Here’s a reference for "Doctor Who" fans: Ookla employees like to say that the company’s new office, located in the University of Memphis Research Foundation (UMRF) Research Park, is the “reverse TARDIS.”
Why?
Because while the time machine in the BBC series is larger on the inside than it seems on the outside, Ookla’s office, in some ways, is larger on the outside than it seems on the inside.
In addition to the 1,800-square-foot office, employees will also have access to desk space at the U of M's University Center and the FedEx Institute of Technology, as well as the amenities available to U of M staffers and students.
And those are just a few of the benefits Ookla could gain from entering the research park.
Landing in Memphis, and opportunities at U of M
The Seattle-based business — owned by public company Ziff Davis — is set to open its new office on May 5, after beginning renovations on the space in January. A network intelligence and connectivity insights provider, Ookla is primarily known for the consumer platforms Speedtest and Downdetector. The company has additional offices in Seattle, Denver, Dublin, Guildford, and Dubai.
Ookla established a presence in the Memphis area in 2018, when it acquired local business Mosaik Solutions, which specialized in wireless coverage data and wireless coverage maps. U of M, company leaders found, was a major institution in the city — and one they wanted to work with.
“We realized we wanted to have deeper connections with the university, which had actually invested a lot in making the U of M a research center,” Ookla COO Shivani York told MBJ. “We wanted to figure out how we could start to work with the university, in a closer way, both from an alumni and student standpoint, and then also from an overall community outreach standpoint.”
The new office in the UMRF Research Park is a major step toward that.
Recruitment and remote work
Currently, Ookla has around 25 employees in Memphis, and it wants to grow this number, in part by recruiting both recent U of M graduates, and older alumni. The new office in the Research Park could help with this, as could discussions it’s having with the Greater Memphis Chamber.
“Our goal is to find great people across the board, and having that presence [in Memphis] really helps,” York said. “I’m hopeful that with these conversations happening with the Chamber as well as the university, we’ll be able to tap into the network there, and hire more aggressively.”
Ookla is currently looking to fill a variety of software engineer and data science positions, and aiding it in this quest to hire more is an employee benefit that’s grown increasingly popular in the pandemic era: the option to work remotely.
Ookla has offered a remote work option since its inception in 2006, and it’s one that’s already been used by the Memphis employees. MBJ asked York why the company opted to pay for an office when it offers a fully remote option, and she explained that it’s useful for the employees who do want to work in-person, as well as some team meetings.
“We’ve done a survey of our employees to see how many want to come in. We do have a group of people, much like in other offices, who have come in on a regular basis, because it just is a better place for them to work,” York said. “We’ll also have people who trickle in once a week, and we’ll have people who trickle in just for the team meetings, based off of what our teams wanted to do.”
Beyond this, however, she believes it’s important to have a physical location in places where they want to grow — like Memphis.
“We want to make sure we have a presence, because we want to grow here; we want to invest here,” York said. “And in order to do that, we’ve got to give people the right place to come to work, when they want to."
A win for UMRF, and Memphis?
Ookla's decision to move in is the latest victory for the UMRF Research Park, which was founded in 2019, and also holds companies like CodeCrew, SweetBio, and Otto by DEVCON.
Ask Ted Townsend, chief economic development officer for the Greater Memphis Chamber, and he'll tell you it's also a victory for Memphis.
Often, he explained, when a local business is acquired by a larger company in another city, that business could be "completely absorbed," and relocated to the headquarters of its acquirer. When Ookla bought Mosaik, however, this didn't happen.
"We were able to justify and continue the conversation with Ookla to say, 'Hey, why don’t you consider staying here, and here are the reasons why,'" Townsend said. "'And, if you’re looking to expand your operations, we have space for you.'"
Retaining Ookla plays into the Chamber's goal to build a stronger innovation economy in Memphis. Already, Townsend asserted, the city is "No. 1 in the nation for share of Black females [in tech] and Hispanic tech talent."
"It’s a matter of communicating that narrative to companies based in markets that might not offer as much African American tech talent," he said. "We think that now is the time to continue to market the strength within our economy, and add partners like Ookla."
Townsend also believes that bringing companies such as Ookla to the Research Park could help keep college students in Memphis, once they graduate.
"[Ookla] being on campus, is a clarion call to say, 'You don’t have to relocate, after you graduate here, you can have an opportunity to work, even while you’re in your academic career, and have access to state-of-the-art tech companies like Ookla,'" he said. "That's a different value proposition we can continue to amplify and grow."
