Why Hardin Valley has a leg up on Silicon Valley | Opinion
With easy access to the great outdoors, affordability and a welcoming community, Knoxville is gaining national attention as a perfect place to live. It’s also growing as a hub of innovation, an ideal location for entrepreneurs and startups to launch. Based upon my entrepreneurial experience, I can affirm that East Tennessee is the place to be, and we should broadcast that message loud enough for the investor community to hear.
It shouldn’t be hard to see the upside of East Tennessee. The region's tech resume shows we’re home to three leading cleantech accelerator programs — the University of Tennessee Research Park’s Spark Cleantech Accelerator, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Innovation Crossroads, and Techstars Industries of the Future Accelerator. Who could have predicted Knoxville would be named the first “Maker City” in the U.S. or that East Tennessee would be home to the world’s fastest supercomputer?
What we have learned in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic is you don’t have to be in Silicon Valley to make it in tech. The pandemic changed our industry, opening up telecommuting and making it possible to attract outside investors. Previously, you needed to be in close physical proximity to your investors. But with online web conferencing mainstreamed, needing an office in a certain ZIP code to succeed in the startup world became obsolete. Ten years ago, I couldn’t have imagined raising a $20 million Series A round from my kitchen table in Oak Ridge.
Today, other East Tennessee entrepreneurs can likewise raise capital and elevate our city’s tech profile, something we must better publicize. The more venture capitalists learn about Knoxville, the easier the path is for up-and-coming innovators. Our collective success can prove that it is viable to build large and successful technology companies in East Tennessee. With our deep and diverse talent pool, cheap power thanks to the Tennessee Valley Authority, convenient access to the brightest researchers in the country at Oak Ridge National Lab, a large research university in UT to generate a talent pipeline and a business-friendly tax and regulatory environment for startups, we have the ingredients for long-term success in East Tennessee.
However, we remain a well-kept secret in many spheres. For our tech sector to put Hardin Valley on the same playing field as Silicon Valley, we need to boldly market our achievements, keep building on our innovative spirit and attract large sums of investment dollars.
The words Silicon Valley are synonymous with success, technology and innovation. Hardin Valley can be the same. Events such as Innov865 Week — an annual celebration that brings together startups, entrepreneurs, investors, business leaders, students and community leaders from across East Tennessee to promote the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem — help spread the word.
Personally speaking, I’m fortunate to be part of the RegScale team, a company reimagining the risk and compliance industry. My co-founder, Anil Karmel, and I identified a problem in security and compliance processes that didn’t evolve with technology, and we envisioned a disruptive solution for extreme automation. Our experience — the fits and starts and lessons learned — reflects exactly why we want to inspire others to consider an entrepreneurial path. Achieving success in business isn’t easy, but it is rewarding, especially in our supportive East Tennessee community. We’re better when we support each other, which is why I feel so adamantly that East Tennessee can and should be a premier tech hub in the U.S.
There’s nothing they do in Silicon Valley that we can’t do better, faster and cheaper in Hardin Valley. The RegScale team is ready to prove it.
Travis Howerton is co-founder and chief executive officer of RegScale and a Central High School graduate.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Opinion: Why Hardin Valley has a leg up on Silicon Valley
