Naples-Marco Island tops small metros for women-led firms

The Naples-Marco Island region ranks No. 1 among small U.S. metros in CoworkingCafe’s latest study on the best locations for women-owned businesses. 

CoworkingCafe, a division of Yardi, is a global platform publishing original market research and analysis on office and work trends in the U.S. and United Kingdom. 

Sabina Marincean, marketing and communications specialist at CoworkingCafe, said the Naples-Marco Island ranking is based on a range of economic, workforce and entrepreneurship metrics. 

Most notable to the study’s author Andreea Neculae is the region’s 18.2% self-employment rate and its 46.4% GDP growth since 2019.  

“Naples’ GDP growth is the strongest rate among the small metros in our top five,” she said. “The metro’s self-employment rate of 18% is the highest we measured across all 210 metros we analyzed, regardless of size. That’s not an accident.” 

Neculae explained that companies in the Naples-Marco Island area need the savvy to serve a smaller, higher-value client base. “That kind of growth, in a market with concentrated wealth, means there is a deep and steady customer base willing to pay for quality,” Neculae said. “Revenue comes faster and you don’t need to acquire thousands of customers to make the numbers work.” 

Naples isn’t doing any one thing extraordinarily well; it’s doing several things simultaneously that, together, create almost ideal conditions for women to launch businesses, she said. 

It is tempting to assume that affluence translates to reliable start-up capital. But the more powerful dynamic cited by the data, Neculae said, “is that affluence creates demand.” 

An important part of the story is the demographic wave that’s been reshaping the metro. “Naples has grown nearly 11% since 2020, driven largely by an influx of affluent retirees, remote workers and second-home buyers whose spending power is creating constant, sustained demand for exactly the types of personalized, service-oriented businesses that women tend to build,” Neculae said. 

Industries such as wellness, design, boutique retail, hospitality and real estate answer the needs of a growing customer base, allowing new businesses to find traction. These also tend to be sectors in which women-owned businesses concentrate nationally.  

Neculae sees other factors contributing to the success of women-led business in the region.  

“There’s a structural element,” she said. “Florida has no state income tax, and Naples’ regional price parity of 103.2 sits only slightly above the national average, which is a reasonable trade-off given the wealth concentration in the market. That means more of what a business earns stays in the business.” 

Neculae also cited a pay equity metric in the data.  

“We measured a women-to-men pay ratio of 82.4 cents on the dollar in Naples, which is well above the national average of roughly 74 cents,” she said. “When women see that their economic contributions are more fairly recognized in a labor market, it changes their minds on going out on their own.” 

Neculae noted that in Naples the market itself shapes what succeeds.  

“You have a metro where the median household income sits above $150,000 and where more than 75% of all real estate transactions are cash sales,” she said. “That kind of affluence creates a customer base that’s willing to pay a premium for personalized, high-touch service, the exact business model that tends to favor smaller, relationship-driven firms over mass-market competitors. So, it’s not just that women are starting businesses in Naples; the market essentially rewards the kind of businesses they’re building.” 

Concluded Neculae: “What our data doesn’t capture — but the numbers strongly suggest  — is that affluence in Naples isn’t just about money. It’s about the expectations and consumer behavior that come with it. When your market expects personalized service, values quality over volume and has the means to support independent businesses, you’ve created an environment where entrepreneurship is a logical career move.”