Building and Sustaining Innovative Companies: The Kauffman Firm Survey

The stability of the American economy depends on the spirit of entrepreneurship that drives the creation of new businesses, jobs, and innovations. Yet launching and running a business can involve many challenges, and many efforts fail in their early years. These barriers to success threaten our nation's long-term prosperity in an increasingly competitive global economy. A new study aims to help new business owners overcome start-up challenges and build innovative, growing companies.

The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City is sponsoring this research to gain a better understanding of how firms grow, strengthen, and mature. Mathematica is conducting a study of new businesses to help the Foundation in its efforts to promote new business development.

This survey builds on design work Mathematica performed for the Kauffman Foundation to help investigate the longitudinal development of new businesses. Businesses starting operations in 2004 were selected from the Dun and Bradstreet Corporation database. Mathematica surveyed the principals of roughly 5,000 businesses in starting in 2005, and these businesses were recontacted in 2006. The business principals completed the surveys either by telephone or on the web, and they were asked about the characteristics of the business, questions about the financing of business operations, and characteristics of the owner(s). Two follow-up interviews are planned with these businesses in 2007 and 2008.

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