Some seek higher income. Others are looking for a balance between family life and career. In some situations, entrepreneurship may be the only way to fight unemployment.

In this infographic from Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, OnDeck uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2020 Annual Business Survey to highlight the most unique reasons for why people start businesses in each U.S. state.

Editor's note: The map tracks the most popular unique reasons to start a business. In this case, "unique" is defined by how much a particular reason stands out from the U.S. average across all states. For example, in Delaware, more respondents said they started businesses because they "couldn't find jobs" (11.6%) than in any other state (U.S. average: 7.3%). So, even though it's not numerically the most popular reason overall, it is the unique reason that stands out the most for that state.

The Most Popular Unique Reasons to Start a Business

According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, entrepreneurship rates in the U.S. have been trending upward over the past two decades.