Our research is critical to meeting our mission. By surveying our national network of more than 9,000 Interise small businesses, we’ve gained powerful insights on entrepreneurship and the complex systems—and barriers—that fuel or hinder small business growth.
Our research also informs our high-impact programming, and has led to the development of Spanish language courses, a stronger emphasis on procurement contracting, and focused leadership and economic mobility courses in our Small Business Stronger portfolio.
Download and read our white papers to gain a better understanding of the state of small business today.
in partnership with the US Conference of Mayors
- More affordable housing would help small businesses – the combination of the widening wealth gap and increasing housing costs compounds the challenge for mayors working to stimulate their economies
- Minority business owners rely on limited investments – the credit gap, compounded by the trust gap and lending biases, means that most minority business owners have insufficient access to bank financing and rely more on personal investments
- Business growth is a solution for the wealth gap – established local and minority-owned businesses create jobs and wealth, and reinvest in the communities where they are located
in collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative
- Latino business owners tend to rely on informal financing and are frequently averse to taking on debt
- Latino business owners face significant financial challenges compared to white business owners
- Operational challenges differ for scaled and unscaled Latino-owned businesses. Metro areas with the highest concentrations of Latinos do not necessarily have the densest shares of Latino entrepreneurs
- Latino-owned businesses have more success with relationship banking
- Latino-owned firms have opportunities to diversify and expand their revenue sources
- Density of existing business networks makes certain geographies more hospitable to Latino business growth
With 15 years of experience, partners across 75+ cities, and 8,000+ StreetWise MBA alumni companies, Interise is driving groundbreaking impact across the country. But while our impact is national, Massachusetts will always be where we started.
- 552 Massachusetts companies have earned StreetWise MBA Certificates
- Those Massachusetts companies increased their annual revenue by 23%, on average
- Alumni companies in Massachusetts increased the number of full-time jobs by 40%
- Strategic business leadership has become ingrained among alumni participants
- Three factors fueling growth of companies in Massachusetts are race, place, and intersectionality
IMPACT REPORTS
FAST FACTS
hired locally
of full-time jobs created by
Interise businesses is above
national average by17%
reported being profitable
Data from Interise’s 2023 Annual Assessment