Jan 18, 2010

Don’t Mess With Texas Small BizBy G. Scott ThomasPortfolio.com

No major state has weathered the recession more successfully than Texas. So it’s logical that the best place to launch a new business would be a prominent Texas metropolitan area.

The nation’s top score for small-business vitality, according to a new Portfolio.com/bizjournals study, belongs to Austin, the state’s capital and the center of a thriving metro with 1.7 million residents. A six-part formula was used to analyze the nation’s 100 largest metros, looking for the places that are most conducive to the creation and development of small businesses.

Austin emerges as the clear winner, based on its outstanding performances in three statistical categories of critical importance to entrepreneurs:

—Population: The Austin metro area added 270,000 people between 2003 and 2008, a gain of 19.5 percent. That was four times faster than the national population increase of 4.8 percent during the same five-year period.

Read complete article.