Wonder Women
Dallas is crushing it when it comes to women-owned businesses
North Texas is the place to be for women looking to own and grow their own businesses, and the numbers are particularly perky in Dallas.
The Center for an Urban Future got together with Capital One’s Future Edge initiative to analyze the growth of women-owned businesses in the nation's 25 largest cities. The study looked at three criteria: the number of women-owned businesses, five- and 10-year growth rates for women-owned businesses, and average revenues per women-owned business.
Dallas has the fifth highest five-year growth rate, with women-owned firms growing by 58 percent between 2007 and 2012. The national average for that time frame, by the way, is only 27 percent. Leading the pack is Memphis, with its staggering 116 percent growth rate, and Atlanta (65 percent) and Houston (62 percent) round out the top five.
When it comes to revenues per women-owned businesses, Dallas comes in first, with $198,599 in average sales. San Antonio is second ($191,223), Fort Worth is third ($186,435), Houston is fourth ($181,122), and San Francisco is fifth ($175,766).
For the overall number of women-owned businesses, we're at No. 5 with 52,798, coming in just behind Houston and its 102,813 businesses. Fort Worth is down at No. 16, with 29,425.
“Women entrepreneurs have become a major catalyst for economic growth in cities across the country, but there is still more that could be done to harness their tremendous economic potential,” says Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the Center for an Urban Future.
No kidding. One neat fact in the report is that between 2002 and 2012, the number of women-owned businesses in the United States increased by 52 percent. That amounts to 928 new businesses every day, adding more than 1.2 million jobs and $90 billion in payroll to the nation’s economy.
However, 90 percent of all women-owned businesses in the U.S. have no paid employees. More than 2.2 million new jobs would be created if one-quarter of those businesses added a single employee in the next three years.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is on the hunt for a winning head coach.
Photo courtesy of Dallas Cowboys
