Home, Sweet Home

This year, I’ve had the opportunity to visit entrepreneurs all across the Southeast, both in Atlanta and their hometown. Seeing the different entrepreneurial communities, and hearing success stories from each city, continues to grow my optimism for entrepreneurship as a force for good. In addition to an optimistic outlook, it also helps me appreciate what we have in our own startup community — great entrepreneurs, great talent, and great programs.

Yet, it wasn’t always this way.

In late 2008, Adam and I flew to Silicon Valley to pitch the full partnership of a Sand Hill venture capital firm (not one of the A-list firms that typically come to mind) on investing in Pardot. One of the senior partners really liked us and was working to convince the partnership that marketing automation was going to be a big market (most VCs thought the addressable market was too small — hah!).

Toward the end of the pitch, which had flowed smoothly, another senior partner, with a professorial look about him, shot out a question, “Do you have any software engineering talent in Atlanta?” Naturally, I offered him my best chamber of commerce response about Georgia Tech and the great engineering schools across the Southeast with heavy representation in Atlanta. Without even internalizing my response, he said, “Why don’t you just move to Silicon Valley?” To him, with a close-minded view of the world, there was no way to build an important startup outside of a 20 mile radius around his office — nevermind that his firm had just invested in an Atlanta startup earlier that year!

Thankfully, the partner who made that comment wouldn’t be the lead on our potential deal (we never raised venture capital), but that question and comment has already stuck with me for a decade, and I won’t forget it. Never criticize someone’s hometown or make them feel inferior to yours. Never.

John Howard Payne’s famous line came to mind:

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home

With that, we flew home, turned down their expression of interest to keep moving the process forward, and continued building the best company we could.

Encourage entrepreneurs.

Don’t belittle their hometown.

Celebrate the startup journey, regardless of location.