Small Businesses:

• Represent 99.9% of the approximate 25.8 million businesses in the US (2005 Census)
• Represent 99.7% of all employer firms
• Employ half of all private sector employees
• Pay > 45% of total U.S. payroll
• Have generated 60-80% of nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP)
• Produce 13-14 times more patents/employee than large patenting firms
• Are 53% home based and 3% franchises
• 80% fail within 5 years
• 96% fail within 10 years
• 85% of leadership teams spend less than one hour/week on business strategy
• 90% of strategies fail due to execution

*Source: US Bureau of the Census

Small Businesses in Kentucky:

• In 2004, there were 317,115 small businesses in KY (increase of 2% over 2003)
• 179,264 of those were self employed people (increase of 4.4% over 2003)

*Source: US Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Statistics

Women Owned Businesses in KY:

• In 2002, there were 77,232 WOB’s which was an increase of 17% from 1997.
• Generated $9.5 billion in revenues
• Represented 31.4% of the self-employed people

*Source: US Dept of Labor, Bureau of Statistics