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It's official, at least according to the personal finance website NerdWallet, Boulder is the best city in America to start a new business.
The study notes all the attributes everybody always notes about Boulder. The city is artsy, mellow, near the Rockies, etc. It also gave a shout out to Boulder’s thriving food scene, and the tons of techies who reside there and choose to buy locally made goods — it turns out that wearing Crocs is good for business.
Boulder also received high marks for having resources valued by entrepreneurs like co-working spaces, access to capital investors and incubators. The Boulder Chamber’s networking events, and their Boulder Young Professionals program were also named in the report.
Boulder has average business revenue of just over $700,000, which is by no means the highest (that was in Beaumont, Texas). However, the city did have a high number of employees per business (14), with high median income and low unemployment. Housing costs, on the other hand, were the second highest of any city in the top 10, coming in just cheaper than notoriously expensive Stamford, Connecticut.
Other Colorado cities also performed well in this study. Fort Collins claimed the number 12 spot and Denver the number 24 spot – others trailed behind, with Greely coming in at 99, and Colorado Springs at 107.
The study looked at over 180 metropolitan areas in the United States, evaluating them on things like the average revenue of local businesses, the number of businesses per resident, as well as things like median annual income, housing costs, and unemployment.
While the study was looking at which cities were best in which to start a new business, there were some other takeaways as well.
Every city in the top 10 was a smaller market, and none had a population above one million. Of those 10, the Midwest took an outsized number, largely due to less competition and lower costs of living.
Interestingly, the study also found that a whopping 82 percent of small businesses do not actually have any employees at all. That means that an amazing 23 million of the 28 million total US small businesses are run by 1 to 2 people who hire a varying number of independent contractors or freelancers.
So there you have it, if you haven’t started your business yet, move to Boulder. If you’re not interested in running your own show, Boulder is still a good place to be hired by a small business.
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