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Pulse of the Heartland Entrepreneurship Data Hub

March 9, 2026

Entrepreneurship is at the heart of every thriving community. When new businesses take root, they bring fresh ideas, create jobs and shape the future of local economies. That’s why we’re launching the Pulse of the Heartland Entrepreneurship Data Hub—a new resource designed to help communities better understand the strength of their entrepreneurship ecosystems and guide the policies and support systems that help them grow.

YOUNG FIRM ACTIVITY

At the core of the hub are two key measures: Heartland Forward’s own Young Firm Employment Share and Young Firm Knowledge Intensity metrics, reported at the state, metro and micro levels1. These metrics indicate the quantity and quality of young businesses within a region and are defined as follows:

  • Young Firm Employment Share—the percentage of all private sector workers in a region employed at a business 5 years old or younger. This captures not only how many new businesses are created, but how many people they employ.
  • Young Firm Knowledge Intensity—the share of young-business employees who hold a  bachelor’s degree or higher, offering one way to measure the concentration of expertise in a region’s young businesses.

Prior Heartland Forward research shows that communities, regardless of size, with stronger performance on these two metrics often see greater job growth overall, making these valuable benchmarks to guide local leaders and economic development initiatives.

The first tool in the Hub has two interactive components to explore:

  1. Map View: Compare regions’ performance using these two metrics. Benchmark bars show how the heartland and non-heartland areas are performing on average, offering quick context for each selection. These values correspond to the selected geography type, so when the user selects “Metropolitan Statistical Area” and “Young Firm Employment Share,” the heartland bar represents the (population-weighted) average Young Firm Employment Share across all heartland metros for the given quarter.
  2. Trend View: Track how these measures change over time. This helps community leaders and researchers spot emerging success stories. Heartland and non-heartland averages are again reported as benchmarks and correspond to the selected geography type. As an example, the Florence-Muscle Shoals, Alabama metro has experienced a substantial increase in its Young Firm Employment Share since 2022; economic development practitioners may benefit from learning what is happening on the ground in the metro.

SCALING NEW BUSINESSES

The Startup Scale Rate, developed by the Heartland Forward research team, analyzes how effectively startups grow after they are created by measuring the percentage increase in employment among a community’s startups during the two years following their formation and initial hiring activity2. By focusing on post-creation growth, the Startup Scale Rate goes beyond traditional startup counts to reflect both business survival and the scalability of the surviving businesses.

Because the Startup Scale Rate is closely tied to the business cycle, values should not be compared across time periods. Instead, the most meaningful comparisons can be made across communities during the same time period. 

This Startup Scale Rate tool has two views, designed to assist users in cross-community comparisons:

  1. Map View: Compare the Startup Scale Rate across geographies of the same size—states, metros, or micros. There are currently two time periods available: 2021-2023 headcount growth and 2022-2024 growth.
  2. Bar View:  Compare a selected metro or micro to its state3 and to its peer geographies nationwide. This view provides further evidence of a community’s ability to nurture its startups. For example, users can select Lawrenceburg, TN to see its 2022-2024 Scale Rate indicates that Lawrenceburg startups opening their doors in 2021 or 2022 grew their employment nearly 49% from 2022 to 2024. This scale rate is substantially better than the rates for Tennessee overall and all peer geographies in the US–demonstrating the tools’ ability to highlight comparative advantages. 

LOOKING AHEAD

This is just the beginning. The Hub will be regularly updated with new metrics and deeper analysis added over time. The Heartland Forward Talent Pipeline team will also release regular analyses of the Hub metrics as well as case studies on rising communities like Florence and Lawrenceburg.We invite you to explore the tools, follow the data and find how entrepreneurship is shaping the heartland’s future.

Readers are encouraged to check back often!

  1. These metrics are calculated using data from the Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Quarterly Workforce Indicators database.
  2. The Startup Scale Rate is formally calculated as the percentage increase in employment for a two-year cohort of new businesses from the year in which they are either 0 or 1 years old to the time when they are either 2 or 3 years old. 
  3. For metros and micros that cross state lines, the reference state is the state that contains the region’s largest city.