Tim Carlock hasn't given up on his entrepreneurial dream, but he has decided that it won't come true in St. Louis.
Carlock, 30, spent most of the last two years working on Nexly.com, which he envisions as a clearinghouse for small businesses that need to outsource functions like information technology or marketing.
He's tried to take advantage of the resources available to startups here, like the Information Technology Entrepreneur Network and the Innovate Venture Mentoring Service. He's gone through most of the startup money that he raised from family and friends, but the business is struggling to gain traction.
So, Carlock has sold his house here and he's moving to San Francisco.
Is it a desperate search for greener pastures? Perhaps, but Carlock has spent a little time in the Bay Area, and he thinks it has some of the elements that he finds lacking in St. Louis.
One of those elements is money. Carlock went through a training program on how to approach angel investors, and he hired a consulting firm to help him search for investors. He decided not to make a formal pitch to the Arch Angels, a network of private investors here, because he believed that "the likelihood of getting funding was very low."
After he moves west, Carlock says, "I have no illusions; it's going to be hard, but at least there are more resources. It's a more active (investor) community, and their attitude is different."
Carlock also thinks Silicon Valley will be an easier place to find both customers and service providers for Nexly's outsourcing database. For him, St. Louis was a tough place to meet the business partners he needed.
"I came to the conclusion that staying here is a death sentence for my business," Carlock said. "I don't like that conclusion, because it seems very defeatist, but I can't escape the laws of supply and demand or profit and loss."
Those words, of course, were spoken by someone who's already viewing his hometown through a rearview mirror, and may be viewing his destination through rose-colored glasses. Do his experiences hold any lessons for St. Louis? Is there a way to make the area more supportive of would-be entrepreneurs?
Jim Brasunas, director of the Information Technology Entrepreneur Network, knows Carlock and says he wishes him well. Solo entrepreneurs without previous startup experience, he says, have a harder-than-average time raising money, so Nexly "probably didn't hit enough of the high spots to get real traction here."
On the West Coast, Carlock will find more sources of money but also more entrepreneurs competing for that money. If Carlock has a strong business plan, Brasunas said, a move west probably will improve his chances of getting funded.
However, Brasunas disputes the characterization that things are slow here. ITEN has 160 members and is adding between six and 10 new ones each month. The Innovate mentoring service is advising 85 startups. He can point to modest success stories such as Hexagrid, a Chesterfield company that recently won an international cloud-computing award.
"We've had to lose a few here and there, but the trend line is positive," Brasunas says.
Unfortunately, he can now count Nexly among the losses. Taking one bright, ambitious entrepreneur away from St. Louis doesn't sink the area's chances of building a more vibrant business community, but it certainly doesn't help, either.
Jg
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