NerdWallet analyzed 181 metropolitan areas in the United States to determine the best cities for young entrepreneurs. According to this article from Jonathan Todd, the top cities include:
- Austin-Round Rock, Texas
- San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, California
- Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, Colorado
- Minneapolis-St.Paul-Bloomington, Minnesota and Wisconsin
- Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Washington
Many young entrepreneurs are looking at 2016 as the year to launch the businesses they’ve been dreaming about. With success stories like Slack and Snapchat as inspiration, the entrepreneurial path has seldom been more appealing to those just starting out.
Such optimism is understandable. It’s easier than ever to start a business, to get backers to invest in your dream and to find sources of small-business loans.
Even the workplace communities within cities are changing to accommodate entrepreneurs. Companies like WeWork offer short-term workspaces, reducing the required upfront capital and the headaches caused by managing an office. Young entrepreneurs in some cities have gone even further by combining their living and business spaces and moving into homes populated with other like-minded individuals. The New York Times dubbed these residences “millennial communes.”
Some places are friendlier — and cheaper — than others to launch a business, especially if you’re just starting out in your career. We also factored in the population ages 25 to 34 and the education level of each city, because a young, local entrepreneurial community is most likely to thrive with more networking and knowledge-sharing opportunities. To find these places, NerdWallet analyzed 181 metropolitan areas in America, parsing data on the local business environment and economy from sources including the U.S. Small Business Administration, the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and more.
It’s not all about San Francisco and New York. These two cities are well-known for their entrepreneurial ecosystems, but you can find small-business loans in any city. For small-business loan dollars received per 100,000 residents, Salt Lake City ranks second nationally, and Austin, Texas, was fifth — above eighth-ranked San Francisco and 52nd-ranked New York.
