Black women are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S.

Black women make up less than 10% of the U.S. population, but they’ve emerged as the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs, new research from GoDaddy has found.

The number of Black women-owned businesses in the U.S. was trending upward even before the Covid-19 pandemic, which accelerated entrepreneurship overall. 

Between 2017 and 2020, the number of Black women-owned businesses increased by nearly 20%, far exceeding the growth of women-owned businesses and Black-owned businesses overall, the Brookings Institution reports.

“To me, the rise of Black women entrepreneurs means we’re starting to believe in ourselves more, that we’re finally recognizing how limitless we are,” says Joy Ofodu, who quit her job at Instagram to become a full-time content creator and voice actor in 2022.

Ofodu’s decision to leave Instagram reflects a larger trend of Black women ditching corporate jobs and flocking to entrepreneurship for more freedom, fulfillment and flexibility in their careers.

Brianna Doe says she decided to go into business for herself last summer, after months of feeling “deeply unhappy” in her role as a marketing director at a fintech startup. 

“I was in this vicious cycle of burnout where I would start a new job, and only a few months in, things would start to go downhill, and I could never figure out why,” Doe, 30, recalls. 

It wasn’t until Doe started working with a career coach in July 2023 that she realized her job wasn’t the problem — it was working in corporate, period.

“I was really scared of failing, of losing the stability of a paycheck coming in each month but it was also exhausting trying to fit into a system that’s just not built for me,” says Doe. 

Doe had taken on various side projects as a marketing consultant throughout her career since 2011 but didn’t consider turning that into a full-time business until her career coach suggested she make the leap to…