urbanSTL

There is so much positive momentum going on the the start-up space. Not only at T-REX (tech/IT) downtown but in the Cortex area (life science/bio/light manufacturing) as well. The cooperation between city, county, universities, large businesses and entrepreneurs is very refreshing. Many great announcements to come in the next 3-6 months. We were very far behind the top 10 cities (24th on invested capital in 2011) but we have made tremendous progress in the last 3 years which has built a foundation for a large amount of venture capital to come into the region. With that capital will come job creation and a significant increase in office and residential occupancy (mostly downtown and midtown). In 2013 we had venture investments of $350+ million which should put us into top 15 regions in the country and as these companies continue to grow we should reach top 10 within the next few years. Still going to be very hard to fill 3 million plus sq ft of soon to be vacated space in the CID but certainly this should give us a base of relatively high paying jobs in the core with people who truly want to live in an urban setting.

You're right very exciting times here and things are just getting started .. I remember that entire area was rundown as i was a kid.. My father brother and i would catch the bus on Sarah and Lindell to get to the shaw neighborhood.. That entire area is changing so quickly sometimes i wonder if im in a very long dream.. Cortex has come a very long ways.. Thanks to Barnes Wash U and St.Louis U and the entire community of this region.. I always read about other cities and their entrepreneurs and tech aspirations such as Buffalo Detroit Cleveland Tulsa Wichita Kansas City Milwaukee...

More great news on the St. Louis startup scene. A new report by the St. Louis Regional Chamber finds area startups raised more than $380 million in equity investments. That was more than six times the amount raised in 2012.

http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/201 ... kQ.twitter

^ great comments, indeed!

from the article:

“We’re excited to make St. Louis our new home,” said Kane Sarhan, co-founder of Enstitute. “Since our first trip here in late 2013, we have been absolutely blown away with the community, innovation and opportunities here in St Louis. We’re thrilled to help grow this vibrant tech ecosystem and bring in talent to support the outstanding companies that call the St. Louis region home.”

Of all the cities that Enstitute could have chosen, why did they decide on St. Louis and not a bigger, more well-known city? According to Ittycheria, the city wasn’t initially on the founders’ radar screen until Cody Beck, one of the graduates of the program, urged them to check out the area. She said she and Sarhan spent several days meeting key leaders in St. Louis and were “blown away by the booming ecosystem.”

“There is something special and unique about St. Louis, and we want to be a part of helping to build the community and make it bigger and more well-known,” she said.

i think it's safe to say they were blown away!

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2014/04/08/ ... -tech-hub/

People are starting to take notice

Reported on the San Francisco Biz Journals website today.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco ... orsey.html


The media spotlight fell once again on persistent rumors that Apple and Google are courting Square as the two tech giants pursue their ambitions in the lucrative payments business.

On Wednesday, Re/code reported on the speculation, noting that its sources say Apple has soured on a possible purchase of the San Francisco payments startup founded by CEO Jack Dorsey.

Google's interest in Square fits well with its advertising business since payment data could help better target ads.

Lots of new arrivals to St. Louis.

Arch Grants Finalists are in town this weekend: http://archgrants.org/finalists-2014/

The SixThirty Class for Spring 2014 has been announced, they are already at T-Rex: http://www.sixthirty.co/companies/#mg_c ... 2014-class

4 companies arrived this week to participate in the 2nd class of the SixThirty FinTech Accelerator. The last class had 2 companies from NYC, 1 from UK, and another from SF. The SF company (Upside) opened an office on completion of the 4 month program and now has 4 programmers in T-REX. The 2nd class has one company from Melbourne Australia, Nashville, KC, and St. Louis. Hopefully this class will also open local office upon completion . Great financial services companies in the region is the draw for these participants. http://lockerdome.com/6220239000047681/6556968831688468

All of this is great news hope we keep up the good momentum as for square i was thinking the same thing and maybe someday they'll put offices here who knows gotta remain optimistic

Interesting article about NYC's tech scene in comparison to the valley. I've seen similar articles about cities like Austin and Boston.

Despite Big Ambitions, New York’s Tech Scene Is Still Starting Up
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/28/busin ... ng-up.html

“There are people who think New York is an irrelevant market,” Mr. Sanwal said. “The more intellectually honest answer is that New York is just relatively immature. It’s on a good path and it needs to run its course a bit more.”

It's going to be hard to attract offices for the top tech companies (like Square) when they can just set up shop in Boston/NYC/Seattle/etc.

But STL can be a regional powerhouse, and the city in particular will benefit from tech jobs migrating to urban areas.

One word will make St. Louis explode on the tech scene and it has nothing to do with talent, culture, sexiness etc. That word is "economize" and that's exactly what companies will come for. That whole creative class, Richard Florida type fluff just doesn't translate well into the real world. People follow jobs, period! Look no further than Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and a slew of other fast growing cities, it has nothing to do with them being cultured, cool, walkable etc. Those cities are growing because they have a reputation for having well paying jobs and a low costs of living. The fact is you can teach any reasonably intelligent individual how to code and I think Jim McKelvey proved that recently with his new coding workshop. St. Louis is just now laying the groundwork for job growth, when the jobs come, the people will follow, and when the people come, the "cool" will follow. Austin is cool because of its tech scene and growth, take that away and Austin turns into El Paso. Its really that simple. Take tech away from Seattle and its a big Olympia. St. Louis will be a better version of its self with economic prosperity. That's when will get all the shiny toys we're looking for.

Well said goat314!

Agree with you goat on everything except your comments on Austin. Austin was "weird" before all the transplants moved in and has actually been struggling to "keep it weird" over the last 15 years.

Austin is one of the most overrated cities I have been too.

goat314, I have to respectfully disagree. Sorry for the long post, but I hope that I can dispel this idea that low costs will attract technology jobs. In fact, it seems that the opposite is happening, and if we don't understand that we will make bad policy decisions.

One word will make St. Louis explode on the tech scene and it has nothing to do with talent, culture, sexiness etc. That word is "economize" and that's exactly what companies will come for.

How many examples do you have of companies moving development of their key technologies to cheaper, less sexy locations in the midwest? In fact, it seems to be moving in the other direction: Walmart opened their labs in the Valley and a bunch of other companies headquartered in the middle of the country are following suit. I know one local major employer who is about to open an advanced technology lab in some of the most expensive office real estate in the USA. Monsanto just paid a billion dollars for Climate Corp in SF.

That whole creative class, Richard Florida type fluff just doesn't translate well into the real world ... Look no further than Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and a slew of other fast growing cities, it has nothing to do with them being cultured, cool, walkable etc. Those cities are growing because they have a reputation for having well paying jobs and a low costs of living.

If this was true, why are there so few creative/tech companies in Dallas and Houston compared to places like SF, NYC and Seattle?

Companies in Dallas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... _metroplex
Companies in Houston: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... in_Houston
Companies in SF: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... _Francisco

The fact is you can teach any reasonably intelligent individual how to code and I think Jim McKelvey proved that recently with his new coding workshop.

You significantly underestimate how much skill, capital and effort is required to build the massive software/hardware platforms that the Valley excels at. This is just as plausible as saying we are going to compete with Hollywood by providing free intro to movie making classes.

Austin is cool because of its tech scene and growth, take that away and Austin turns into El Paso. Its really that simple. Take tech away from Seattle and its a big Olympia.

Austin is the capital of Texas and home to a major university with 50k students, it has SXSW. They've been growing like crazy for several decades. Seattle is home to Microsoft and Amazon, enough said.

steveb wrote:

goat314 wrote:One word will make St. Louis explode on the tech scene and it has nothing to do with talent, culture, sexiness etc. That word is "economize" and that's exactly what companies will come for.
How many examples do you have of companies moving development of their key technologies to cheaper, less sexy locations in the midwest? In fact, it seems to be moving in the other direction: Walmart opened their labs in the Valley and a bunch of other companies headquartered in the middle of the country are following suit. I know one local major employer who is about to open an advanced technology lab in some of the most expensive office real estate in the USA. Monsanto just paid a billion dollars for Climate Corp in SF.

Google, Microsoft, and Facebook have built impressive server farms in Iowa. Low water and electricity costs seem to be major drivers as chillers pump a lot a lot of water to keep server farms cool. Granted, a relatively low amount of employees work there. Still, it ain't bad.

Although it doesn't hurt, there are far more critical factors to grow a tech economy than "economizing." A vibrant startup/technology ecosystem is what it's really about. Check out the link in the last sentence for the full gamut but it takes angel investors, seed accelerators like Capital Innovators to nurture, advisory orgs like iTEN, hubs like the T-Rex to bring together tech creatives that share knowledge and build synergy amongst each other, etc.

Hanging out at the T-Rex is really fun and inspiring, actually. There's so many passionate, smart entrepreneurs that are very supportive of each other. Anyway, there's a lot of factors at play and momentum appears to be building. We can't just expect substantial macroeconomic effects overnight.

steveb wrote:

goat314 wrote:The fact is you can teach any reasonably intelligent individual how to code and I think Jim McKelvey proved that recently with his new coding workshop.

You significantly underestimate how much skill, capital and effort is required to build the massive software/hardware platforms that the Valley excels at. This is just as plausible as saying we are going to compete with Hollywood by providing free intro to movie making classes.

Reference above where Silicon Valley companies are operating server farms in Iowa. Yes, Iowa. Anyway, there's a lot of IT talent in St. Louis and LaunchCode is working to increase it. LaunchCode classes and pair programming help nurture burgeoning talent and only add to the pool. Local corporations saw a need for programs like this and are joining up to participate. Just because it's not MIT doesn't mean it should be pooh-poohed. There's room for all levels of talent and everyone grows over time.

The fact that you see talented visionaries like Jim McKelvey (friend of Jack Dorsey and co-founder of Square) putting their weight behind initiatives like LaunchCode and several other local technology orgs is an added plus.

Thor Equity CEO just on CNBC. Talking about commercial and residential real estate is really a tale of 2 cities. Those cities who can attract tech and other hot industries those who can't . Chelsea neighborhood in NYC, for example, has GOOG building huge office space and 3,000 new employees moving in....UNREAL..

He cited NYC, San Fran, Chicago and Houston off the top of his head where huge movements in employment, and thus, rents, are literally changing these cities overnight.

It's tough that STL is so far behind but I guess the challenge to participate on even a nminimal level can get one excited....

From what i learned St.Louis is doing great for a city its size and i think we should compete with all cities such as Chicago Portland and Santa Fe they're all competition regardless.. I get what you're saying though ...

A great book on building a startup ecosystem was written by Brad Feld and is called Startup Communities.

http://www.startuprev.com/startup-communities-book/

It is part of a series of books written by Brad on the startup revolution.

Many within the St. Louis startup scene are working hard to put these building blocks in place,