Front Range ranks best within state, Eastern Plains worst

"Starting my business here was a smooth process and a rewarding choice. "
- Wedding planner, Colorado Springs

 
Press Release (Thumbtack.com) Thumbtack.com, in partnership with the Kauffman Foundation, has released new data showing that Colorado Springs was among the nation's best cities for small businesses, including earning a #1 ranking for the friendliness of its environmental regulations. 

There are a lot of “business climate rankings”, but there aren’t any that draw upon considerable data from small business owners themselves. The Thumbtack.com Small Business Survey is the only survey to draw data from an extensive, nationwide universe of job creators and entrepreneurs themselves in order to investigate the best places in the country to do business.

“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,” said Sander Daniels, co-founder of Thumbtack.com. “For those considering taking the leap into small business ownership, Colorado Springs is hard to beat.”

Some of the key findings for Colorado Springs - and Colorado generally - include:

    * Colorado Springs earned A+'s 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% 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% more likely than the state's liberal entrepreneurs to rate their business's financial situation as "good" or "very good".

The full survey results can be seen here and include full sets of rankings, dozens of easily searchable quotes from Colorado Springs small businesses, regional comparisons within states, and Census data comparing Colorado Springs's key demographics against those of other cities.

"California drove me out - it made doing business impossible! Moving to Colorado Springs has felt like a God-sent miracle."
- Tile contractor, Colorado Springs

Survey methodology

Thumbtack.com surveyed 6,022 small businesses across the United States. The survey asked questions about the friendliness of states towards small business and about small business finances, such as:

    * "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?"

Thumbtack.com and Kauffman ranked states and cities against one another along 15 metrics. For more information on this survey and on Thumtack.com visit: Thumbtack.com