COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- Colorado Springs has been named the third best city in the U.S. to start a small business, according to rankings released this week by Thumbtack.com and the Kauffman Foundation.
Thumbtack is a website for searching and hiring local services. The site surveyed 6,022 small businesses nationwide and used demographic statistics from each city to compile the rankings. They claim to have the only survey to draw from job creators and entrepreneurs to find the best places for small businesses.
“After a two-month survey of over 6,000 small business owners nationwide, Colorado Springs comes out on top as one of the best cities nationwide to start a business,” Sander Daniels, co-founder of Thumbtack.com, said in a statement. “For those considering taking the leap into small business ownership, Colorado Springs is hard to beat.”
Here are some key findings from the survey:
- Colorado Springs earned an A+ for the ease of starting a business and for its overall regulatory regime.
- South Central Colorado's small businesses are the state's healthiest.
- Here's how Colorado's regions ranked, from healthiest to least healthy small businesses: 1. South Central Colorado, 2. Denver Metro, 3. Front Range, 4. Western Colorado, and 5. Eastern Plains.
- Surprisingly, women-owned small businesses in Colorado felt much more comfortable economically than did their male counterparts. Female entrepreneurs were 14 percent more likely than male entrepreneurs to rate their company's current financial situation as "good" or "very good."
- Small businesses run by conservatives seem to be doing significantly better than small businesses run by liberals. Conservative entrepreneurs in Colorado were 39 percent more likely than the state's liberal entrepreneurs to rate their business's financial situation as "good" or "very good."
"California drove me out - it made doing business impossible! Moving to Colorado Springs has felt like a God-sent miracle," a contractor said in the survey.
Some of the questions on the survey included "In general, how would you rate your state's support of small business owners?", "Would you discourage or encourage someone from starting a new business in your state?", and "How would you rate your company's financial situation today?"
"Starting my business here was a smooth process and a rewarding choice," a Colorado Springs wedding planner said.
The state of Colorado earned a B+ and was 13th among the 50.
In all, Thumbtack and Kauffman compared and ranked cities using 15 different metrics. The city received A's in nine of the 12 graded metrics, a B- in 'Training Programs,' a D in Networking Programs and an F in 'Hiring Costs.' In the ranking metrics, the city was #1 in 'Economic Health,' #2 in 'Optimism About Future' and #4 in 'Growth Rate Last Year.'
Oklahoma City and Dallas were the only two cities ahead of Colorado Springs, ranking 1 and 2 respectively.
The full methodology of the survey can be found here.
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