The online tool is part of GoDaddy's Venture Forward research project and is available to anyone. It generates reports based on local geographies, like counties or metropolitan statistical areas, allowing users to compare data on micro businesses between communities.
"These are the most invisible businesses across the country," said mySidewalk CEO Stephen Hardy.
The data is based on Venture Forward’s research into GoDaddy domain registrations. It includes the number of micro businesses associated with a domain registration as well as a Microbusiness Activity Index, which Venture Forward developed in partnership with economists from the University of California, Los Angeles Anderson School of Management.
"The private sector has really valuable data sets for public-sector decision-making," said Hardy, who added that he hopes this partnership can serve as a model for future endeavors to make data accessible to the public sector.
The partnership also gives mySidewalk subscribers access to the Venture Forward data through mySidewalk’s Seek and Chart products, which the company said will allow users to combine the data with mySidewalk’s existing data library.
"After speaking with policymakers across the country, we realized there was a need to capture reliable and accurate data on micro businesses and make it readily available for them to use," said Jeremy Hartman, vice president of community engagement at GoDaddy, in a press release.
Firms with fewer than 10 employees made up 10.7 percent of private-sector employment in early 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
