10 Best States for Starting a Business

To encourage residents to start their own businesses, U.S. states are investing in entrepreneur mentorship programs and pumping up their high-tech workforce.

Maryland, Colorado and Virginia are the three states most supportive of innovation, according to the fourth annual Enterprising States report out this week from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a Washington, D.C., based business advocacy organization.

The study measured five aspects of policy including exports and international trade, entrepreneurship and innovation, business climate, talent pipeline, and infrastructure. U.S. states were ranked for their performance in each category. Also, the study measured and ranked overall economic climate and growth in each state. Utah earned the title as the top performing state overall for fostering business growth and creating jobs. It ranked in the top 10 of every policy ranking and came in third overall in economic performance.

As part of the report, the Chamber of Commerce prepared an interactive map where you can click on any state to see how it stacks up in each category and why.

Here are the top 10 states ranked for entrepreneurship and innovation, as measured by the number of high-tech businesses in the state, programs that support entrepreneurs, and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) job concentration. Each state that made the list has something unique to offer resident entrepreneurs.

Maryland: The Maryland Entrepreneurs Resource List is a networking tool for connecting experienced tech executives with young startup entrepreneurs. The University of Maryland Baltimore County's ACTIVATE initiative, supported by the state's Technology Development Corporation, gives female entrepreneurs over a year of support and guidance as they launch their tech startups.

Colorado: In addition to attracting hikers and bikers, the Western state is a hotbed for high-tech businesses and ranks fourth in the country for the number of new businesses born. Also, it has a relatively high concentration of STEM jobs and in the last two years has bolstered its high-tech workforce with an additional 1,100 software programmers, 840 engineers, and 675 science research jobs.

Virginia: In addition to having the highest concentration of STEM jobs of any state in the U.S., Virginia has been home to the Center for Innovative Technology since 1985. The CIT's mission is to promote technology-based economic growth in the state and is focused on getting money to more entrepreneurs in the very early, seed round of funding.

Read more: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226521