Small business owners would do it all again

It's hard to find data on entrepreneurship - so while this data from Gallup is a bit outdated - I believe that the sentiment is the same...

Source: http://www.gallup.com/poll/9586/Would-Small-Business-Owners-All-Again.aspx

Anyone who has run a small business knows that it can be a
challenging way to make a living. Small-business owners wear many
different hats. They typically have little leeway with regard to
pricing -- they're usually price-takers on the buy-side with
no ability to leverage their suppliers, and price-givers on
the sell-side with no ability to leverage their customers. The
government generally makes the whole situation worse, forcing small
business owners to deal with enormous regulatory burdens and
paperwork that was designed with much larger companies in mind.

Given these day-to-day challenges and the relatively poor
business environment of the past few years, it probably wouldn't be
too surprising to find that many of the nation's small business
owners are discouraged and wish they had done something else with
their lives. However, just the opposite is true, according to the
new Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index survey* (see "Small
Businesses Offer Hope for Job Creation" for more on this new
Index).

Small Business Owner Satisfaction

More than 8 in 10 of the nation's small business owners say they
are satisfied with being a small business owner. More than half
(56%) are very or extremely satisfied, and 30% are somewhat
satisfied. Only 13% say they are not too satisfied or not at all
satisfied.

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Small Business Owner Success

Nearly all small business owners feel that they are at least
somewhat successful at what they do. Forty-one percent feel that
they are very or extremely successful at being a small business
owner. Another 56% say they feel somewhat successful, while only 3%
say they feel they are not too successful or not at all
successful.

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Better Off Financially?

Three-fourths of small business owners say they are better off
financially than they would be working for some other company in
the same field.

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Although the majority of small business owners feel that they
are better off financially than they would be otherwise, they also
recognize that they usually work considerably more hours than
employees of other companies do. Do small business owners feel
they're better off financially simply because they work so many
hours?

On this question, small business owners are more evenly divided
-- about half of the nation's small business owners (48%) feel that
they earn more per hour in their business than they would earn as
an employee of another company. Thirty-six percent say they earn
less per hour, and 14% say they earn about the same.

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Do It Again?

Despite the poor economic conditions of the past several years
and the inherent challenges they face, small business owners are
not only satisfied with their occupation, but almost uniformly feel
successful. Add to this that most feel they are better off
financially than they would be otherwise, and it is not surprising
that 81% of the nation's small business owners say they would
become small business owners again instead of doing something else.
Nor is it unreasonable to expect public policy-makers to do more to
build on this success, by more aggressively encouraging Americans
to become small business owners.

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*The new Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index is not based
on a survey of the bank's small business customers. Instead, it is
based on a nationally representative random survey of small
business owners from across the United States. For this initial
baseline survey report, Gallup conducted telephone interviews with
591 small business owners (having $20 million or less in annual
sales) over the period of Aug. 5 to Aug. 20, 2003. For results
based on this total sample of small business owners, one can say
with 95% confidence that the margin of error is ±4
percentage points.

Small business owners would do it all again