Fort Worth was lucky enough to be ranked #7 in WalletHub's latest survey of the best cities to start a business.
Fort Worth leads all Texas cities, ahead of Austin in 8th place, Arlington in 12th place, and Dallas in 14th place. Fort Worth was also the top city in the state, ranking ninth in last year's survey.
“It's great to see Fort Worth improve on its previous WalletHub rankings and continue to be the best large city in Texas to start a business,” said Fort Worth Economic Development Director Robert Stearns. Ta. “The City of Fort Worth has worked intensively in recent years to reduce the barriers to starting new businesses here. That effort spans multiple departments, all levels, and even includes outside partners. So it's good that this data suggests we're on the right track. ”
Cameron Cushman, assistant vice chancellor for innovation ecosystems at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, said the rankings demonstrate how cities and communities have worked to reduce barriers to entrepreneurship.
The City of Fort Worth partnered with the Institute of Justice in August 2022 to study barriers to starting a business in the city. After the institute released its findings a year later, the city worked to implement changes, Cushman said.
“The City's work with the Institute of Justice in Washington, D.C., has improved our online business registration and permitting process from 1 out of 5 stars to 4 out of 5 stars in less than a year,” he said. said. “That's amazing progress.”
Cushman also pointed to other resources currently available in the city, including TechFW, Sparkyard, CDFI Friendly Fort Worth, Main Street America and the Techstars Physical Health Fort Worth Accelerator.
Cushman said there's still work to be done.
“There is so much more our community can do to reduce barriers, simplify processes and lower costs to start and grow businesses in our city,” he said. . “If you work harder, you can reach the top.”
Elyse Stolz Dickerson is CEO and co-founder of Eosera Inc., a biotechnology company that has grown to 30 employees and leases 40,000 square feet of office and distribution space in the city. She remembers when she founded her company in 2015, she didn't know what resources were available to startups at the time.
“I’m from here, I grew up here, but I didn’t know about TechFW, and it was very important to us,” she said. “We found out about this through people and they have been great to us.”
TechFW Fort Worth provided office space and advice that eventually led the company to the University of North Texas Health Science Center, where the startup was able to use valuable lab space.
Dickerson, who also advises other startups and entrepreneurs in the region, said he believes awareness of resources is better than before, but funding remains an issue.
“When we started, we raised most of our money in Dallas,” she said. Fort Worth investors appear to be reluctant to invest in risky startups and are more likely to put their money into more traditional investments like oil and gas and real estate.
Fort Worth Startup Status
WalletHub compared 100 U.S. cities across 19 key indicators of startup viability. Datasets range from five-year business survival rates and labor costs to office space affordability.
The cities in the top 10 are:
1 – Orlando, Florida
2 – Tampa, Florida
3 – Charlotte, North Carolina
Four – Jacksonville, Florida
Five – Miami
6 – Atlanta
7 – Fort Worth
8 – Austin
9 – Dunham, North Carolina
Ten – St. Petersburg, Florida
While the city's overall ranking was 7th, specific neighborhood ratings were also measured on a scale of 1 to 100 and are as follows:
17 – Accessibility of funding
49 – Affordable prices for office space
16 – Increase in the number of small and medium-sized enterprises
27 – Cost of living
11 – Average working hours per week (in hours)
31 – Availability of human capital
twenty three – Industry diversity
Source: WalletHub
Bob Francis is the Fort Worth Report's business editor. Please contact bob.francis@fortworthreport.org.
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