Friday, May 11, 2012

Owners rank Colorado, Denver and Colorado Springs 'small-biz friendly'

Colorado Springs got an "A"; Denver and the state as a whole each got a "B+"; and Colorado came out 13th among 45 states ranked for "overall small business friendliness" in a recent national survey of 6,000 small business owners.

Thumbtack.com, a San Francisco-based nationwide referral service of local small businesses, said Idaho and Texas ranked first and second respectively atop their list, with Oklahoma, Utah and Louisiana following in order of the top five. Rhode Island (45), Vermont (44), Hawaii (43), California (42) and New York (41) were ranked the five least "friendly" states for small business. Five states were not ranked by Thumbtack because too few business owners in those states responded to the survey to make a ranking viable.

The states and 40 cities in them were ranked in 15 categories corresponding to questions posed to business owners regarding, among other things: "ease of starting," "cost of hiring a new employee," "overall regulatory friendliness," "friendliness of tax code," "current economic health of small business" and "change in revenue over past 12 months."

The study was conducted in partnership with the Kauffman Foundation,  the Kansas City, Mo.-based advocate of small business.

"Asking entrepreneurs to rank state friendliness to their businesses is a powerful resource for helping policymakers understand the needs of business owners and for helping aspiring founders understand the full dimensions of their business environment,: said Dane Stangler, director of research at Kauffman.

For the full results of the survey, click here.

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