NEW JERSEY— New Jersey entrepreneurs searching for a place to launch a business found Bergen County crowding the top of a new statewide ranking.
Researchers at OnDeck, a small-business financing company that provides loans and business funding services, built the rankings around 13 metrics divided into three categories: cost, networking and competition.
"We tried to collect four to five metrics across three categories: cost, network, and competition," Senior Outreach Specialist Taylor Tomita said.
ZIP code 07650 in Palisades Park claimed the top spot with an overall score of 72.6, followed by 07960 in Morristown at 70.8 and 07020 in Edgewater at 70.6.
Tomita said average small-business wages and corporate taxes measured costs, while the number of small businesses per 1,000 residents tracked networking opportunities.
Workforce measures, including the percentage of working-age residents and the share of people employed at small versus large companies, shaped the competition category.
Researchers considered additional metrics before narrowing the study.
Taylor Tomita told Path researchers considered tracking year-over-year growth in the working-age population by ZIP code, but ultimately removed the metric from the study.
The team also shifted its approach to measuring business concentration, replacing the total number of small businesses in each ZIP code with the number of small businesses per 1,000 residents because they believed it offered a more representative comparison across communities.
The study ranked each ZIP code on a scale from 0 to 1 for every metric to reduce the impact of extreme outliers in wages, revenue or business density.
Taylor Tomita described the scoring system as a metric that turns every ZIP code's performance into a number between 0 and 1 so they can be compared fairly.
Instead of using raw numbers like dollars, wages, or business counts, which can be extremely large or uneven, the researchers rank ZIP codes within each category.
The best-performing ZIP code in a category gets a score of 1, the worst gets 0, and everyone else falls somewhere in between based on how they compare to each other.
This method prevents a few extreme cases, like a ZIP code with unusually high income or business density, from skewing the results too much.
It keeps the comparison more balanced, so the final ranking reflects relative performance rather than being dominated by outliers.
"The weighting scheme does play a role in the final rankings," Tomita said. "Of course, if the weighting of the stats were changed, the results would be different."
Researchers said the rankings should serve as a starting point rather than a definitive roadmap for entrepreneurs deciding where to build a company.
"The study gives potential entrepreneurs a decent starting point in terms of shortlisting areas of consideration for their startup, or at least areas were the startup community could be strong," Tomita said.
Bergen County dominated the rankings.
Bergen County claimed seven of the top 10 ZIP codes and more than 40 placements inside the top 100. Palisades Park, Edgewater, Ridgefield and Ramsey all finished near the top.
Morris County showed strong suburban performance.
Morristown led Morris County at No. 2 statewide, while Dover, Denville and Wharton also landed in the top 40.
Middlesex County delivered broad representation.
Middlesex County placed multiple ZIP codes across the rankings, including Princeton Junction-area ZIP 08540 at No. 10 and several Edison- and Woodbridge-area ZIP codes inside the top 50.
Hudson County's urban hubs stayed competitive.
Jersey City ZIP code 07310 ranked No. 8 statewide, while Hoboken's 07030 landed at No. 123.
South Jersey counties posted scattered gains.
Camden County produced several mid-tier rankings, including 08002 at No. 23, while Gloucester, Burlington and Atlantic counties appeared deeper in the list.
Editor's Note: If having trouble accessing or searching the table, click here.
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