I Relocated to Tampa From Texas and Fell in Love With the City

• Joe Steilberg, 27, moved to Tampa together with his enterprise accomplice for a job throughout the pandemic.
• His startup has grown and he attributes its success to town’s supportive atmosphere.
• After residing in cities in Florida, South Carolina, and Texas, he discovered Tampa is the place for him.

This as-told-to essay relies on a dialog with Joe Steilberg, 27, co-founder of Twos, a note-taking and group app. He moved to Tampa throughout the pandemic.  The dialog was edited for size and readability.

I have been a Florida boy for almost all of my life. I used to be born in Atlanta and my dad had completely different locations of employment all through my childhood. I lived in Miami from ages 4 to 13, after which in Jacksonville from ages 13 to 18, and that is the place my household nonetheless is. I went to the College of South Carolina the place I studied finance, and after, I lived in Texas. Now, I’m in Tampa. 

I based Twos, a note-taking and group app, with my co-founder Parker Klein, earlier than we moved to Tampa. We obtained $1.7 million in enterprise capital funding from Tampa Bay Ventures this yr, and plan to remain right here for the foreseeable future. 

I lived in a few cities after I graduated school in 2018, however nothing caught

Straight out of faculty, I moved to Austin, principally as a result of I needed to expertise a giant change. 

The primary job I took there paid $32,500, undoubtedly on the decrease tier of what’s thought of livable, however I really did not discover an excessive amount of. Austin simply felt like the proper mixture of all of it — it was a much bigger, trending metropolis, that folks thought extremely of. I hadn’t heard something dangerous about Texas. 

The issue that I seen in a short time, although, was that I used to be having a whole lot of bother discovering my folks, my group, as a result of more often than not I used to be working. The one folks I used to be assembly had been at work. I spotted that I did not have quite a bit in frequent with the people who I used to be working with, and I had a whole lot of bother determining tips on how to break into these long-standing buddy teams. Everybody appeared fairly closed off.

So I made a decision to maneuver to Dallas. I went from working in residential actual property, to business actual property — in order that felt like a leap up the ladder. I hadn’t heard something dangerous about Dallas, and I had a few associates already there. However the identical factor occurred, I could not discover my group to interrupt into. Then, COVID hit. 

That gave me the possibility to reset and ask myself, “The place do I actually wish to be?” 

I moved to Tampa, and I’ve by no means seemed again 

I bought a name a few private-equity place in Tampa, stepping into the finance aspect of actual property, which is what I had at all times needed. 

As quickly as I bought right here, it was day and night time. It was such a heat and embracing atmosphere. Everybody was like “let me introduce you to my associates. Let’s go to the seashore.” 

I would not even say that I’ve a powerful affiliation with Florida. I really was just a little embarrassed about coming residence. I did not wish to give off the impression that I used to be this homebody and I simply wanted to be on the East Coast. 

However Tampa got here knocking and it is the proper mixture of a giant metropolis like Miami, and a small group like Jacksonville. I really like the climate and the folks have been phenomenal.

The town is walkable and the climate is nice 

Earlier than I moved to Tampa, my enterprise accomplice and I had been engaged on our startup on the aspect. Throughout COVID, he was working remotely with Google from San Jose.

I instructed him I used to be shifting to Tampa for the place in non-public fairness. Sooner or later, he referred to as me out of the blue and stated “I really like experiencing and shifting to new locations, can I include you?”

That was music to my ears. 

We bought a two-bedroom condo in Tampa Heights. We pay $1,700 per thirty days.

It has been phenomenal. It is subsequent to this superior little meals corridor. We are actually a 15- to 20-minute stroll to the water, to downtown, and a 15-minute bike to the collegiate space. We’re a 10-minute stroll from the College of Tampa. The walkability of a metropolis, to me, is among the most essential, if not an important a part of high quality of life.

We shortly realized that Tampa was an amazing place for a startup 

For the primary 12 months, we did not actually expertise any of what the ecosystem has to supply. Till somebody plugged us into this group referred to as Embarc collective, it is a startup group with 150 startups.

Their campus is a superbly renovated, repurposed warehouse. We had been actually nervous we weren’t going to get in. However after three interviews, it was the proper alignment of what we needed and what they needed to provide. We bought in.

It has been a tremendous group of younger entrepreneurs who’re simply hustling to make what they consider in come true. It is an amazing coworking area, it offers nice teaching. We realized that folks in Tampa are very intentional about entrepreneurship. 

We’d have been extra inclined to think about different areas relying on funding alternative, however  Embarc and the group we discovered there, has type of stored us right here. 

When you’d requested me two or three years in the past if I had any concept of the place I needed to plant my roots, I’d have stated, “Hell no!” I’d nonetheless wish to dwell in Europe. 

I nonetheless considerably really feel that manner.  I am younger, we’re clearly taking a really distinctive profession trajectory, we’re not simply climbing a ladder, we’re making an attempt to steer our technique to the highest. 

I’m making an attempt to keep up this universe-of-opportunity mindset.

However that being stated, I do completely like it right here. If I might discover a place that was inside my finances, that was in an excellent location, I feel I’d purchase it. Not just for myself, however as an funding, as a result of I’m actually, actually bullish on Tampa, and I feel that it’ll have an identical development to Miami.