

Small Business Survival Index 2009 - jquery
http://www.sbecouncil.org/survivalindex2009/
As far as I can tell, this ranking is strictly from a policy and numbers perspective, and does not take into account intangibles such as landscapes and climates.
======
tptacek
This study is simply a proxy for how "conservative" (really: Chamber-of-
Commerce-Republican- approved) the state financial policies are. The taxes are
obvious, but it's also things like, "does your state have guaranteed-issue
health care" --- which is a problem only if the business you want to start is
a health insurer.

~~~
TomOfTTB
The health care part of your comment really isn't true. States with
"guaranteed issue health care" policies are going to have higher insurance
rates. That's undisputed. If Insurance companies can't turn people away for
pre-existing conditions than their costs are going to go up and their rates
are going to follow

(Remember we aren't debating the morality of such practices or whether it's
worth the higher costs we're only looking at the economic impact in our
current health care system)

Since businesses are expected to cover a large chunk of their employees'
health care under our current system that makes health care policy in a given
state relevant to every small business

~~~
tptacek
It doesn't matter what health insurance costs if you can't obtain it. That's
the situation with non-guaranteed-issue health care; there are a raft of very
common health circumstances that will prevent founders from obtaining family
coverage --- at all.

Non-guaranteed-coverage is founder- _unfriendly_. Guaranteed issue, even if it
inevitably raises the cost of premiums, at least levels the playing field
between established companies with group plans (which are already effectively
guaranteed issue and which already cover the majority of residents in most
states) and 2 person startup shops.

We can argue this all day, but the point is: this report is a thinly-veiled
advocacy piece for the US CoC's agenda. It's not a real study of any sort.

------
ericz
#1 is South Dakota?? If anything that should be an indication that whatever
metrics they used are not very empirically relevant.

Judging from their report, it seems like most of the factors are related to
various forms of taxes and healthcare. What about significant factors like
talent or mentorship? Size of market and characteristics of the population?

~~~
jquery
Why do you believe South Dakota a bad place to start a business?

~~~
alain94040
Because you can't name one business that started there, whereas you can name
how many of the Fortune 500 that started in California?

~~~
jquery
Do you think that is a good metric for how successful a given small business
is likely to be, or do you think that's mostly a reflection of the state's
size, geography, and history?

------
kgrin
I have two reactions to this:

1) These are some weird-looking results and make my somewhat skeptical of the
metrics.

2) Accepting them at face value, the conclusion I draw is that the legal and
regulatory environment (which is what this is really measuring) doesn't matter
nearly as much as people on both sides think it does. Not to say it doesn't
matter _at all_ \- I'm sure that, especially at the margins, it does. But
California and Boston rank pretty poorly, and yet are doing okay for new
business (and, at least as far as Boston is concerned, that includes
businesses of the "real", not web-startup, variety).

------
jquery
Here's a link to a PDF of the report, where it goes into detail on the
methodologies used: <http://www.sbecouncil.org/uploads/SBSI2009.pdf>

I think it is missing some important metrics, but it's a good starting point
for anyone considering entrepreneurship but undecided on a state, because it
clearly lays out how the rankings were derived.

