America’s Entrepreneurial Founders

By SBE Council at 5 May, 2026, 11:22 am

By Karen Kerrigan –

During National Small Business Week we celebrate the entrepreneurs and small business owners who strengthen the U.S. economy and communities across America. As the nation approaches its 250th anniversary, it is also an appropriate moment to remember that America’s founders were not only statesmen and patriots, but also small business owners and entrepreneurial risk-takers. The small business and entrepreneurial spirit that drives American innovation and economic vibrancy is not a modern addition to the nation’s story. It is a part of our history from the earliest days of the republic.

Americans often think of the Founders primarily in political terms, but many were also deeply engaged in business. A large share of the signers of the Declaration of Independence earned their living through private enterprise or self-employment, and thirty or more of the fifty-six ran Main-Street businesses or agricultural enterprises. There are a good number of lawyers on the list, small business people in their own right. It seems almost every solid founding starts with good lawyers. To sum up, the nation’s Founders were not salaried bureaucrats, but economic players operating in markets.

That entrepreneurial energy did not emerge in a vacuum. The road to independence was shaped not only by political ideals, but also by frustration with a British system that constrained trade, distorted commerce, and limited the colonies’ and individual freedom. In that sense, the entrepreneurial spirit of the founding era was not separate from the broader American push for self-direction and opportunity.

Benjamin Franklin

Long before he became an iconic founding statesman, Benjamin Franklin built a successful printing and publishing business. He purchased and developed The Pennsylvania Gazette into one of the most influential newspapers in the colonies and made Poor Richard’s Almanack a widely read and commercially successful publication.

Franklin Court Printing Office, Philadelphia, PA. A re-creation of Franklin’s printing shop. Photo: National Park Service.

Franklin was not just a writer and inventor; he was a practical businessman who understood the value of creating products people wanted, creating them for the “public benefit.” His inventions included the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses, the lightening rod, and he conducted early work on electricity concepts and terminology. In modern terms, Franklin looked a lot like a startup founder who knew how to build a platform and expand his reach through enterprise.

George Washington

Our first President George Washington treated Mount Vernon not simply as an estate, but as a serious commercial operation. He moved beyond tobacco into diversified agriculture and milling, and later developed a whiskey distillery that became one of the largest in the country in its era.

Washington’s Gristmill, Alexandria, VA.
Photo: Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union

Washington’s gristmill produced flour and cornmeal at scale, and his flour was sold in sacks stamped “G. Washington,” an early reminder that branding and reputation mattered long before the modern marketplace. Washington was not merely a landowner. He was an operator who understood that long-term success required innovation as well as discipline.

What connects figures like Franklin and Washington to today’s small business owners is not simply that they had business interests. It is that they shared recognizable entrepreneurial traits. They identified opportunity. They solved practical problems. They adapted to changing markets and conditions. And they built institutions and enterprises larger than themselves.

National Small Business Week is a reminder that this tradition is still very much alive – fostered by sound policies that allow risk-taking and creation to flourish. Small businesses and innovative entrepreneurship remain central to American economic strength and community life, and today’s entrepreneurs continue to embody many of the same qualities that were visible in the Founders themselves.

As the nation looks to officially celebrate its 250th anniversary on July 4, it is worth appreciating that America was shaped not only by brilliant philosophers and patriots, but also by builders, innovators, and enterprising people who believed in creating something new, and who helped make enterprise part of the country’s DNA.

Karen Kerrigan is President & CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council