One question we at TARTLE get a fair amount is why on earth we are located in New Mexico. After all, we got started in Delaware which is near a lot of creative and technology hubs. If for some reason we wanted to be somewhere else, why wouldn’t we just relocate to Silicon Valley, Texas, Denver or up and coming Nashville? Isn’t New Mexico just a massive swath of desert in the middle of more desert?
There are a lot of reasons. One is that all those other places are already saturated with tech companies. From the massive household names to a ridiculous number of startups you can’t swing a stick in those places without hitting someone working for a tech company. Out there, we would be competing with all of those companies for talent, resources, and attention. In short, we would be a small fish in a big pond. Out here, we have the chance to be the big fish, the biggest talent magnet in the area. Yet, there is also plenty of talent around. As it turns out, New Mexico has a ridiculous number of PhDs, actually the highest concentrations in the country. Yet, because it doesn’t have the reputation as a tech hub, the people aren’t very pretentious. That itself is extremely valuable as having to massage egos and defuse situations is not what we should be worried about at work.
The history of the area is also something that is both personally appealing and fits well with TARTLE’s vision. How so? It has an ancient and rich history with Native American cultures and is also the home of Los Alamos, one of the major places the first nuclear bombs were built. It is a mix of the old and the new. This reflects TARTLE in that we want to bring back a time when people had control over their own data while using the latest technology to do it.
The local culture as a whole is also fantastic. It’s one that is very laid back, very personal and very willing to engage with new ideas and new companies like ours. This creates a more flexible culture than what is found in most of the major technology centers, a culture that works very well for us here.
Another great advantage of New Mexico is that the government out here is very interested in getting new businesses into the state. While they have been an oil and gas state for a long time, they’ve realized that those resources won’t last forever and in the meantime it doesn’t hurt to have a more diverse economic base. They’ve made it easy to work with a lot of the government research facilities out here (those labs are the big reason there are so many PhDs here) which opens up a massive amount of intellectual capacity and past and current research. They’ve done a lot to make it easier to do business in New Mexico than it is in a lot of other places. Others are noticing this as well, many of the big tech companies are already planning on moving out here. TARTLE is ahead of the curve.
We would be remiss if we didn’t mention the fact that practically speaking, it almost doesn’t matter where we are based out of. We are a tech company working in the digital age. Given how easy it is to work remotely now, it would be unnecessarily restrictive to limit our recruiting to whomever is available locally. And if we can work anywhere, why not live somewhere that you want to live instead of going to a big city so you can rent out a shoebox for the price you can own a house somewhere else?
So, why New Mexico? Because it is a great culture, with an amazing history and a wealth of opportunities from a business and personal perspective that fits perfectly with TARTLE’s own culture and mission. TARTLE is proud to call The Land of Enchantment home.
What’s your data worth? Sign up and join the TARTLE Marketplace with this link here.
