Florida is putting in a strong showing on a new ranking of the best cities in America for starting a business.
Five Florida cities, including Jacksonville, made the top 15 on the WalletHub list:
- Orlando, FL
- Oklahoma City, OK
- Miami, FL
- Austin, TX
- Tampa, FL
- Charlotte, NC
- Durham, NC
- Raleigh, NC
- Atlanta, GA
- Denver, CO
- Fort Worth, TX
- Jacksonville, FL
- Houston, TX
- St. Petersburg, FL
- Dallas, TX
But the news wasn’t all good for Jacksonville entrepreneurs. The River City ranked near the bottom - No. 97 - in the category of least accessible financing.
WalletHub compared the relative startup opportunities that exist in 100 U.S. cities using 19 metrics that ranged from the five-year business-survival rate to office-space affordability.
Source: WalletHub
More than 15.3 million people, or nearly 10% of the labor force, work for themselves, according to WalletHub.
WalletHub used U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, census data and a variety of other sources to come up with the rankings. The full WalletHub report is available here.
Another report from LendingTree subsidiary CompareCards found Jacksonville has the fifth largest percentage of entrepreneurs starting businesses with credit cards. That report found 17.24% of Jacksonville's entrepreneurs had used credit cards to raise startup cash.
While credit cards can provide benefits to small startups, they also come with risks. Business credit cards typically come with fees and higher interest rates than business loans, and the rates are variable, which means they can rise - or fall - over time.
CompareCards used data from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2016 Annual Survey of Entrepreneurs.
Bill Bortzfield can be reached at bbortzfield@wjct.org, 904-358-6349 or on Twitter at @BortzInJax.
Photo used under Creative Commons license.
