small business

As the Trump administration tries to cut down on spending, some small biotech companies in the Mountain West are getting caught in the crosshairs.

It seems that every day a new headline tells a story of theaters shutting down. But in some parts of the West, including Wyoming, they’re still thriving.

A new report reveals Indigenous-owned businesses contribute more than $46 billion to the U.S. economy each year. A lot of that activity is happening in the Western U.S.

Almost three years ago, an unlikely relationship formed between the declining coal town of Kemmerer and one of the richest people in the world: Bill Gates. That’s because his nuclear company, TerraPower, announced it’d chosen Kemmerer for a “first of its kind” power plant. It promised to pump life back into the economy. But unless you’re deeply embedded in the energy world, it mostly just felt like a lot of talk to residents – until this month, when the project broke ground.

LendingTree analyzed small business data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and found that almost 1 in 4 businesses fail in their first year. The 23% failure rate from 2023 is two percentage points more than the year before and four percentage points more than in 2021.

In Wyoming, more than 3,239 small businesses opened across the state between March 2021 and 2022. During that time, almost 2,433 others closed. While some economists say that's a positive trend, the owners and employees of the businesses that went under may feel differently. But those numbers didn't stop Chuck and Kay Bybee from fulfilling their dream of owning a record shop.

Starting your own business has become a much more realistic goal in the past few years, due to increased internet access and economic change. Wyoming has the highest rate of entrepreneurs in the country but Sheridan County has the most in our state. Some 50% of residents own their own business.

Absaroka Valley Ammunition will break ground in August and hopes to hire 15-25 employees to start out. They hope with time, their facilities and employee base will grow, eventually creating 45 to 60 jobs in the community. Several firearms companies have relocated to Wyoming in recent years, largely due to the state's gun-friendly laws and culture.

Wool that's produced in Wyoming is often sent out of state where it enters a worldwide market. Much of it is sent overseas for production. But one local business is trying to change that.

The University of Wyoming's business incubator in Sheridan, Impact 307, has been hosting entrepreneurial competitions since 2018. Now, it's hosting a…