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It's a miracle Mass. has entrepreneurs
Boston Herald | June 16, 2006
Brett Arends

The remarkable thing isn't that there are so few entrepreneurs in Massachusetts.

It's that there are so many.

In 2004, people started no fewer than 29,720 new businesses in the state.

That wasn't just an increase on the year before.

It was a record.

In the boom times of the late 1990s, the annual figure never exceeded 18,000.

Most of the new companies, around 22,500, were for-profit businesses.

The figures are compiled by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

And they show that hope springs eternal in the Bay State.

It's tough enough launching your own company in the best of circumstances. Most of them fold.

And the Bay State hardly offers the best of circumstances.

First you have to deal with the local NIMBYs - those who are all in favor of growth, as long as it is Not In My Back Yard.

Last fall I wrote about Bill Skelley, an entrepreneur trying to grow a small business in Belmont - exactly the kind of company we are supposed to want. His company, FibreTech Medical, offers good jobs at good wages and is growing. It makes and services high-end medical devices.

But the local zoning honchos in Belmont - few of whom, I suspect, are personally in need of a good job at a good wage - stopped it in its tracks. They wouldn't give Skelley a variance of a few feet on his building.

He moved to New Hampshire.

Or you might consider the case of Bill Litchman, who tried to reopen a six-table restaurant in Medford, only to be blocked by the local health authorities unless he replaced half the seating with a wheelchair-accessible bathroom.

Then there are the government NIMBYs here in town, whose red tape could tie up a Tasmanian Devil.

Anyone who tries to start a new restaurant or bar in Boston ends up needing seven different licenses, including one from the milk inspector.

And has to go through an appeals process to replace a regular TV with one with a wide screen.

As if this weren't enough, we can only offer a shrinking market. Officially, the commonwealth still forecasts population growth in the years ahead, but it must be the only one.

The reality? For all the complaints about immigration, it's only foreign immigrants who are keeping the state populated at all. Every year, tens of thousands of natives hightail it out of the state.

As if all this weren't enough, the entrepreneur also has to handle the high costs. Not only are you paying more for rent and supplies, you have to pay much higher wages so your staff, too, can pay more for rent and supplies.

State data show the average weekly wage here is higher than the national average for all but a handful of jobs.

The growth of the local and the American economy depends on entrepreneurs taking a chance to start a new business. It usually involves enormous risks and sacrifices, and most of them fail.

But heaven help us if they stop trying.