Growth Indicators

Solution provider businesses can certainly succeed or fail because of their own strengths or weaknesses. But external factors also play a role, such as a state's economic climate, regional job growth, startup activity and so on.

This year's Best States For Millennials to Start a Solution Provider Business analysis looked at a number of innovation and growth criteria that's worth adding to the "Which State?" equation. They include state gross domestic product growth (Bureau of Economic Analysis and the State Economic Snapshots report from the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee), startup rates (Kauffman Index 2015 Rate of New Entrepreneurs: Startup Activity By State), technology and innovation rank (CNBC Americas Top States for Business 2016), and job growth since the end of The Great Recession, between January 2009 and June 2016 (State Economic Snapshots report from the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee).

The following are the 10 states with the highest rankings for solution provider innovation and growth, listed from No. 10 to No. 1. The states with the lowest rankings are then listed from No. 41 to No. 50.