PA officials warm up to boosting entrepreneurship

It used to take an average of 40 days for the average new business to receive its operating license from the commonwealth; following reforms introduced by the Shapiro administration, it now takes just four.

That’s just one of the initiatives, which also include small-business accelerators and loan programs, that Pennsylvania’s business community has championed in recent years to try to boost a stubborn statistic: the Keystone State’s historically poor entrepreneurship rate.

Pennsylvania’s rate was .17% – nearly half the national average of .31% – in 2021, the last year for which the state Treasury released statistics. Simply put, it means that for every 100,000 adults, an average of 170 launched new businesses in any given month – a statistic that is considered a benchmark for an economy’s dynamism.

“This is a statistic and a challenge that we’ve been focused on now for many years,” said Jon Anzur, senior vice president for public affairs at the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, the commonwealth's largest and oldest business advocacy organization. “Since Gov. (Josh) Shapiro came into office back in ’23, we’ve been partnering with him and his administration and the legislature to really improve the business climate, particularly for startups.”

Last week, SimplifyLLC, an independent publication for small-business owners, published a report indicating that while, according to U.S. Treasury figures, entrepreneurship is at a historically high level nationally – .43%, up 50% from 2019 – Pennsylvania was one of four states that slipped more than 30 places between 2024 and 2025 in the publication’s entrepreneurial-climate rankings.

The commonwealth also scored among the bottom five states for consumer spending growth. However, thanks to Pennsylvania’s recent corporate income tax reform, SimplifyLLC did not rank it among the worst states for maximum corporate tax rates.

According to longtime entrepreneur Ben Kirshner, who was tapped to head Pennsylvania’s new Office of Transformation and Opportunity, the commonwealth’s historically bureaucratic business climate and low entrepreneurship rate were at the top of the agenda for Shapiro’s incoming administration in 2023. 

“The first thing we did ... because we can do better and we should do better … was create an economic development strategy, a 10-year plan,” said Kirshner. “We hadn’t had a plan in Pennsylvania in over 20 years. We’ve kind of been running rudderless … And the governor wanted to change that.”

Kirshner’s office lies within the state Department of Community and Economic Development, where he works closely with Secretary Rick Siger, the former growth strategist behind Carnegie Mellon University’s Hazelwood Green development site.

“Companies tell us all the time: The three things they care about are incentives, permits and workforce,” said Kirshner. “We have the most amazing workforce in the country, but we haven’t had the best incentives and we haven’t had the best permitting.”

Under Kirshner’s direction, the state prioritized business customer service, acting as a middleman to streamline transactions with agencies like PennDOT. He also spearheaded the launch of PAyback, a state website that guarantees entrepreneurs a quick eligibility check for startup-related refunds.

Doug Taylor, part of the entrepreneurial husband-and-wife duo behind the Taylor Chip cookie chain, pointed out that the red tape that can engulf startups has a regional dimension.

“Municipalities matter … Philly and Pittsburgh are like different countries from the rest of the state,” reflected Taylor, who began the business with a $50 mixer out of a Lancaster City apartment – and now has seven locations across South-Central Pennsylvania. “Philly took nearly two years to open versus three weeks in York. And it cost us three times more than opening up a location in any other area.”

Around the state, local business development organizations are taking a grassroots approach to nurturing entrepreneurship. One such group is York County Economic Alliance’s BLOOM Business Empowerment Center, where founding executive director Sully Pinos manages grants, low-interest loans and business resources in both English and Spanish. The organization even spearheaded a 400-place child care initiative to help new or would-be business owners with family responsibilities.

“What’s immensely helpful … is being able to meet businesses where they are,” said Pinos. She means that literally: Much of the $30 million BLOOM disbursed in COVID Relief grants to 1,900 businesses was direct outreach.

“Going to different municipalities, having mobile office hours or bringing computers and printers with us, so that businesses didn't have to travel an hour to submit their application,” she explained. “If there was a glitch online, there was a live person on the other end to help.”

Since its 2022 inception, the center has lent $1.6 million, with an average interest rate of 4%. Pinos is currently working to make BLOOM one of Pennsylvania’s 16 designated Community Development Financial Institutions, which specifically support small businesses.

The challenges of fomenting an entrepreneurial culture across a vast, diverse state – and its distinct municipalities – are not lost on Jen Gilburg, Kirshner’s colleague in the DCED and the state’s deputy secretary for technology and entrepreneurship. “I think part of where we struggle is it’s just so fragmented,” observed Gilburg, who spent 30 years in the hyperconcentrated business climate of Silicon Valley. 

In Pennsylvania, “there aren’t these epicenters (of innovation) where you go for coffee and there’s three other entrepreneurs having coffee … I used to go to the gym (in California), and it would be everyone pitching each other.”

Region by region, the Lancaster native is now promoting a similar macro culture of entrepreneurship in a state where tradition runs deep, not risk-taking. “Silicon Valley was founded by gold diggers who risked everything, right? And we were Quakers,” she laughed.

Her team’s approach is bearing fruit in places like Coatesville, where the former Lukens Steel Building was recently reborn as the nth Innovation Center, an entrepreneurial hub built around complementary startups. In contrast to a traditional incubator, where diverse firms share space, nth nurtures so-called “sensing technologies” – such as an outfit whose toilet-leakage detector could save buildings thousands of dollars a month.

As tenants pool resources and know-how, they also employ student interns for tasks like coding, which helps cultivate a regional workforce pipeline. Meanwhile, the local economy benefits from a commitment to nearby manufacturing.

“So if they spawn out five companies into that region, workforce development becomes easier, business attraction becomes easier … the manufacturing supply chain becomes easier,” Gilburg explained.

The commonwealth also funds the Penn State Invent program, which attracts outside entrepreneurs to startup incubators located on the university’s satellite campuses. “It’s about having that mentorship, that support and that community – because it is lonely doing a startup,” said Gilburg.

In Harrisburg, Kirshner and his crew are aware that the state’s longstanding reputation for red tape will take time to overcome – but as evidence of progress, he offers that Pennsylvania now ranks 12th in the nation for new venture capital.

“We’re moving at the speed of business now, and it’s a whole team effort,” said Kirshner. “Our pipeline has never been bigger. The deal flow that we're attracting to Pennsylvania has never been bigger … which is going to send a big message to the site selectors and all the companies around the world that Pennsylvania is open for business.”