MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The Mountain State has received national recognition for the longevity of new businesses operating within the state.
The West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office reported that a study conducted by Hobbs Independent reflected that West Virginia leads the country for the five-year survival rates of new businesses established in the state.
Secretary of State Kris Warner said the study reflects a 57.6 percent survival rate that he feels is contributed to by several initiatives made by his office and state legislators.
“Over 57 percent of all businesses launched in 2019 are still in business five years later, and they’ve been tracking since then, and West Virginia ranks number one in the country,” Warner said last week on WAJR’s “Talk of the Town.” “So we’re excited about that.”
The study began in 2019 and accounted for all employer establishments that were in the first five years of operations.
Warner said the work done on both a local and legislative level to support businesses going through COVID-19 shutdowns and other economic factors. This led to the State Office of Entrepreneurship that was established in the past year, which has allowed for programs such as the Boots to Business incentive to be put in place to help prospective business owners that may be under the age of 30 or have served in the Armed Forces.
“This month alone, we had over 98 young entrepreneurs use our business fee waiver program for being young entrepreneurs,” said Warner. “With the program we worked with the legislature on to make sure that they paid no registration fees.”
Warner also noted that efforts to support veteran-owned businesses have also played a factor in the longevity rate for small businesses. This includes supporting mentoring and entrepreneurial education programs that have allowed for veterans to start up businesses with as few as five employees. This is added with plans to create a format where small businesses can be given direct contact for clients depending on the service.
“We’re building a database where if you want to do business with a certified veteran-owned business, you’ll be able to do that,” said Warner. “If you need to have a new roof put on your house, you can look up and see who the contractors are that are veterans and be able to do business with them.”
Warner said he office will continue to support programming that has allowed for businesses to be established on a monthly basis across the state. In a report issued for the month of July, the office reported that 1,796 new businesses were registered statewide with efforts like the fee waiver programs to continue in the near future. Seeing new businesses established in all corners of the state, Warner hopes to see the positive momentum continue.
“It’s a number of things coming together that allow us to have the highest survival rate,” Warner said. “We just need to keep growing the number of new startups that we have.”