Although entrepreneurial activity is an important part of a capitalist economy, only a small amount of data is available about U.S. businesses in their first years of operation. As part of an effort to gather more data on new businesses in the United States, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation sponsored the Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS), a panel study of new businesses founded in 2004 and tracked over their early years of operation. The Foundation contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. (MPR) to conduct the KFS, which collects data about the nature of new business formation activity; characteristics of the strategy, offerings, and employment patterns; the nature of the financial and organizational arrangements of these businesses; and the characteristics of their founders.