Photographs by Kevin A. Roberts
Jim McKelvey, along with fellow St. Louisan Jack Dorsey, announced Wednesday the opening of a St. Louis office for Square, the mobile payment company they co-founded.
Technically, this isn’t the first time Square has had an office in St. Louis.
Before Square became the successful, San Francisco-based tech company it is today, co-founders Jack Dorsey, who also co-founded Twitter, and Jim McKelvey worked out of a small office in their hometown, St. Louis.
But as the entrepreneurial pair started hiring software developers here in 2009, nearby businesses called to complain.
“They said, ‘You stole our best person!’” McKelvey tells SLM. There just wasn’t enough development talent for Square to grow in St. Louis. “Basically we didn’t feel we could scale without either doing serious damage to the St. Louis ecosystem or importing talent.”
Those were the old days, before McKelvey founded LaunchCode here to help aspiring developers, before Arch Grants started bringing entrepreneurs to the city, before Popular Mechanics named St. Louis the No. 1 emerging startup city in America.
Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
Now St. Louis’ tech scene is flourishing, and Square has expanded to the city where it all began, with an office in Cortex, the innovation district so teeming with start-ups and entrepreneurs that it’s become a synecdoche for the entire tech ecosystem.
So was it homesickness that brought Dorsey and McKelvey back to STL? Or the cheap real estate? Or the T-Ravs?
No, McKelvey says. It was the people.
“We came for the talent. We came for the opportunity,” McKelvey says. “There’s nothing more important at Square than our teams and to have the faith in St. Louis, to say, ‘This is where we’ll put a team’ is, I think, an extremely positive statement.”
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McKelvey calls Square’s decision to locate its new office here “one more validation” of St. Louis’ recent growth.
“To have a major technology leader like Square putting a major presence in St. Louis is a big deal,” he says. “It speaks to what everybody has accomplished.”
McKelvey’s “everybody” includes Gabe Lozano, co-founder of the social-media site LockerDome, heralded as one of the fastest-growing sports sites in the world. Lozano agrees with McKelvey that Square’s new office is a sign that St. Louis’ tech scene is evolving.
“Square is a world-class company,” Lozano says. “Square choosing to expand and employ hundreds in St. Louis signals a maturing local ecosystem. In terms of direct impact, it's another means by which St. Louis can better attract, retain, and train serious talent.”
St. Louis did have one major competitive advantage over almost any other U.S. city: an abundance of skilled financial workers. With such employers as MasterCard and Wells Fargo Advisors located here, McKelvey says St. Louis would be his No. 2 pick (behind New York City) for a U.S. city to locate an office for compliance operations, customer support, and recruiting staff.
“Square, being a company that moves money, is very attracted to that skill set,” McKelvey says.
Square’s new office highlights how important an asset St. Louis’ focus on financial services and technologies is, says Brian Matthews, co-founder of Cultivation Capital, a technology-and-life sciences venture-capital firm.
“I would expect more [financial-services technology] companies to recognize this strength and consider opening offices here to take advantage of the talent we have to offer in the area,” Matthews tells SLM.
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Even for companies without a financial-services focus, Square’s big news will bring attention to St. Louis’ tech scene, says Aaron Perlut, co-founder of the Startup Voodoo tech conference and partner at Elasticity.
“It brings a hub of one of the most exciting, talked-about, technology innovations in the past 25 years to St. Louis, and that signifies a progressive culture that's attractive to other like-companies and tech-savvy talent looking for opportunities,” Perlut says.
Nathan Pettyjohn, CEO of aisle411 Inc., agrees that Square’s move should bring increased interest from other businesses or even investors.
“Having a multi-billion-dollar, consumer-facing technology company in St. Louis will continue to raise awareness about the rich pool of engineering and business talent in the community,” Pettyjohn says. “Given Square's potential IPO in the near future, it should also help bring new investment funds to the St. Louis area. We'll likely see an acceleration of entrepreneurs calling St. Louis their headquarters.”
Square’s impact goes beyond attracting more outsiders to St. Louis, says Matt Homann, creator of St. Louis startups Invisible Boyfriend and Invisible Girlfriend. Instead, Square’s presence could also contribute to the city’s continued growth.
“The real ‘win’ for the startup scene could be the advice and insight Square's leadership might add to our ecosystem of founders craving mentorship from someone who's actually built an amazing business at scale,” Homann says.
As a native St. Louisan, McKelvey knows the impact that his company could have on the region, especially in terms of attracting or developing new talent. The company plans to hire 200 people in St. Louis.
“Any time you get great jobs in the city, you raise the standards,” McKelvey says. “You raise the bar. You encourage people who may not otherwise consider a career in tech to look at it.”
Even for those removed from the tech and startup scene, the news brings another kind of validation to the people who call St. Louis home: Maybe we’re not so crazy to love this place after all.
Contact Lindsay Toler by an email at LToler@stlmag.com or on Twitter @StLouisLindsay. For more from St. Louis Magazine, subscribe or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
