Ah, you have to love it when companies have an agenda they want to promote and tailor their research findings to so yield.
About what am I talking? Lending Tree (an online lending enterprise), which surveyed some 2050 consumers, as to what sort of actions they were considering during the pandemic.
What was their surprising finding? 25% of those surveyed considered starting their own business. The most actively considered so doing were millennials (37%), while baby boomers were the least likely candidates (7%). The interesting fact- only 1/3 (36%) took no action to become solopreneurs. (Of course, some of the “actors” just registered a company or applied for a loan. Those are great starts- but what happens if the loan is rejected? Which becomes critical when you realized that 40% of those who were surveyed admitted that the lack of capital or financing was squashing their dreams.)
(It’s helpful to know how Lending Tree arranged the generational cut-offs… GenZ was defined as those folks from 18 to 24 years old; millennials then until they reached 40; GenX covered 41 to 55 y of age; with baby boomers running from 56 to 75 years old.)
Most of the folks who wanted to start a business did not expect to get rich (that only came in second at 27% of the respondents)– but 34% wanted to achieve the purpose and passion of their lives.
While not part of this survey, we know that more than 4 million new businesses were formed (but not necessarily active) in 2020. Especially since 51% of the folks who started their new businesses expect to fail within 12 months- unless significant government help was to be in the offing. Which may explain why 1/3 of those surveyed by Lending Tree had applied for an SBA loan, with about ¼ (23%) planning to rely on credit card debt to finance their company start.
Now- you do know that the SBA loan applications of 2020 came with free money of $ 1K to $ 10K just by applying, right? That’s probably why so many folks may have claimed on the survey to have started a business in 2020.
