The Best Places to Start and Grow a Business Now

Across America, smaller cities like Pittsburgh and Colorado Springs are proving to be fertile ground for startups.

-  By Alison J. Stein

For decades, tacking "Silicon" onto a locally distinctive feature has been the go-to move for cities seeking to brand themselves as the next great place for entrepreneurs. Replacing Santa Clara's "Valley" with "Peach" in Atlanta, "Desert" in Phoenix, and "Slopes" in Salt Lake sent a clear signal of these cities' larger startup ambitions. But, it turns out, there are real advantages to starting a company outside the pressure cooker of even the Valley-inspired business hubs: more support, lower costs, and less competition.

While epicenters such as Silicon Valley and New York City still lead the country in overall startup activity, and cities including Atlanta, Austin, and Miami have become serious startup hubs, a new batch of entrepreneurial hot spots appears to be emerging in such places as Huntsville, Alabama, Oklahoma City, and Colorado Springs.

For some companies, it can be easier to launch outside of the biggest business centers, as demonstrated by the 2026 Inc. Regionals list, which tracks companies by location.

These companies, whose two-year growth rates range from 10 percent to over 26,000 percent, reflect the shift toward smaller metros.

As Phil Budden, senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management, observes, highcost metros usually mean high investor expectations, so "even companies with solid growth potential struggle to get funding attention if they can't make the case for 'the huge blitzscaling, billion-dollar unicorn' potential," he says. But in areas out of that limelight, "funders can be a little bit more patient because they don't have to meet that overhead."