San Francisco, CA, 5/23/12, 2012: Today Thumbtack.com, in partnership with the Kauffman Foundation, has released new data showing that small businesses rank Oklahoma as the #3 friendliest state nationwide towards small businesses.  

There are a lot of “business climate rankings”, but there aren’t any that draw upon considerable data from small business owners themselves. The Thumbtack.com Small Business Survey is the only survey to draw data from an extensive, nationwide universe of job creators and entrepreneurs themselves in order to investigate the best places in the country to do business.

“After a two-month survey of over 6,000 small business owners nationwide, Oklahoma again comes out on top as one of the nation's friendliest states for small business,” said Sander Daniels, co-founder of Thumbtack.com. “For small businesses looking for a place to hang a shingle or to plant a flag _ they can腎 do much better than Oklahoma”

Some of the key findings for Oklahoma include:

• Oklahoma soared above its rivals in a variety of categories, earning an A-, A, or A+ grade in 10 of 12 possible graded rankings. The state was the #3 friendliest nationwide towards small businesses, the #4 easiest nationwide for starting a new business, and the #6 least-costly state in the country for hiring a new employee.
• Surprisingly, women-owned small businesses in Oklahoma felt much more comfortable economically than did their male counterparts. Female entrepreneurs were 29% more likely than male entrepreneurs to rate their company's current financial situation as "good" or "very good".
• Although Oklahoma fared very well overall, the state could improve significantly in one important category. Of all states in the South, Oklahoma was ranked as having the fourth-least friendly tax code.
• Conservative small business owners felt significantly more supported by the Oklahoma state government than did liberal small business owners. Conservative entrepreneurs were 17% more likely than liberal small business owners to rate Oklahoma as "supportive" or "very supportive" of small business.
• Oklahoma ranks well not only within the Thumbtack.com survey, but it also has the #11 lowest unemployment rate nationwide - at 7.1%.

The full survey results can be seen here and include full sets of rankings, dozens of easily searchable quotes from Oklahoma small businesses, regional comparisons within states, and Census data comparing Oklahoma's key demographics against those of other states.

"I feel Oklahoma is a very good state to live in and basically conservative, which I am also. Since our state is mostly conservative, it is a more honest state to live and have a fussiness in than many others. The economy here has not been hurt as badly as the East and the West Coast."
- Realtor, Ponca City

Survey methodology

Thumbtack.com surveyed 6,022 small businesses across the United States. The survey asked questions about the friendliness of states towards small business and about small business finances, such as:

• "In general, how would you rate your state's support of small business owners?"
• "Would you discourage or encourage someone from starting a new business in your state?" and
• "How would you rate your company's financial situation today?"