Most startup playbooks begin with “move to Silicon Valley.” But in a recent Category Visionaries episode, Immediate CEO Matt Pierce revealed how relocating from Atlanta to Birmingham, Alabama became a strategic advantage in scaling their fintech platform. The insight? Sometimes being a bigger fish in a smaller pond can accelerate your growth.
The Counter-Intuitive Location Play
“We moved here because we wanted to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond,” Matt explains, describing their decision to leave Atlanta’s 7-million-person metro for Birmingham’s 1-million-person market. But this wasn’t about escaping competition – it was about accessing untapped talent pools and building a different kind of company culture.
The Two-City Strategy That Works
Rather than completely abandoning the larger market, Immediate maintained a presence in both cities. “We’ve got this nice aspect of being able to hire in both cities and being able to go in and grow in both places,” Matt shares. This hybrid approach gives them access to two distinct talent pools while maintaining the advantages of their Birmingham headquarters.
Weaponizing Southern Hospitality
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of their location strategy is how they’ve turned their regional identity into a competitive advantage. “When we talk about weaponizing hospitality, it’s taking kind of this Southern mindset, this Southern hospitality that a lot of our team brings to bear,” Matt explains.
The impact? Zero customer churn. “To date, knock on wood, we haven’t lost a single customer,” Matt reveals. “Hundreds and hundreds of customers, we haven’t lost a single customer.”
The Community Factor
Beyond talent and culture, Birmingham offers another crucial advantage: a collaborative tech ecosystem. “It’s rare that a week goes by that I don’t have a breakfast or a coffee or a lunch or a happy hour with another entrepreneur in town,” Matt shares. “We’re all about trying to build each other up.”
This community-driven approach contrasts sharply with more competitive tech hubs. “I’ve worked for companies in Boston, I’ve worked for companies in Atlanta, I’ve worked for companies in California… I’ve seen a lot more competition and kind of a dog eat dog world there,” Matt notes.
Competing with Coastal Companies
The location strategy isn’t without challenges. Matt acknowledges they’re “going up against our biggest competitors in this market, which are Northeast and West Coast and where we know that they’ve got much more access to capital and they’ve got a lot more people to choose from.”
But rather than trying to compete head-on, Immediate leverages its regional advantage to build stronger customer relationships. Their customer support and success teams, shaped by Southern hospitality, “work round the clock to make sure that our users are taken care of.”
Lessons for Founders
Immediate’s geographic strategy offers several key insights for founders considering location:
- Secondary markets can offer primary advantages in talent acquisition
- Regional identity can be transformed into a competitive edge
- Community support often matters more than ecosystem size
- A hybrid approach (maintaining multiple locations) can provide the best of both worlds
The Future of Startup Geography
As remote work becomes more common, Immediate’s approach suggests a new model for scaling B2B companies: leveraging the advantages of smaller markets while maintaining strategic outposts in larger ones. The key is not just choosing a location, but turning your location into a strategic advantage.
For B2B founders, the lesson is clear: sometimes the path to faster growth runs through smaller markets where you can build deeper relationships, access untapped talent, and create a distinctive company culture.
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