Law Humor

Local Boy Makes Good (at first. for a while. and then…)

By Pseudoanonymous

I’d lost track of Vidoop after they moved out of Tulsa till this post from Chris Messina last Friday:

When I was laid off from Vidoop last month, I didn?t so much as tweet about it. The circumstances were different this time. But because the lack of information coming from the company is disappointing (if not frankly irresponsible) it seemed time that I wrote down my recollection of what went down.

So why should you care? Why do I care? For one thing, identity management (what a hackneyed phrase!) is, if I were given two things in the technical world to work on, one of the two things I’d pick.

For another, well, there they were in Tulsa, and here we are in Little Rock. Between the inevitable job cuts following the Alltel buyout, the slow attrition from Acxiom, and the desperate need for some good economic news in the area, one would hope that a really good idea, driven by a team that wanted to succeed, could flourish here, with our reasonable cost of living and our unique culture. Tulsa might even be a better place:

A month after I joined, I took a trip down to Tulsa to meet the crew for a company all-hands and get a taste of life in the wild wild west (as Luke called it).

I was surprised at the size of the company (around 40 at the time) and the feeling of familiarity ( in the ?familial? sense ) among the employees ? clearly these folks cared a great deal about each other and what they were doing and were eager to prove to the world that Oklahoma could product high-tech stars too.

But:

Joel Norvell ? the unassuming CEO and one-time ballet dancer and former chairman and CFO of a jewelry manufacturer ? surprised everyone, standing atop a stump to declare that the company would be relocating to Portland.

The rest of the story makes for good reading–I recommend it to you–but it raised this question for me, which I posted in Chris’ comment section:

Chris, I?m curious about something in particular: What impact would staying in Tulsa have had?

I know I lost track of Vidoop after they left the neighborhood, and I was greatly disappointed that they?d left. From my time in Tulsa (working there twice and spending time with relatives there all my life), I?d say it?s one of the nicest cities of its size: Two fine museums, an opera company, beautiful Art Deco architecture, low cost of living.

If a startup can?t stay there, where can it stay?

Chris gave what I understand is a typically generous answer, the most relevant section quoted here:

I do think that having representatives in Portland and on the West Coast made sense for Vidoop. Honestly, the deal flow is typically better in those environs for tech startups ? and there?s a more vibrant community to provide inspiration, ideas and a source of talent.

However, the slow burn of being in Tulsa was something to be considered ? the costs of the west coast are high ? and for a startup with a fairly large number of employees, might have been a better environment to keep people on the job without incurring higher human resources costs.

It?s hard to say that any one thing lead to the Vidoop?s demise ? and I?m not sure that it was geography alone that accelerated the fall…

After this, he goes on to talk about other factors involved in Vidoop’s problems, all worth reading if you (like me) are interested in technology and startup culture. It didn’t quite reach my real question, which I didn’t quite ask, namely: “Granted that you need representatives where the deals are made, could a successful company remain based in a city like Tulsa or Little Rock? Could it keep a significant presence there if growth and business needs dictated putting more resources elsewhere?” It’s not just a question for start-ups. Acxiom is surely asking itself those questions lately. And Arkansas’ eight-hundred-pound gorilla, Wal-Mart, continually seeks radical change in itself. Parts of their apparel buying have moved away from the Bentonville offices to where fashions are designed and sold. How much more might go away?

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What can we build that won’t go away? Must we look to build something that meets our local needs, and those alone, if we plan to keep the fruits of that building here? What is to be done?

Full post as published by Arkansawyer on June 07, 2009 (boomark / email).