Entrepreneurs, unleashed: New businesses are booming

Entrepreneurs, unleashed: New businesses are booming

1/25/24 7:00PM

Hustle culture

‍A swathe of fledgling entrepreneurs have taken the plunge and set up their own companies, with review site Yelp counting a record number of new business openings last year. All told, Yelp tallied a total of 762,200 new ventures in 2023, representing a 20% uptick on 2022.

The data confirms a similar finding from analysis of governmental filings, which has revealed a pandemic-inspired "entrepreneurship boom", as an increasing number of Americans take their economic fates into their own hands.

‍Golden handcuffs

‍The Yelp report categorizes the new businesses by industry, finding a particular boom in the home services sector, with hundreds of new endeavors set up across carpentry (up 54%), masonry and concrete services (up 40%), and contractors (up 33%). Those new companies might be looking to capitalize on the “golden handcuff” phenomenon, as sky-high mortgage rates and property prices leave people investing in their current homes, rather than moving to new ones.

Elsewhere, the leisure sector also saw a resurgence, with the number of new hotels and travel services up 28% on last year and restaurant openings up 10%, with major boosts for creperies and hot pot spots, which were up 63% and 53%, respectively.

‍Related reading: Yesterday's better-than-expected 3.3% US GDP growth and rising consumer sentiment suggests the US economy is holding up well.

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The most watched soccer match in US history got less than a third of the views the Super Bowl did

Between a top-spot finish in the group stage, a sweeping performance against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round of 32, and the president’s controversial intervention, Monday evening’s USMNT game against Belgium had, to put it lightly, shaped up into a box-office clash.

And though the US players’ performance on the pitch might not have lived up to the high drama off it, American soccer fans certainly showed up. According to early estimates, the 4-1 defeat against Belgium was the most watched soccer telecast in US history, hauling some 40 million viewers on average across the coverage on Fox and Telemundo.

That may be a record tally in the US for the sport that much of the world calls some variant of “football” — besting the 36.2 million who tuned in to watch the team’s previous knock-out match — but it’s still peanuts in comparison to the sport that shares the same name in the States.

World cup viewers chart — Sherwood News

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