Matt (who is a co-founder and CTO) is a brilliant technologist. I have some severe issues with Brian (imagine that?!), but, the team in Cincinnati is driven (they were on a Death March since mid Janurary for their new product, and pulled it out even with the mental burnout involved) and I have all the confidence and faith that they will continue to thrive even though they are now maintaining two different code bases with their new release.
DotLoop has always had a problem finding talent in Cincinnati (they hired me through a recruiter). There was an issue with culture when I was there, but the location of the office, environment, and management play into it. I don't expect that to change -- and if this video was around when I was looking for a new job, it would have striken DotLoop off of my list rather quickly -- and as much as I'd like to think that this will change with offices in Silicon Valley and Austin (based on their jobs page), unless they make some rather major management changes, (move away from a MBA/Management driven structure to an engineering driven structure), I don't see DotLoop attracting the type of talent that they're looking for.
The product is excellent for the market -- it's simple to use, and well suited for their client base, and I wish them the best.
If there's one thing we're doing poorly, it's making those points known. After Queen City Merge, we started working on Made In Cincy to create a unified presence of tech startups, agencies and individuals. We're out here, doing good work every day.
Obviously success doesn't hinge on location but if I had it to do all over again I'd have moved out here for my first startup in the early 2000s. I'm here for my second startup and the serendipitous opportunities are frequent and priceless.
I know people get defensive and he does sort of take a few jabs at Cincinnati (probably a dumb move on his part) but in the end much of it is true.
Edit: added more content.
Of note for you or anyone who might stop by or live in the queen city (email in profile, too if anyone wants to get in touch):
Cincinnati Web Tech Drinkup: http://www.meetup.com/Cincinnati-Web-Tech-Drinkup/
Cincinnati Coworks: http://cincycoworks.com/
QCMerge, a web conference held a few weeks ago: http://qcmerge.com
Made in Cincy (launched days ago in the wake of QCMerge): madeincincy.com
I've lived downtown for the last few years, and Cincinnati is having a renaissance. People are upset about what Austin said because the jabs aren't constructive, are increasingly unfounded, and certainly weren't fabricated by video editing as the company claims in its non-apology blog post.
But the truth is that for every link or event Cincinnati has there's probably 100 in SV. Not an exaggeration. Plus, like I said, the most valuable aspect of SV is the people. The density of technology entrepreneurs isn't matched anywhere else in the world.
It's just good to have insight for both worlds so you can make a decision on whether location plays a big enough role in your success and where you should be. For me I'd stay in SV as long as possible but my wife misses her family so we might end up back in Cincy. Starting up is 100s of micro decisions that play a role in your success - location is one of many.
