Growing up outside of Washington, D.C., and before beginning his studies at Washington University, Marc Bernstein said he didn’t have much of an impression of St. Louis. He admits he wasn’t even aware it was home to the Gateway Arch.
“I didn't watch football. Apparently that's what everyone learns about it. You watch football and they used to pan over the dome and the Arch,” said Bernstein, co-founder and CEO of software startup Balto.
The experience was similar for Andrew Glantz, who started his restaurant technology startup GiftAMeal while a student at WashU.
“I knew nothing about St. Louis besides the Cardinals played here. I went on the college tour of WashU and that was my first time in St. Louis,” said Glantz, who is from Los Angeles.
The pair are among a group of startup founders in their 20s who have decided to operate their companies in St. Louis, relocating them to the region or headquartering them in St. Louis after attending local colleges. The Business Journal caught up with Bernstein and Glantz to discuss why they choose to run their companies in St. Louis.
Marc Bernstein, 29, is co-founder and CEO of Balto, which provides real-time call guidance software used by contact centers.
When you started college, did you think you’d stay in St. Louis after you graduated? Staying in St. Louis wasn't something really on my radar. The reason is because, as an undergrad in the business school, the way that you think about building your career is they introduce you to all the hottest brands in the U.S. like Starbucks in Seattle, Chipotle in Denver and Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, and none of them are in St. Louis. My thinking at the time was I'm just going to go work for a super hot brand and then I'll just go wherever I have to go. I didn't think “let me stay in St. Louis, get to know the city, build a career here.” It wasn't even really a thought.
You had a job locally at software firm TopOPPS before launching Balto. Given you were already here, did you consider other cities for Balto’s headquarters? We did intentionally pick the city and we basically narrowed it down to four options: St. Louis; Detroit; Washington, D.C.; or San Francisco. Washington, D.C., was because I had a little network out there and there is a tech community because AOL was built there and that talent kind of dispersed through the ecosystem. Detroit was because that's where co-founder Chris Kontes did the Venture For America summer camp. He got to know the city and said, “It's really cool. It's edgy, it's coming up. There's a startup vibe here. That could be a cool, low-cost, gritty place to start a company.” St. Louis was that same sort of option, a low-cost way to start a company but with a network. San Francisco was because that's where all the real, uh, startup activity and tech activity was. We chose St. Louis because it had a super low cost in that we felt like we had the network to get some early traction. We knew Cultivation Capital. We knew TopOPPS. We could be talking to them for advice. We knew the people at Arch Grants and we felt we could get a $50,000 grant to help our business. We just knew that there were a handful of resources out there that we were familiar with that would allow us to get from where we were to something (bigger). That was the edge for us.
Was there anything that could have kept you from St. Louis? The biggest thing, as a young college grad, is this city fun and exciting enough? Chris and I knew that we were going to dedicate our entire 20s to working our asses off and building a really impactful company. Are we going to be in a city that, when we want to wind down, is fun and exciting and has the stuff we want to do, or are we gonna feel like it's quiet and sad? I think that there's so much that St. Louis is investing in, in order to make it that fun, exciting city. Seven years ago, when Washington Avenue was starting to pick up, it was a factor.
Andrew Glantz, 27, is co-founder and CEO of GiftAMeal, whose app provides a meal to someone in need each time a user takes a photo on its app at a partner restaurant.
After graduating from WashU, why did you decide to keep your company here rather than go somewhere else? There were a number of factors. We had some of our early adopter restaurants in St. Louis and being near them was important. We also had received, in the spring of my junior year, a $50,000 investment from Capital Innovators and being near them and that type of mentorship and guidance was something that was really helpful at that stage. Then, just looking at the kind of cost of doing business in Los Angeles versus St. Louis, both for my personal expenses — that first year out of college, I didn't pay myself a salary — the low cost of living in St. Louis combined with the lower cost of running a business was attractive. Then also just the connection to WashU, and that grew to other universities as well, in terms of being near that talent pool.
You’ve operated your company here for several years. What keeps you here? At the point that I graduated, it was a decision based purely off of GiftAMeal. Now, I really like that St. Louis has the nice mix of being a place that I am personally very happy and then also for my professional development. It has everything that I need to grow GiftAMeal as well. From both hats, I've really enjoyed the perks of the city, having a place that's big enough to have everything that I would want, but still have that kind of smaller area vibe and not having much pain points like traffic and things like that. It's been really encouraging how the startup scene has grown over the course of the last five to eight years that I've been here and started to be involved in it with all the different resources and just the collaborative ecosystem that's here.
What is it you like about St. Louis from a personal standpoint? I love Forest Park. I think that's one of the biggest perks of St. Louis. I think about all the different areas of St Louis, and each kind of having their own vibe is something that I like, with anything from Central West End being very different from Soulard being different from The Hill versus Chesterfield or St. Charles. I like being able to have all those places be pretty close to each other but also be able to have whatever vibe I'm trying to go for, whether it's wanting to go play Topgolf or go to a local Italian restaurant or go to a game.
