4 Small-Business Insights From Hispanic Heritage Month

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If you weren’t paying attention this Hispanic Heritage Month, it’s time for a heads up. The latest research from the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative shows that Hispanic owners are the “fastest growing segment of the small business ecosystem.” What are we all doing to ensure these owners’ continued success?

As a Latina-owned company, under the leadership of my co-founder, Carolyn Rodz, Hello Alice decided to once again dig into the data and do a temperature check on the Hispanic business community. By comparing thousands of responses from Hispanic owners against results from the overall population, this report helps us understand the unique triumphs and challenges facing this group at the heart of our economy. Here are four takeaways.

Hispanic small businesses are growing
First, the good news: Hispanic businesses are growing! According to our data, 61% of Hispanic-owned businesses are in the scale stage in 2021, up by 17% compared to last year. Hiring has followed apace with 89% of Hispanic businesses planning to add employees this year, which is almost double the figure we measured in 2020.
Marketing and brand awareness are big focuses
A key part of our survey process is understanding the emerging challenges faced by small business owners. Among Hispanic entrepreneurs, 12% said their biggest challenge in Q3 2021 is marketing –an 80% quarter-over-quarter increase that stands apart from other demographics.
Still, Hispanic owners are less optimistic than their peers
The growth we measured hasn’t always translated into optimism. In fact, 22% of Hispanic owners told us they predicted business in 2021 would be the same or worse as 2020. That’s compared to 17% of owners from other demographics.

In many ways, we can interpret this as a continued fallout of the pandemic. According to the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative, 86% of Hispanic businesses report a “large negative impact” due to the pandemic. That impact varies by industry, too, as issues like supply chain woes continue to wreak havoc on many sectors. Hello Alice measured the lowest business optimism in industries such as construction and transportation logistics -; two areas that happen to have a higher-than-average concentration of Hispanic-owned businesses.
Capital access should remain the number one priority
No matter how you slice the data, small business owners of every demographic tell us that access to capital is their number one challenge. Hispanic owners, like all New Majority entrepreneurs, have a harder time accessing bank loans, business credit, and venture capital compared to their white counterparts.