Colorado Residents Named As Successful Microbusiness Owners

As originally published by GoDaddy’s Venture Forward research initiative

The big fact: *Microbusiness density in Colorado remains largely steady, despite the economic swings over the last four years, according to GoDaddy Venture Forward.

Higher income: Colorado microbusiness owners surveyed make more money than the average United States microbusiness owner, with 58% making $2,500 or more monthly revenue from their business, compared to 51% of the overall survey population. And while it may be easy to assume this success is due to assistance, it’s not the case for the majority of microbusinesses.

Even though Colorado residents (43%) claim more awareness of business assistance funding compared to the rest of the population (36%), and the cost of living in Colorado is 12% higher than the national average, few of them actually take advantage of resources. Only 8% of Colorado residents take advantage of local government, federal government, or non-government resources.

More experience: According to Venture Forward research, 69% of Colorado microbusiness owners started their business before 2020, compared to 62% of the rest of the U.S. sample. This timeframe coupled with a lack of assistance may signal that there are more seasoned entrepreneurs in Colorado equipped to weather economic bumps and challenges.

Surprising business location: With the pandemic-induced a shift to online businesses, it’s no surprise that more than half (55%) of Colorado microbusiness owners conduct business on their website. What’s unique is that nearly double the number of microbusiness owners in Colorado (46%) conduct business in a physical location compared to 27% of the entire U.S. sample. This could be because their businesses are locally focused — as most of their customers are located within their neighborhood (20%), city (40%), or state (39%).

The research: GoDaddy’s Venture Forward research initiative analyzes more than 20 million online businesses with a digital presence (measured by a unique domain and an active website). Most of these businesses employ fewer than ten people, categorizing each as a microbusiness. While these *microbusinesses may be small, their impact on economies is outsized even though they are often too informal or too new to show up in traditional government statistics.

Since 2018, Venture Forward surveyed more than 36,000 small business owners with a digital presence, making it the source for microbusiness data and insights.