New AI-Driven Insights Reveal Small Business Owners Are Bullish Despite Constricted Spending
April 30 2024 - 2:42PM
Business Wire
Entrepreneurial optimism remains strong across
generations, sustained by technology and good purpose.
Clutch, a distinguished women-owned consulting services firm
dedicated to helping small business entrepreneurs and government
organizations grow, launched its first inaugural Clutch
Entrepreneur Tracker. This quarterly data analysis evaluates
the emotional state of entrepreneurial spending, highlighting key
reasons driving the rampant increase in people leaving traditional
corporations to start their own businesses.
“This study is personal. As entrepreneurs ourselves, we've
craved the data to understand the full landscape of the startup
marketplace,” said Rachel Zillner, Clutch Co-founder and CEO. “The
power of this tracker isn’t just in the insights coming from the
data, but also the sense of community entrepreneurs will feel
seeing their journey validated. Recognizing the pain points as well
as opportunities ahead helps empower our fellow entrepreneurs and
those who want to support small businesses.”
Utilizing emotional segmentation data driven by BRANDthrō, the
only AI research firm to score human emotion predictively and
quantifiably, the Clutch Entrepreneur Tracker helps us
better understand the emotional state of entrepreneurs. Providing
precise, predictive, and quantifiable means of human understanding,
these datasets predict how people feel and will behave, whereas
behavioral datasets tell us how people act.
The Clutch Entrepreneur Tracker highlighted that while
entrepreneurs are cutting back on overall spending in response to
strong economic headwinds, the majority of respondents were
optimistic about growth. Other top insights include:
- Entrepreneurs are split on their priority investment areas
by generation, with Millennial and Gen Z entrepreneurs focused
on technological advancement, and Boomers and Gen X concentrated on
results and impact.
- East Coast entrepreneurs are especially bullish about
their prospects as compared to their peers in the West.
- Respondents cited a reliance on fintech platforms for
digital commerce as one of the top 3 areas they are emotionally
engaged with that would help them better run their business.
- For the entire sample, the most emotionally relevant reason for
being an entrepreneur was raising the standard of living and
helping create economic independence for all.
- Entrepreneurs are prioritizing marketing and technology
for discretionary spending. As the economy improves, they will look
to invest in R&D efforts and team perks.
- The most pressing challenges are retaining talent,
capturing awareness, and finding a sense of community.
Learn more about the study, gain access to the full report, and
sign up for future notifications here: Clutch Entrepreneur
Tracker
About the Clutch Entrepreneur Tracker
Launched in celebration of Small Business Week 2024, the
Clutch Entrepreneur Tracker establishes a quarterly index
highlighting the sustainability, growth, and emotional sentiment of
entrepreneurs in the U.S. The study was conducted by BRANDthrō and
funded by Clutch, both women-owned, women-led organizations
dedicated to providing insight and opportunities for mobility to
small business owners everywhere.
Entrepreneurs at heart and co-founders of Clutch, Rachel Zillner
and Anne Descalzo, seek to empower those following the same path of
optimism and innovation, redefining what the workplace should be
and reintroducing the human element. Evolving from a team of two
into 150 professionals dedicated to elevating workplace culture and
expert consulting through a human-centered design, Anne and Rachel
incorporate purpose and intentionality in all they do. Today, their
portfolio includes Frequency Coworking, a space that redefines the
conventional workspace, and MinervaVerse, a venture fund dedicated
to breaking barriers and advocating inclusivity for female and
marginalized entrepreneurs by offering business incubator and
accelerator support.
Methodology
BRANDthrō’s direct consumer response-based, data-scientific
approach to emotional scoring is unique in its use of both primary
AND secondary emotions, not just sentiment analysis or pure
biometric outputs.
The proprietary data science used enables sample sizes of 100
per audience segment predictive of a population. The insights
inform what matters most to whom and the experiences and language
to drive action. The sample for the Entrepreneur Tracker was cut
across generations, genders, and regions.
Learn more about the technology and approach to AI research:
https://brandthro.ai/learn-more/
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240430035971/en/
christinem@connectwithclutch.com