GIS Planning

50 cities named in article as the best places for entrepreneurs to start a business.

NEW YORK, NY - March 27, 2009 – BusinessWeek today released its list of Best Small Cities for Startups. To determine the list and write the article "The Pros of Planting Startups in Smaller Cities" BusinessWeek used patent-pending technology by ZoomProspector.com, to research and rank by a variety of demographic, business, and geographic variables that impact the probable success of a business start-up.

Due to the current recession, start-ups are an even more important source of jobs and economic growth in cities across the nation.  In 2001, during the last recessionary period, 569,750 new companies were launched in the USA, which is about one every 55 seconds.  During a recession many who are laid off start their own companies instead of working for someone else.  

BusinessWeek searched cities across the United States, with populations ranging from 20,000 to 200,000 people, to compile its list of the best place to start a business in each state. “Bigger isn't always better when it comes to selecting a place to start a company,” according to the article by John Tozzi and that “Startups also found skilled workers—especially younger ones—drawn to the perception of a higher quality of life.”  The rankings were calculated and “The analysis weighed 11 factors to gauge an area's entrepreneurial climate, including the number of small businesses and startups, the quality of the workforce, how many universities were in town, and measures of innovation such as the number of patents issued and the amount of venture capital invested.” The article also includes an interactive slide show highlighting each city on the list.

“BusinessWeek is one of the most respected business publications and this recognition should highlight the economic development efforts in each of these 50 cities,” said Anatalio Ubalde, CEO and Co-Founder of ZoomProspector.com.

With demographic and geographic data on every city in the United States, ZoomProspector is a growing source of data for businesses, individuals and the media. ZoomProspector.com allows companies to find the community that best matches its workforce needs, target customer base and infrastructure requirements, among other requirements. Much of ZoomProspector’s data is viewable on the site’s integrated and interactive online maps, and visitors can quickly do national, county and city searches through a few clicks of the mouse. ZoomProspector is a free to use service, and was recently named as one of the Top 10 Websites of 2009 by Planetizen.

GIS Planning Inc., creator of ZoomProspector.com , is on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing private companies in the U.S., with more than 180 economic development organization clients, and is an exclusive partner of the International Economic Development Council (IEDC), the main worldwide economic development membership organization. In addition to BusinessWeek, GIS Planning & ZoomProspector.com have been covered in over 100 leading news publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., Fortune Small Business, Entrepreneur, The Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, The Los Angeles Times, CFO Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, CNET, The Boston Globe, and The Associated Press.