1. 4/26/13 Less twang, more tech: Why luring techies means changing the city's image - Nashville Business Journal
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From the Nashville Business Journal
:http://www.bizjournals.com/nashville/print­edition/2013/04/26/less­twang­
more­tech­why­luring.html
SUBSCRIBER CONTENT: Apr 26, 2013, 5:00am CDT
Less twang, more tech: Why luring techies
means changing the city's image
Jamie McGee
Staff Writer­ Nashville Business Journal
Email | Twitter | Google+
Nashville’s biggest brand and key moneymaker — country music — is getting in the way of its
drive for tech talent.
City and business leaders want to build Nashville’s fledgling technology industry, which means
competing nationally for software developers, systems analysts, programmers, engineers and
tech entrepreneurs that are in high demand in nearly every industry. But first, Nashville has to
convince that tech savvy workforce that there’s more to Music City than country music.
“This sounds petty, but I don’t like country music,” said tech entrepreneur Mike Fruzzetti, who
moved to Austin, Texas, after selling his first venture in Boston. Nashville wasn’t on his radar.
“It’s definitely known for music, specifically country music, and Music Row and all the record
labels,” Fruzzetti said. “People automatically just assume it’s just a music city.”
Nashville’s country music brand is an asset in many ways, but it also is undercutting efforts to
draw tech talent who want progressive, diverse locations with thriving technology communities.
Concerns about Tennessee politics and a lack of diversity also surface as the city seeks to add
tech employees.
A demand for tech skills is not unique to Nashville. In fact, a shortage of tech skills is a national
problem, with demand still fierce in cities with the largest tech communities.
But software developers and coders are flocking to areas that are more established as tech hubs,
including Silicon Valley; San Francisco; New York; Austin; Boston; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; and
Boulder, Colo. Beyond the need for a more developed startup and tech community that can
eventually help attract more startup and tech talent, what keeps people from choosing

2. 4/26/13 Less twang, more tech: Why luring techies means changing the city's image - Nashville Business Journal
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Nashville?
First impressions
“When people think of Nashville, they think of the Grand Ole Opry and country singers,” said
Richard Bass, president and founder of the Boulder and Denver Software Club in Colorado.
“Tech is not the first thing that comes to mind.”
There’s no question that country music is in many ways Nashville’s bread and butter. And its
first impression.
When someone lands at Nashville’s airport, the first thing they hear is a recording of a Nashville
country artist welcoming them to Nashville as they pass by a Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge outpost
and a gift shop overflowing with guitar and boot­shaped memorabilia.
The music industry and its associated branding is a big draw not just for tourists but for new
residents. And Nashville’s music scene has broadened its influence beyond country, with recent
rock transplants such as The Black Keys, Kings of Leon and Jack White.
Nashville doesn’t need to replace its image of cowboy boots and country music, it needs to add
to it, said entrepreneur and startup investor Mark Montgomery, who sold his online music
marketing company Echomusic to Ticketmaster in 2007 and has since founded Flo{thinkery}, a
company that helps businesses develop strategy.
“We need to give a complete picture,” he said. Country music “is a foundation we can grow on.
We do ourselves a disservice by not expanding the message.”
That message goes beyond growing the tech talent pool, but also impacts companies’ decisions
on where to locate, said Angelos Angelou, an Austin­based site selector for tech companies.
“When it comes to music — the commercialization of music — Nashville is No. 1,” he said.
“When it comes to a very strong place of health care industries, Nashville looks very, very good.
When it comes to technology, that’s where Nashville may have a little bit of everything but not
enough to have a hugely identifiable cluster in technology.”
Angelou, however, also emphasized that a lively nightlife and music scene are important when
young people, tech included, choose a city, something Nashville does have in its favor.
In some ways, Nashville’s music industry helps attract other industries. Hattery, a startup lab in
San Francisco and New York, is considering Nashville for a third location. Hattery strategist Mike
McGeary pointed to the already established creative community as a strength.
“We have an interest in creative communities and Nashville always has marketed itself in that
way with the country music industry and others,” he said. “There are a lot of incentives to be in
a place like this.”
The “hump” of Nashville
Spreading the word about Nashville’s growing tech scene is a critical step in building the

3. 4/26/13 Less twang, more tech: Why luring techies means changing the city's image - Nashville Business Journal
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industry, city leaders say. It was a key factor in the Nashville Area Chamber of
Commerce’s WorkIT Nashville campaign that launched in February to help fill the more than
800 open technology jobs in Middle Tennessee.
Janet Miller, the chamber’s chief economic development officer, said the effort is aimed at
helping employers emphasize the strengths of Middle Tennessee, as well as address objections
about Nashville that limit recruitment efforts.
Perception issues extend beyond country music. Miller said executives often field questions and
concerns about the area, such as diversity, whether or not it’s “an all­white South” and the
possibility of urban living.
To many, Nashville is associated with headlines borne in the state Legislature — such as recent
bills that would limit classroom discussion about homosexuality (known as the don’t­say­gay
bill) or tie welfare payments to the academic performance of children — which can become
defining images over time and can be problematic in attracting entrepreneurs and software
developers who typically seek inclusive and diverse communities, said Michael Burcham, CEO of
Nashville’s Entrepreneur Center.
“Every time the state Legislature does anything that looks sort of anti­inclusive, which they do
pretty frequently, those things get such national press that we are viewed as ultra­conservative,”
he said. “It always has an impact so you have to scream louder about the vibrancy of startups,
the all­inclusiveness of our startups, that we like weird people just like Austin does.”
And whether or not the Legislature passes any of those proposals is almost irrelevant, Burcham
said. “That just drowns out all the other good noise we are trying to make,” he said.
When software developers living outside of Nashville were asked about what drew them to their
current cities, beyond the opportunities to work in established tech hubs and proximity to
beaches or mountains, they also mentioned a city’s overall attitude.
“Seattle’s progressive politics are also appealing,” said software engineer Curt Clifton, who lives
in Seattle. “It’s hard for me to imagine a thriving tech community in an area that rejects gay
rights or denies the reality of climate change. Both positions are out of step with the young,
scientifically trained professionals that drive the tech industry.”
Clifton said he isn’t familiar with Nashville’s political climate, but his position illustrates priorities
for many young people in the tech field.
Steve Berneman, co­founder and CEO of OverDog, moved to Nashville from Austin to launch his
company. He’s since found in his own hiring of developers that perceptions of Nashville are
usually remedied when candidates do their research on the city’s offerings and discover its
rankings as a best city in national magazines. (Nashville ranked as No. 10 on Forbes’s Best Cities
for Tech Jobs in 2012.)
OverDog, a mobile app connecting pro athletes with fans through video games, recently hired a
software developer from Washington and just recruited a sales vice president from Los Angeles.

4. 4/26/13 Less twang, more tech: Why luring techies means changing the city's image - Nashville Business Journal
www.bizjournals.com/nashville/print-edition/2013/04/26/less-twang-more-tech-why-luring.html?s=print 4/4
“You have to get people over the initial hump of Nashville,” Berneman said. “If they don’t know
about Nashville, they think they are going to the ‘don’t­say­gay’ state. They don’t think about it
as a progressive city.”
Speaking the language
When Andy Matthews, a Web developer at Emma, spoke to a group of about 600 developers at
a conference in San Francisco last year, he showed a slide at the end of his presentation with
pictures of The Black Keys on the cover of the Nashville Scene, a snapshot of Nashville success
stories including Rivals.com, StudioNow and Echomusic, and a list of startups drawing national
attention, including Artist Growth, Sorted Noise and Everly.
“I love Nashville,” said Matthews, who moved to Nashville in 1998. “I feel like Nashville gets a
bad rap as the home of country music. … The honky­tonks are great. It’s an awesome feature,
and it really jazzes up the Nashville downtown. [But] there is more than that.”
Montgomery points to Matthews’ presentation as one example of how Nashville can add to its
brand, where traditional media or messaging is far less effective among coders and developers.
“Understand who your target audience is, go where they are, speak to them in a way that
resonates with them and do it over and over,” he said.
That Nashville is an emerging technology and entrepreneurial city is starting to resonate. But
building that message, as well as the actual community and the necessary infrastructure, takes
time, Burcham said.
“The more people learn about the city and the good things that are here, they will probably
want to be here,” he said. “We are in early, early evolutionary stages of getting the word out
about the city. It’s … going to take a lot of time and some successful startups. … In three to five
years it will slowly, slowly get out there.”
For leading developers in Nashville, getting the word out about Nashville is done by building on
its existing community and strengths: hosting events such as CoderFaire and HackNashville,
further developing its user groups, speaking and attending conferences and developing new
leaders within the existing user groups, said software developer, consultant and entrepreneur
Jacques Woodcock.
The business community can help build Nashville’s status in the tech world by supporting those
efforts, he said. That means companies allowing or even paying for tech employees to attend
these events, sponsoring user group meetings and sponsoring events that further put Nashville
on the map.
“It exposes the developer to different ways of thinking, which is fantastic,” Woodcock said. “If
we can send our developers out to the world, other developers will see that Nashville has great
developers … and they will see there is a strong community” here.
Jamie McGee covers tourism, entertainment and technology.