Charlottesville Downtown Mall At Night
As CTO, I seem to be getting the recurring question, “Can you (hotelicopter) find the tech-savvy talent you need in Charlottesville?” It’s a valid question. Long gone are the days of Kesmai, EA, Mr. Goodbucks, and the beloved Value America. These days, we have influx of spooks, a smattering of biotech companies, and in the IT/Internet world… a whole buncha nothin’.
Usually I give a good new / bad news kind of answer to this question. I’ll run through the good part first so we can get to the juicy bad part.
The good news is that you can do alot more cool stuff with a whole lot fewer people than you used to. And even though we’ll be quintupling the size of the tech staff at hotelicopter, in absolute numbers, it’s still a very small number of people. Armed with the right package of cash compensation, equity, benefits, a really cool place to work, and seriously fun stuff to work on, I’m very confident we can find the team we want.
The bad news, though, is that once we’re done cherry picking the local talent, all that’s left will be tumbleweeds. (And bookstores and coffee shops.)
I recently had it put to me that Charlottesville stands at a crossroads. On the one side, the ‘Ville could evolve into the next Austin. You know, the cool Austin: vibrant arts and music scene, burgeoning tech mecca, nifty atmosphere, lots of fusion restaurants. Sounds pretty good to me.
Or… Our beloved city could turn into Aspen. You know, frigid Aspen. The Aspen where private jets land to deliver out of towners and transplants to their ostentatious homes, and everyone who actually works lives… somewhere else. Somewhere cheaper. Like Waynesboro, Nelson County, Greene and Orange. Let’s face it, Charlottesville’s already looking alot more like Aspen than Austin. We have a sharp housing gap (the current downturn in home prices not withstanding), a widening income gulf, and with each passing decade, a sharp decline in local industry… of any kind. At the current pace we’ll be left with just fancy restaurants, coffee shops and riding tack boutiques.
Aspen… Great place if you can afford it.
True dat, true dat. So what do we do about it? How do we stimulate more local businesses? How do we raise awareness of this important crossroads? How do we make a difference?
Your post reminded me of one of my very first blog posts on the subject as well, back in March ‘07, and a follow up post 18 months later. I wish I could say that things are moving quickly in the right direction, but alas I’m concerned they are not.
http://www.hotelicopter.com/blog/2007/03/31/charlottesville-needs-more-nerds/
http://www.hotelicopter.com/blog/2008/08/29/charlottesville-needs-more-nerds-part-deux/
I think a coordinated, concerted effort by local and state government, the University community, and NGO’s focused on nurturing social entrepreneurship and small business growth is what’s needed, because there are organizations out there trying to tackle this issue but I fear they are not pooling resources and cooperating with each other to get something done.
Perhaps, Colin, you should run for city counsel next time around on a platform of supporting local business growth :-)
Adam
I dunno about that politics thing. Not my style, I’m afraid. I’d prefer we just make a silly amount of money and start funding new startups in the ‘Ville. I agree with all the suggestions in your “part deux” post, but I think that old adage “Nothing succeeds like success” might be applicable here. It’s gonna be hard to buck macro trends.
I think you’re absolutely right – market forces are the most powerful, and success breeds success. Looks like what’s good for hotelicopter is good for Charlottesville :-)
[...] Colin Steele echos the concern: As CTO, I seem to be getting the recurring question, “Can you (hotelicopter) find the tech-savvy talent you need in Charlottesville?” It’s a valid question. Long gone are the days of Kesmai, EA, Mr. Goodbucks, and the beloved Value America. These days, we have influx of spooks, a smattering of biotech companies, and in the IT/Internet world… a whole buncha nothin’. [...]