Boom: Bridging the Opportunity Gap to Reignite Startups

There is an alarming decades-long decline of new business startups facing the United States today. Boom: Bridging the Opportunity Gap exposes the reasons behind this downward spiral and outlines strategies to solve the problem.

For decades, the United States has been experiencing a shocking decline in the number of new business startups...and it has gotten worse since the Great Recession. While new business formation in Silicon Valley, New York, and Boston is booming, entrepreneurship in most of the country--particularly rural regions--is declining. Things are even worse for women and people of color. This is of paramount importance to the United States because startups account for all new net job growth, champion innovation and strengthen our middle class.

From the perspective of an entrepreneur with more than fifty years of experience in diverse industries--from software, to real estate, to winemaking--author Craig Hall provides his expert evaluation on the challenges facing entrepreneurs today. After careful analysis defining the current environment for startups, Hall optimistically concludes with specific strategies for go-getters to successfully bridge the opportunity gap. We can, and must, reverse these trends in order to level the playing field for entrepreneurs to safeguard the future of the American Dream.

Craig Hall is an entrepreneur, civic leader, New York Times bestselling author and philanthropist. He formed HALL Group in 1968 in Ann Arbor, Michigan and today the company controls billions of dollars in assets and is made up of several subsidiary brands, with interests ranging from real estate development, ownership and management to financial lending and HALL Wines and other winery operations. Hall actively supports entrepreneurs and start-ups and together with his wife Ambassador Kathryn Hall, funded the Fulbright Kathryn and Craig Hall Distinguished Chair for Entrepreneurship in Eastern Europe. Hall also founded the Dallas Regional Office of NFTE (Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship). He has received a number of awards and honors, including being named a lifetime member of the Horatio Alger Association for Distinguished Americans in 2007. Most recently, Craig and Kathryn were co-awarded the 2017 Master Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Southwest Region from the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year program.