Best Cities to Start a Business in Texas

A combination of capital, innovation, and opportunity earns Texas a strong argument for being considered the top state in which to start a business. With a rapidly expanding economy and thriving urban centers, there’s seemingly no end to the state’s prosperity.

Texas’ GDP is 1.6 trillion, which would place it above Canada in a global ranking–if the Lone Star state were the sovereign nation, it sometimes wishes it were–and yet its economy continues to grow and add jobs at a rate faster than the national average. Traditionally an oil powerhouse, Texas’ tech industry has taken off in the past decade as young entrepreneurs and giants such as Dell and AT&T alike are drawn in by forgiving tax rates and a dynamic labor force.

Austin, where Texan’s business-minded principles mesh comfortably with a spirit of innovation and disregard for norms supplied by the city’s concentration of ethically-minded young creatives, is challenging Silicon Valley as the top spot for tech start-ups. The city’s businesses brought in over $12 billion of venture capital on their own in the past ten years.

Only cities with over 50,000 inhabitants are reported in the results. Some data had to be interpolated to the county level and extrapolated to all the cities in the county. We concentrated on the following metrics to obtain our ranking: Cost of living, Best state for business, Unemployment, Kauffman index, and Universities.