Small Businesses Booming In OKC

Business is booming in the metro with more than 100 new small startups opening every month. There have been new small businesses in a variety of industries, highlighting the metro's diverse economy.

One of those is Tailwind. Its co-founder, Daniel Maloney, started the company about 20 months ago. He now has a team of ten people scanning through data. He and a team track activity on Pinterest to help advertisers understand what users are engaged in, so companies can better target their audience.

Their business has gone from 200 users to almost 10,000 in just the last year. But Maloney said that Tailwind could have failed if he didn't make the strategic move to Oklahoma City.

"In those early days when cash is tight, you've got to conserve cash," said Maloney. "We were able to reduce out personal living costs so, to a fraction of what my cost was living in New York and that certainly helped us sustain the business longer."

Moving to OKC also allowed Maloney to pay his employees lower salaries while still providing a good quality of life. All the savings meant more money funneling into the Tailwind.

The Greater Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce statistics show growth trends happening right now and forecast even more, faster growth for small businesses in the near future. Maloney has already seen that happening.

"When I moved to Oklahoma City about a year and a half ago I was able to find on my own maybe a couple dozen startups in the area and now it seems like I know of probably somewhere near a hundred," he said.