The Motor City's troubles have been well documented in recent decades. And the small business sector has suffered alongside the Big Three automakers. The area lost 1,465 small companies from 2006 to 2008, in part to its dramatically shrinking population: Detroit alone has seen a 25% decline since 2000. "Once you have population losses, you're not going to have retail," said Stein.
While the overall population has been on the decline, there's been an influx of young, educated people to Detroit's downtown. That population increased by 59 percent over the last decade and brought with it a passion for urban renewal. Last month, the Michigan Corps partnered with Kiva and launched the Kiva Detroit program to help local small businesses secure access to desperately needed capital.
''The prospects for small businesses in Detroit are limitless,'' said Anuja Jaitly, co-founder and executive director of Michigan Corps. ''Young people are moving to the city and leading new efforts.''
A low loan failure rate is a vote of confidence both for the franchise business model -- or concept -- and for the people involved. The following franchises all had relatively low loan failure rates.
