When Emily Hemingway moved to St. Louis about a year ago, she didn’t know much about the region.
However, in the months that have followed, she’s made herself a recognizable face in St. Louis technology and entrepreneurship communities. As executive director of TechSTL, she spearheaded the efforts to launch the newly formed organization, which bills itself as St. Louis’ first “tech council." Created through a federal grant, TechSTL is a membership-based organization designed to provide the 16-county bistate metropolitan area with a forum to facilitate advancement of St. Louis' technology sector.
In addition to her role with TechSTL, Hemingway is an entrepreneur in residence with the Innovation, Technology & Entrepreneur Network (ITEN) and operates her own consulting firm. Hemingway has a background as an entrepreneur, having launched several technology companies.
What were your initial expectations for St. Louis and what do you think of it so far? I honestly knew nothing about St. Louis. Obviously everybody knows of the city, but I had never been here before. I was coming from Asheville, North Carolina, where it was a micropolitan. Asheville is about a tenth of the size of St. Louis. There's only about 80,000 people in the city and 300,000 in the metro area and then it's completely surrounded by rural communities. It's in the heart of Appalachia. My kids grew up on a 10-acre farm. They hadn't lived anywhere but in the country. So then moving to the city was a rude awakening for them. It offered some really great perspective.
How did you end up in your position at TechSTL? I moved here right in the middle of the pandemic and it became really obvious that, especially in my line of work when you're doing community development and business development, if you aren't connected in the community, it's very difficult to get a position. Even with my background and experience, it became painfully obvious that I had to really show up in a time when you weren't allowed to show up. Those first four months I made my full-time job meeting everybody because it was the only way that I was able to really understand this city and make myself a relevant member of the community. I signed up for everything and put Calendly on my email and just Zoom called to death for four months until I was able to finally get my foot in the door with a lot of organizations. That made it so that when I did have the opportunity to take on TechSTL, I was able to show up with a very current awareness of what was going on in the ecosystem and in the city.
How many startups have you founded? I've been officially either a founder or a co-founder of six tech startups.
What are some of those companies you've founded? One is the TACTIX app. One of my companies works really heavily in Native American entrepreneurship education. My husband is native, and we used to live right outside the reservation in North Carolina, so my kids are native. For the past 10 to 15 years, I've been working heavily with native communities. We built a mobile app and learning community for native entrepreneurs. We work in partnership with 65 tribes across the country. Another one is Camp Girl Boss, a leadership and entrepreneurship summer camp for middle school girls. Both of those started as tech initiatives that then outgrew me and my company and we were able to find bigger homes for them.
Do you have any favorite spots so far in St. Louis? This is a great city for kids. We love going to the children's museum, the science center and the zoo. Growing up in a rural region and in a small town, we didn't have access to any of that. My kids have really enjoyed it. For me, the whole first year, we were tourists in this city and we got out as much as we possibly could, even in the middle of the pandemic, to see and try it all.
What’s on your bucket list? I lived in eight different countries before I had my kids. For four years, I basically just lived out of my car and my backpack. I love to travel. I taught English in Korea. I lived in South Africa. I backpacked all through Europe. This summer I'm taking my oldest over to Europe and it's the first time that we're going abroad again. I miss it so much. I miss the wanderlust of it all. Trying to get back into traveling would be wonderful.
More about Emily Hemingway
Age: 36
Hometown: Salt Lake City
College: Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of Central Florida
Family: Hemingway is a mother of two children, a 9-year-old and a 12-year-old
What she learned from her startups that failed: “A lot about being able to read the market and how to really lean in and to test your own assumptions. That's one of the reasons why I teach customer discovery as much as I do, because entrepreneurs tend to believe if they and their friends think it's a good idea, they should go all-in. The challenge is that great ideas can't just be born out of your basement."
