Outsourcing PlasticJungle to the Silicon Jungle

Now Vine Global and Marc Raygoza, winners of the famed Start-it-Up challenge last year, are leaving Fresno? Not good. http://bit.ly/yELYF

Looks like in addition to addressing the venture capital situation, we have to find ways to develop more young technology professionals and then keep them in the Valley.
It's hard to attract folks to the Valley. We need to "grow our own" and then make the Valley more attractive on a number of quality of life fronts to keep them here.

Tina, thanks for elaborating. I didn't realize your specific engineering requirements in the prepaid / payment space for one. I appreciate your positive outlook for startups in the central valley and wish you the best of luck with PJ.

First of all, I want to say how appreciative I am for all of the support we have received locally, in particular with companies like Cargo Bay and Case Lawrence.

I completely understand the frustration that comes from companies growing to a certain point and moving out of the central valley. I know that it was predicted by many that PJ would eventually move. Actually, we here at PJ intended to maintain one office here in Clovis and one in Mountain View. The unexpected part for us was just how difficult it would be to see our way through the many obstacles we face separated by 200 miles.

I guess the real issue is, “why do we need an office in Mountain View, at all?” Well, it is true that there is developer talent in Fresno; our business is not simply a web business although that is how it first appears. We are actually deepening our technology in the prepaid / payment space. This requires a completely different area of expertise than web development. We require and have found a highly skilled architect with specific experience building out electronic prepaid platforms. This is also true for other key positions like that of our new CEO, Gary Briggs who joined our board in May 2008, took over the helm in November 2008. He is the former Chief Marketing Officer of eBay. He was completely supportive of us maintaining two offices but like any of the great talent that has joined the jungle, unwilling to relocate to Clovis or Fresno.

The next question should be, “is this extent of talent required for PJ to be successful?” I am not sure we will ever know for sure, but given that we are in the midst of the single worst economic crisis in this century, I didn’t want to find out. I feel flattered every day to have the caliber of individuals interested and excited about our business.

Being an entrepreneur is very much like being a parent. There is little you would not do for the benefit of your child. You want to give them every advantage you can to help them be successful and healthy. I commit daily to “do what is right for PJ”. “What will give it the best odds of success?”

I think the fact that we are having this discussion speaks to a bigger issue which is, “what should Fresno do to grow businesses and jobs?” I think we are best to focus on what assets we have here. I just had a great conversation about the Wet Incubator. I think that we are in an awesome location with unheard of opportunity to maximize our water usage and knowledge. This is an area of technology that naturally fits here, yet we seem to underplay it. Water cleanliness and conservation is a worldwide problem that will never go away. There is a company in the incubator from the bay area. That is ironic, isn’t it? The reason, I guess is that they could develop the technology but probably needed to be here to apply it.

So, thank you for your support and interest in PJ and it’s future. I guess the bottom-line is that Plastic Jungle was born in Fresno and that will never change. I too hope it is just one of many more start-ups to enter and hopefully stay in the central valley.

Thank you Tina for the reply, it's nice to have you actually stop by and give your input. I am glad you guys will continue to keep an office in Clovis. Like I originally mentioned, I too understand business is business and you guys will do your best to make the decisions that benefit you guys.

But like you mentioned, I think the bigger issue is still what can Fresno do to help and allow start-up companies (not just tech) to really make a difference in this city. As with some of the recent news with Pelco (furloughs, layoffs), I think the smaller companies need to step up to the plate and fill in some of these voids that are now becoming apparent.

I've always looked at Fresno as a blank canvas as far as entrepreneurial is concerned.

We just had an article on the state of venture capital in the Valley in The Business Journal (paper only, not website) and featured the Plastic Jungle situation. We basically laid out the problem: there isn't a lot of venture capital available locally, so firms go to where the money is. Unfortunately that means some of our most promising firms go bye bye. Could Vine Global be next?

We didn't do a good enough job in the article of addressing what we are doing to change that situation, so we will be following up in the near future. Keiretsu Forum, a SF-based venture organization, was mentioned as a followup on their visit to Fresno last November. CVBI brought them here. Keiretsu said they have not yet identified enough local interest to set up a chapter here. Stay tuned.

Thanks for the info, I am interested about reading more on what we can do as well. I myself need to attend more of the CVBI meetings to discuss more of this with you folks.

It definitely makes me upset. There's plenty of developer talent around Fresno/Clovis I personally know that would love to work for a startup. Not to mention they could hire 6 experienced devs here for the cost of 4 in the bay area.

If PlasticJungle really needed to move there to get more funding from VCs, then I blame the VCs. They should really be more open to other areas.

So yeah, it's sad. All the revenue, jobs and hope for tech startups surviving around here took a step back with this news. I mean they were the first company from around here I've ever seen posted about on TechCrunch. Here's hoping for someone else to come along soon and make it happen here and stay here.