Becoming a business owner is a dream for many Americans. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, there are more than 33.3 million small businesses across the country.
So, which businesses are entrepreneurs looking to start? We analyzed Google search data across all 50 states to identify the most popular small businesses. We also surveyed entrepreneurs to learn more about the realities of bringing these businesses to life.
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Top Small Businesses by State
Aspiring entrepreneurs across the U.S. have diverse interests in starting small businesses. ECommerce dominates, with online boutiques ranking highest in 11 states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Texas.
Transportation-related businesses are most popular in 10 states, including Alaska, Delaware, Montana, and Rhode Island.
Other top businesses include cleaning (Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania), Etsy shops (Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota), and lawn care (Kansas, Missouri, and Vermont).
Opening vending machine businesses is popular across much of the Northeast, including New York, Maryland, and New Jersey. The rest of the country wants to start consulting companies, salons, and coffee shops.
American Entrepreneur Experiences
The top three questions Americans Google when they’re considering opening a business are:
- How to start a business?
- How to create an LLC?
- How to start a non-profit?
The most popular businesses to start across the U.S. are clothing companies, Etsy shops, and vending machine businesses.
In our survey of more than 800 entrepreneurs from across the U.S., 63% of respondents said they wish they had started their businesses sooner. The biggest challenges entrepreneurs say they faced in starting their businesses were finances, marketing and promotion, and competition.
Website Essentials for Small Businesses
For many businesses, a website can be critical to success. In fact, 3 in 4 entrepreneurs say they’ve been discouraged from supporting a business because of the website, and 74% say a good website is very important for business. Nearly 7 in 10 (69%) said they don’t trust businesses that don’t have good websites.
Among entrepreneurs with a business website, 47% said they built the website themselves, 19% hired a developer, and 34% used a website builder. The top challenges business owners have in managing a website? Keeping content fresh and updated, enhancing the website for search engine optimization, and designing and maintaining the site.
The majority of entrepreneurs (63%) believe web hosting plays a large role in the overall success of an online business. More than 1 in 3 (35%) say they’ve encountered website hosting issues, and 45% use a third-party provider for web hosting. For entrepreneurs, the most important factors when choosing a web host are price, reliability, and ease of use and management.
Whether you’re still conceptualizing the business you want to create or you’re in the thick of running your own small business, we know it’s a process. And we are here for any of your web hosting needs.
Methodology
To determine the most popular small businesses by state, we analyzed Google search volume over the last two years of 6,088 terms related to starting small businesses, such as ‘how to start a clothing line’ and ‘how do I start a lawn care business.’ We calculated the most disproportionately popular search terms by comparing each state’s search results to the national average. This allows for a fair analysis between smaller states with lower populations or a lower search volume.
In April 2024, we surveyed 810 self-reported entrepreneurs from across the U.S. about starting a business and web hosting. Of those surveyed, 48% identified as women, 49% as men, and 3% as nonbinary.
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