What the 2025 Numbers Reveal About Small Business Growth

By Jane Veron, CEO and Co-Founder, The Acceleration Project

At The Acceleration Project (TAP), we spend a great deal of time listening to small business owners. In 2025 alone, TAP supported 2,912 entrepreneurs nationwide through customized consulting engagements, small group coaching, and workshops and webinars. 

What we consistently heard was that 2025 was marked by unusually high uncertainty. Small business owners navigated unpredictable tariff policy, shifting interest rates, and an affordability crunch that tightened customer spending. A January 2026 Forbes article noted that tariff rates reached levels not seen since the 1930s, forcing owners to rethink supply chains, pricing, and profitability amid the risk of further cost increases. At the same time, evolving expectations around artificial intelligence and volatile market conditions made it harder to plan for investment, hiring, and growth.

In moments like this, and in every business cycle, small business owners need trusted coaching support to move from uncertainty to clarity.

Capital and Coaching, Working Together

TAP’s data continues to reinforce a critical insight: capital and coaching are most effective when they work together. When entrepreneurs receive expert guidance alongside access to resources, they are better equipped to deploy capital strategically, strengthen operations, and plan for sustainable growth.

Too often, small-business support is measured by how much funding is disbursed rather than by what happens to businesses over time. Many programs engage owners through short, disconnected interventions that miss the moments when guidance matters most. As a result, success is defined by participation and activity, not by whether businesses survive, create jobs, or build lasting stability.

Closing these gaps requires moving beyond one-time solutions and adopting a model built on continuity, expertise, and measurable outcomes. TAP has built that model.

Instead of one-time interventions, we work alongside business owners over time, providing support at critical inflection points. Our consulting is customized and expert-led, not generic or transactional. 

This work was made possible by a national network of 186 expert consultants who donated more than 7,300 hours in 2025 alone of service across 21 states and 19 languages. Sixty percent hold advanced degrees, and more than a third have been small business owners themselves. Many balance full- or part-time professional roles alongside their TAP service, bringing current, real-world expertise from top firms such as Accenture, Amazon, Apple, Bain & Company, Citibank, Deloitte, PwC, Unilever and the Wall Street Journal into every engagement.

This depth of experience allows TAP to translate sophisticated frameworks into practical, accessible tools that entrepreneurs can apply immediately. It also ensures that guidance is delivered with consistency, credibility, and accountability at scale.

Turning No Client Away

During the COVID years, as many organizations narrowed their reach or paused programming, TAP made a deliberate decision to do the opposite. Demand for expert guidance surged, and TAP committed to ensuring that access would not become a limiting factor for small business owners navigating unprecedented disruption. We turned no client away.

To honor that commitment, TAP doubled down on securing flexible, general operating support rather than relying on narrowly restricted program funding. This approach allowed us to respond in real time to evolving client needs, scale responsibly through periods of volatility, and maintain continuity of support without being constrained by preset program parameters.

That strategy carried forward into 2025. With investment from institutional partners including the Ares Charitable Foundation, Apollo Opportunity Foundation, Citi Foundation, eBay Foundation, and JPMorganChase Foundation, TAP was able to deliver expert consulting and coaching nationwide at a moment of heightened uncertainty for small businesses.

TAP’s 2025 Year in Review tells a clear, data-grounded story of how this scale enabled nationwide access to expert guidance for under-resourced small business owners.

Confidence, Continuity, and Jobs

For small business owners navigating ongoing uncertainty, confidence is the clearest signal of effective support. It is a leading indicator of resilience, decision making, and long term stability. TAP’s Deep Dive program pairs two expert consultants with one small business owner for an intensive, high touch consulting engagement designed to tackle complex challenges and accelerate strategic growth.

Across TAP’s 2025 Deep Dive engagements, 93 percent of participating business owners reported increased confidence in their ability to run and grow their businesses. 

• 93 percent reported staying open one year after working with TAP

• 91 percent reported job creation or job preservation

That confidence also has downstream effects. When business owners are equipped to make sound decisions and sustain operations, it supports job creation and preservation over time and strengthens local economic circulation. TAP’s Social Return on Investment analysis, conducted with The Bridgespan Group, quantifies this effect, showing that every $1 invested in TAP generates $10 in economic and community value.

These results matter because small businesses are economic anchors. When they sustain operations, they support families, employees, and local vendors. When they grow, the impact extends beyond the business itself.

TAP’s 2025 Year in Review details these outcomes and the methodologies behind them, grounding impact in data and rigor rather than anecdote.

Looking Ahead

As TAP looks to 2026 and beyond, our focus remains on expanding access to expert guidance, offered at no cost to small business owners nationwide, while continuing to measure what works and why. This work depends on partnership.

For organizations, institutions, and individuals interested in working alongside TAP to build on the progress of 2025, we invite you to explore partnership opportunities by completing our partner application form. Small business owners seeking customized consulting and coaching support are encouraged to apply for TAP services. Professionals interested in sharing their expertise as volunteer consultants are invited to apply to join TAP’s national consultant network.