Best Cities to Start a Business in Missouri

Missouri has a ton of positives for budding entrepreneurs looking to open a new business. The state boasts a high business success rate and high startup density, coupled with a low cost of living. 2013 US census data found that Missouri led the nation in the creation of new businesses, with a rate of 16%.

Kansas City tops the list of cities in which to start a business in the Show Me State. Home to a large Ford Motor Company manufacturing plant, the Sanofi-Aventis plant, one of the largest drug manufacturing plants in the country, Dairy Farmers of America, the largest dairy co-op in the nation, and a large federal government sector maintaining 30,000 jobs, the city has a bustling and diverse economy.

In recent years, numerous accelerators and organizations devoted to nurturing Kansas City’s fledgling startup ecosystem have opened, including Kansas City Startup Village, providing a large support network for young entrepreneurs.

The presence of over a dozen universities in the metropolitan area providing a skilled, young employee pool is an even greater incentive for starting a business in the city.

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.