Michigan City Is Best Small Town To Start A Business

HOLLAND, MI – Calling all entrepreneurs: If you're going to a start a small business, you might consider this Michigan city. Or, perhaps one of several other Michigan towns that have been ranked among the best in the nation as the best – and worst – places to start a business.

At the very top of the list is none other than Holland, Michigan – a city of some 33,000 people on the western side of the state. WalletHub.com, an online credit ranking and consumer finance website, compiled the rankings of 1,261 small cities across the nation. In addition to Holland, 18 other Michigan cities were ranked in the top 500. It considered cities of 25,000 to 100,000 residents.

WalletHub based its rankings on three key dimensions:

• Business environment that factored in average length of work week, commute times, startups per capita, revenue by business, and industry variety;
• Access to resources that factored in access to financing and investors, human resources, higher education assets, workforce education and working-age population growth; and
• Business costs that factored in office space affordability, labor costs, business taxes and cost of living.

"As many veteran entrepreneurs — and failed startups — understand well, bigger is not always better," write the editors at WalletHub. "A city with a smaller population can offer a greater chance of success, depending on an entrepreneur’s type of business and personal preferences."

Entrepreneurs in small towns benefit from lower overhead costs, stronger relationships with their customers and "the potential to become a big fish in a little pond," WalletHub noted. There are drawbacks, too, such as a less diverse customer base, a difficult time attracting and keeping talent, and a smaller professional network.

While Holland did not score high for business environment (it ranked No. 318 in that category), it did do well in the access to resources (No. 3) and the business costs (No. 42) categories.

Other Michigan cities to make the WalletHub list top 500:

55. Wyoming
88. Southfield
106. Mount Pleasant
150. Dearborn
182. Bay City
274. Portage
283. Allen Park
286. Kalamazoo
312. Eastpointe
323. Midland
354. Dearborn Heights
386. Roseville
405. Garden City
417. Farmington Hills
446. Wyandotte
477. Port Huron
479. Battle Creek
486. Oak Park

And, in case you're wondering what other cities were in the top 10, here they are:

1. Holland, Michigan
2. St. George, Utah
3. Aberdeen, South Dakota
4. Wilson, North Carolina
5. Cheyenne, Wyoming
6. Clearfield, Utah
7. Ogden, Utah
8. Bismarck, North Dakota
9. Bozeman, Montana
10. Fort Myers, Florida

Lastly, here are the worst small towns to start a business:

1257. Crofton, Maryland
1258. Belmont, California
1259. Saratoga, California
1260. Eastvale, California
1261. Suisun, California

Click here for the full ranking.
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