GoDaddy Ranks Stanford Top College Town as Smaller Markets Surge
TEMPE – October 30, 2026 -- Warrensburg, Missouri, and Newark, Delaware, recorded year-over-year microbusiness growth of 16.1% and 16.0%, ranking second and third in GoDaddy's inaugural Most Entrepreneurial College Towns list, behind Stanford University.
The GoDaddy Small Business Research Lab ranked eligible college-town communities by microbusiness growth over the previous calendar year. GoDaddy defines a microbusiness as a company with fewer than 10 employees. Every town in the top 10 posted double-digit growth. The list also includes Elon, North Carolina; Martin, Tennessee; and Conway, South Carolina.
Most top-ranked towns sit outside traditional startup hubs
GoDaddy says 80% of the ranked towns lie beyond traditional startup hubs. The ranking measures business growth across the geographic area around each college, not the performance of the university or its entrepreneurship programs.