62% of respondents.
Respondents feel several areas could improve to support the local entrepreneurial ecosystem in Forsyth County, including a need for more startup resources, a better understanding of local business environments and policies, greater access to loans and networking opportunities, and more favorable startup conditions.

Overall, about 1 out of 3 current and prospective owners (33%) were unfamiliar with the existing resources for businesses and entrepreneurs in the county, and women were less likely to be familiar than men.
The most common ways that current and prospective owners learn about resources are the internet (51%), word of mouth (28%), and an organization or institution in Forsyth County (23%).
Over a third of current and prospective owners do not receive financial or technical support from local organizations.
About half of current owners or entrepreneurs indicate a need for translation or bilingual support in English or Spanish.
Current and prospective owners report that training available virtually and in-person and offered in Spanish covering topics such as starting / scaling a business, financial resources such as lending, taxes and grants, marketing / advertising strategies, legal requirements and licenses, and other administrative aspects of business would have been useful over the past year and would be in the future.