Starting a new business can be tough, especially if your chosen location isn’t as business-friendly as you would like. According to two surveys released this month from Forbes and WalletHub, Connecticut has some serious room for improvement.

WalletHub’s survey, which was released on Tuesday, places the Nutmeg State near the bottom of the pile, at 49^th place for states where it is a good idea to start a company. Forbes, meanwhile, painted a slightly rosier picture, placing Connecticut in the 30^th position. But leaders in the state’s business community say that if you really want to understand the climate, you have to talk to the people in it.

“What we hear from the business community, honestly, is that it’s fairly easy and a good environment in Connecticut to start up a business,” says Chris DiPentima, President and CEO of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA). “And the metrics support that.” 

Forbes and WalletHub measured business-friendliness using similar metrics, including resources, the number of businesses started, the number closed, and costs like taxes and filing fees. However, the two publications used somewhat different means of measuring these things and weighted their importance differently.

WalletHub, for example, put Connecticut at the bottom for business environment, slightly higher for costs, and around the middle for access to resources. Forbes, meanwhile, focused more heavily on costs (which earned the state’s lowest score) and measured additional factors like Economy and Workforce.

While DiPentima doesn’t necessarily agree with these surveys overall, he does say they make a good point about the high costs facing Connecticut entrepreneurs, like income and corporate taxes. And while costs can pose a challenge for new business owners, there is a different hurdle he believes is much more glaring. That’s the number of regulations a business has to meet, and the difficulty they face in navigating them.

“Unfortunately, more and more of the new mandates that are coming out, they seem to go down to that business of one, that startup, if you will,” he explains. “Whether that’s been paid family leave or attempts at paid sick leave and other things. And we’ve gotta be very careful there because, again, we’ve got a great nurturing environment and ecosystem for those startups, and we gotta make sure we’re not over-regulating them.”

He says for some smaller business owners, it can be hard to keep track of every regulation you have to meet with the state, and the application and review process can be long, difficult, and opaque.

DiPentima also points out that, while he believes Connecticut has plenty of resources and innovation hubs for new owners, things get a little more challenging when that company starts to grow as the costs and regulations increase and the resources become more scarce.

“The Department of Economic and Community Development has some grants and loan opportunities for those larger small businesses but we’ve heard from some businesses it’s just not as robust.”

Ultimately, though, DiPentima says the best way to find out where you should start a business is to ask those who’ve already done it.

“I always go to the voice of the customer. I always go to the fact that we’re talking to thousands of businesses in Connecticut every year; startup, small, middle, large, Fortune 500, and getting that survey, if you will, that opinion from the business community,” he says, adding, “The only survey that matters to me is: what are the businesses in Connecticut saying? What are the businesses outside of Connecticut, saying about Connecticut, and how can we continue to leverage our strengths while addressing the challenges raised in those conversations?”

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