This Study Ranks the Best Cities for #Girlbosses to Start a Business
If you’re thinking about moving to a new city, there’s a lot to consider, depending on what’s going on in your life right now — whether you’re avoiding the worst cities for families, trying to buy a home at a decent price or are looking to settle in one of the best cities for post-grads. But what if you’re starting a business? Of course, it depends on what industry you’re trying to break into, but there are a bunch of factors that can determine how your #girlboss life will pan out. A new study by Dell did the work for you, and ranks the 25 best cities for female entrepreneurs.
The researchers at Dell looked at five factors in particular and separated them into two groups: operating environment and enabling environment. Under operating environment, they checked whether the size of the market is big enough to scale businesses, analyzed the talent pool female entrepreneurs have to choose from to build their teams and looked at access to capital, which can be a tricky area for female entrepreneurs, who statistically receive less investment capital than men do.
Under enabling environment, the researchers examined the cities’ cultural scenes, which might not sound directly related to running a business, but provides super important networking opportunities, and examined the local technology — the rate of connectivity and the cost of staying connected via the Internet.
What they found might not surprise you: New York and San Francisco made the top two spots on the list. The Bay Area scored in the top half of the rankings across all categories, but New York is extra strong in two key categories: capital and culture. So if you’re looking for a good place to network and make sure some strategic ($$$) connections result, New York is the place to be.
There were also a few surprising list-toppers. Ranking number one overall for culture was a Canadian city — Toronto. If you think finding a great mentor is critical to launching your biz, Seattle and Sydney are the cities for you. And the second-best place (after San Francisco) to find talented employees is Munich (ja!). London, Stockholm and Singapore follow New York and San Fran on the list of overall top performers. All in all, not bad places to live and run a business!
Are you a #girlboss who lives in one of these top cities? Tweet us about your experiences @BritandCo!
(Photos via Getty)