The 10 best US cities to be a millennial entrepreneur

Millennials grew up in the shadow of the 2008 crash, and perhaps because of that, they don’t tend to trust institutions.

This might be one of the reasons that they are so predisposed to start their own businesses — plus maybe the fact that they can’t find a job. According to one recent report, over a quarter of millennials in the US are self-employed. And this study claims they are creating a whopping 160,000 startups per month.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they’ve all found success. So where are the best places for millennials to start these new businesses?

Thumbtack, a $1.3 billion startup that matches professionals (like plumbers or personal trainers) with prospective clients, has crunched the data to find out.

Thumbtack researchers looked at a survey of 18,000 small business owners, which assessed how friendly an area was to local businesses. They then looked at a subset of 3,726 responses from entrepreneurs aged 34 and under.

The results of the two groups differ in some remarkable ways.

Some cities like Birmingham, Alabama, and Boise, Idaho are much more friendly to young entrepreneurs than to the overall business community.

Here are the top cities in the US for both millennial entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in general:

This article is published in collaboration with Business Insider. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: Nathan McAlone is a tech reporter at Business Insider.

Image: Cyclists pass beneath the downtown skyline. REUTERS/Julia Robinson.