Those with an entrepreneurial spirit have a lot to think about. From branding to staffing to product development, starting a business from the ground up takes weeks, months and even years of planning.
But how do you choose a location?
Business owners have struggled the past few years as the COVID-19 pandemic and economic stress has continued and the cost of living has kept increasing, particularly in big cities.
Now, a new report from WalletHub has analyzed key business metrics including five-year business survival rate, labor costs, and office-space availability to see where new business owners could find a home in the U.S.
“Starting a business can be very scary, considering one in every five startups doesn’t make it past the first year,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo said in the report. “That’s why it’s especially important to live in a city that provides an environment where new businesses can thrive, with enough capital, workers and customers to keep it going long-term.”
Here’s what the report found.
The state of Florida dominated the report, making up the top five cities that are best to start a business.
The top five rankings are:
The tenth spot on the list also goes to Miami, Florida, adding to the wide success of small businesses in the state.
These cities have success because of their low corporate tax rate and high number of investors per capita, meaning business owners can keep more of the money they make in the first few years to keep their company going and get past the startup hump.
Central Florida in particular also has one of the highest growth rates of people in the working age population, despite the fact it’s a destination for retirement. Having a large workforce helps to get a new company going.
Atlanta was ranked 12th out of 100 U.S. cities, adding to the growing list of successful cities in the southeast.
The city ranked 27th in business environment, 26th in access to resources and 45th in business costs, according to the report.
Atlanta has regularly ranked high as a good state for business, and has become home to more than 30 Fortune 500/1000 companies.
Today, four out of five people living in Atlanta did not grow up here, and chose to move to the state, whether for its business acumen or another reason.
Atlanta was the only city in Georgia to make the list.
The report analyzed three groups of factors: access to resources, business costs and business environment.
It included things like the length of the work week, number of startups per capital, the five-year business-survival rate, job growth, variety of the industries, access to financing, prevalence of investors, number of people with higher education, total working-age population, cost of living, labor costs and more.
Irene Wright is the Atlanta Connect reporter with USA Today’s Deep South Connect team. Find her on X @IreneEWright or email her at ismith@usatodayco.com.