Austin Ranks Best City to Start a Small Business

American City Business Journals has unveiled its nationwide ranking of the best cities in the U.S. to start a small business, and Austin came in No. 1 out of 106 of the country's largest metros. A number of factors led to the Austin area ranking atop the list, from nation-leading growth in the number of small businesses based here to a surge in the city's economic output.

 

Key Nuggets:

  • 9.7 percent — that was the growth in the number of small businesses based in Austin from 2010-2013, which led the nation by a big margin (Provo, Utah, came in second at 6.8 percent);
  • Austin had 44,163 small businesses in 2013 — that's 2,342 for every 100,000 residents;
  • The city's gross metropolitan product (a scaled-down version of gross domestic product, measuring all goods and services produced here) grew 18.2 percent from 2011-2014, second in the nation behind only Dallas;
  • The share of jobs in the private sector labor market provided by small businesses was 35.1 percent in 2012.

Read the full ABJ story here.