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Which US States are e-Commerce Friendly?
pHaze asks: "I am about to take a long drive across the USA with my girlfriend to try and find a state to live in. We are both professional geeks and plan to settle and start a business. We were wondering if slashdotters could offer some advice on which state is the best to start an e-commerce business in. Which has the most e-commerce friendly/unfriendly laws (taxation, copyright, spam, privacy), the highest availability of broadband (and bandwidth in general) and is the most cost effective for a business."
New Jersey
Sealand is very friendly to e-commerce, I hear.
"Send an Instant Karma to me" - Yes
After all according to one of our license plate types, we are 'The .com state'
But seriously look into it, a few years back the Gov. put in some e-commerce insentives to encourage internet buisness to come to VA. Three places you can go that are connected, NoVa (up by DC), Richmond (The capital), and Hampton Roads.
Each has thier ups and downs.
Virginia is the "birthplace of the internet" and North Carolina has Research Triangle Park (RTP). In and around RTP you will find a low cost of living, high availability of broadband providers, and no lack of hard working undergrads or recent graduates from the UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, and NC State Universities as well as many tech oriented vocational schools.
Check out the Backbone Map. Quite a bit of bandwidth goes through there. Three major metropolitan centers. Texas is like California, but without the insane high cost of living. Texas has no state income tax.
A tool for finding the best place to live is online at BestPlaces.Net.
There are two versions of the tool: short (15 categories) and long (40 categories).
The tool has you rate different attributes in terms of "importance to you" and then provides a ranked list of places to live that meet your preferences.
hm. There are so many factors to consider, and your question doesn't offer many details.
1. A cheap one - If you're starting a business from scratch, you probably want to conserve cash. As such, you may need to look for a cheap place to live...many states have them, but you can do your own homework to see what the cost of living is. The cheaper the area, the cheaper your legal/incidental expenses may be. However, this may affect your access to:
2. Broadband - I don't think it matters what state you're in, you need to either be withing range (3 miles) of a CO or a cable ISP. You could be in the 'most wired state' and still be outside of range. Unless you go with satellite access, in which case, I think you need an extra phone line for uploads. Then you could probably work anywhere, except on really cloudy days.
3. What kind of business? Are you going to be pounding the pavement looking for clients? In which case, you'd better be near lots of them, possibly offsetting point 1.
4. I hear maryland is very business-friendly. You don't have to live there to register your business, and I think they make it quite easy to do via the web. If I'm not mistaken, they're somewhat lenient when it comes to business taxes, though you can find the other benefits by asking google.
5. If this is really going to be a 'virtual business' then it shouldn't matter. Find somewhere where you like the weather or the nightlife or the mountains or the beach. In the long run, whether your (online) business succeeds or fails doesn't hinge on where it sits, it's on what you do with it. Though you may want to be within 50 miles of a decent job market in case one (or both) of you needs to get a real job...
I live right near RTP and love it. I'm in a small suburb with good surroundings. You really get the bigger city advantages with the small town appeal. Plus, it's a very tech savvy area. Raleigh was just shown to be the city with the highest rate of residential broadband acceptance in the country.
Taxes are astronomical; the population is inbred, mostly illiterate, extremely lazy and very hostile towards technology; the mountains are ugly; the skiing sucks (ditto the snowmobiling, snowshoeing, mountain biking, camping, hiking, fishing, rock climbing, hang gliding, water skiing, etc. They all suck. Bad. Did I mention they suck? I'm really going to hate snowboarding tomorrow after the load of fresh powder we're supposed to get tonight); DSL and cable modems are unheard of (we just got 56kbps!); the Mormons will steal your wife and force her into a polygamous marriage with some bearded, pot-bellied 90 year-old who already has a harem of 25, every one of them barefoot and pregnant; there is *no* alcohol anywhere in the state, so don't even think of getting a drink; the legislature recently had a special session so they could pass a law legalizing marriages between first cousins... you get the idea -- NOT a place you want to try to start a business, build a home or raise a family. Especially not build a home. Damned housing prices going through the roof... can't hardly even find a five-acre building lot anymore.
Besides, we've got enough problems with all of the refugees from California flooding our lovely^H^H^H^H^H^H horrible state... the LAST thing we want is more people.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
The trouble with this question is you're asking small business owners/employees, who've probably only been involved in one state. It is hard to be objective with such limited experience.
I suggest looking first at where you want to live in terms of climate, urban / rural, proximity to family,(it ay not be important now, but might be in a few years when you have kids). I'msure you probably have someother "intangibles", preferences as to where you live that are subjective (I personally swore I would never live in Ohio).
Anyway, once you narrow the list, then start investigating the business climate. I have to believe that for small businesses the tax advantages of one state over another are mimimal. since there are so many other factors involved in starting a business, since the tax laws will depend on the organization structure of the business (LLC, SubChapter S, Sole proprietor, partnership, etc)
That said,I like Michigan, I have operated a home based Internet businesses for 5 years, and spent time in Kalamazoo, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Traverse City and Clinton twp.
My family's primary concern was staying close to extended family. Pretty much everywhere we've been has had broadband.
I have a client who moved his on-line sales operation to Michigan's Upper Pennisula, and he seems to like it.
My advise is: this is a big decision, and involves a lot of variables, you need to look at everything, and make the choice based on the variables that are most important to your long term happiness.
-ms2k