Sounds far-fetched, doesn't it? But more and more, high-tech entrepreneurs are setting up their companies based on lifestyle choices vs. clustering around the expensive Silicon Valley area. Dozens of companies have started in or migrated to places like Boise, Idaho, where the costs are low, the air is clean, and the outdoor amenities are many.
Heck, even Bill Gates chose to set up shop in his hometown of Seattle primarily because he wanted to live near his parents. It's hard to imagine, but Seattle was not the high-tech, internationally known city it is today back in the mid-70's when Microsoft got started. It had high unemployment and was primarily known for its shipping and aircraft (Boeing) industries, which had fallen on hard times.
Today, companies like RightNow are popping up in towns like Bozeman, Montana. Started by Greg Gianforte, who:
... moved to Bozeman in 1995 because he'd fallen in love with Montana on a junior-high-school backpacking trip, and because he thought it would be a good place to raise his kids. In Montana, Gianforte can camp in the summer, hunt in the fall, and ski in the winter. Mountain-ringed Bozeman, population 27,500, home of Montana State University, was half college town, half cow town, a place that offered gorgeous scenery, an active outdoor lifestyle, and not much in the way of employment. Gianforte decided that his personal mission was to create 2,000 high-paying high-tech jobs in town. He had the talent for starting companies, he figured, so why not put it to use? First, he launched an incubator and started mentoring local entrepreneurs. He then started a venture of his own, an E-mail stock-quote service. But he got impatient. The companies that he was involved with were just too small. He began looking around for a new business to start.
This is what we mean by "they will come and build it" vs. "build it and they will come." West Virginia, particularly Morgantown, Fairmont, Wheeling and Huntington, has the same potential to attract entrepreneurs based on lifestyle choices and to provide young talent with local colleges and universities. Yes, we have some tax issue to fix, but notice nothing in the Inc. Magazine article about Greg mentioned him choosing Montana based on tax incentives or structure.
West Virginia's primary "attractor" for entrepreneurs like Greg is our quality of place and overall low cost of living and doing business. We have to market West Virginia aggressively as "your state to create."
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