I guess since I've moved to Portland, I've been spoiled with what a thriving tech scene can be like. I also went to a hackathon in Nashville right before I moved away and was impressed by their community. Brad (one of WFP's founders) is the organizer of the Memphis Python user group, which is (as far as I know having moved away from Memphis mid-May) one of Memphis' few tech meetup groups. There's a reason that a disproportionate number of startups come out of Silicon Valley. The culture there feeds into itself, and networking opportunities are orders of magnitude greater. You mentioned that you not hearing of them was indicative of a marketing failure on their part. My own take on it is, if they had been in the silicon valley area, they would have had many more opportunities to get their name out. The Memphis tech scene is too far from any of the big hubs, and, yes, it's true that anything that can be done in person can be done over the wire as well, but in practice, not having the ability to put yourself in meatspace with people who might be interested in your product/startup is still a huge disadvantage.