Kevin Fitzpatrick on Philly’s startup scene: ‘There isn’t much of one’

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

Kevin Fitzpatrick had one of those cool white collar tech jobs that actually thrive in Center City.

Born in the Northeast neighborhood of Rhawnhurst, raised in Horsham and a loving resident of Center City, his job with Comcast Interactive Media seemed to suggest he would stick around.

But in June 2010, Fitzpatrick packed up with his girlfriend and moved to San Francisco. It was just time, he says, though his roots may likely bring him back.

“I needed to get out, find mentors and work on new stuff,” he said. Where’s the line between a city that limits and a natural need to try new places. Hear more from Fitzpatrick in his Exit Interview below.

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Megan Wendell: “I felt that Philadelphia taxes were significantly holding back” our business

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

Megan Wendell has an interesting story, and she knows it.

As shared in our March 2010 interview with the indie record label executive turned Canary Promotions + Design chief and her web developer husband Mason, Wendell had very deep professional and personal relationships with the Philadelphia arts and creative technology communities.

A couple months before husband Mason joined Old City development firm Zivtech, the couple had moved their home, their young daughter and, by extension, Megan’s promotions business out of Mount Airy in northwest Philadelphia to nearby suburban Glenside.

Megan is very careful in pointing out that this move was all business. She still has nothing but love for the Philly arts scene, but there has to be something to be learned from the move by this young, educated, creative family.

Technically Philly talks to Megan below, in another installment of Exit Interview.

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Blake Jennelle: I grow incrementally if I stay and in a much bigger way if I go

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with those who have moved out of Philly. We hear a lot of chatter about Philadelphia’s brain drain, particularly from our technology community. We’ve read the reports and heard the studies, but we wanted to hear from the people who have actually left. Why’d they go, would they stay, will they come back? If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

Second in our series is Blake Jennelle, founder of Philly Startup Leaders and MyDunkTank. Technically Philly caught up with Jennelle via email to ask him why he moved and if he’d ever come back. Answers edited for length.

When did you actually leave? And to where?

I moved to New York City three weeks ago, just before Christmas. I hope Santa got my gift forwarding notice. If not, Merry Christmas to the whomever is taking over my apartment.

What are the primary reasons you left for your new location? Was there a specific event or moment that you realized you had to/wanted to leave?

It was a feeling more than anything specific. I had been spending a couple of days each week in New York for about six months. It was partly because my cowgirl lives there and partly to meet with clients for my charity fundraising startup, MyDunkTank.

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Notehall on Philly perception: ‘To be honest, generally, it’s not very good’

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

In the DreamIT Ventures incubation community, it was big news when the team behind Notehall, an online marketplace for college study materials, decided in August 2009 to forgo its West Coast roots and stay in Philadelphia. By their first national TV appearance that October, they had remade a Manayunk rowhome into a quirky Web 2.0 office.

“DreamIT worked. We’re staying in Philadelphia,” Notehall Co-Founder Justin Miller said in summer 2009. Their team spoke about being embraced by the Philly startup community and exploring a new, big East Coast city.

By this May, a year after first coming to Philly, they had moved to San Francisco.

The core of this growing company still thinks fondly on this city, but we spoke to the company’s marketing officer DJ Stephan about moving on and what they remember best.

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Greg Wilder: NYC is six times more productive for Orpheus Media

We hear a lot of chatter about Philadelphia’s brain drain, particularly from our technology community. We’ve read the reports and heard the studies, but we wanted to hear from the people who have actually left. Why’d they go, would they stay, will they come back? So here now, we introduce Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. Let’s see if there are any surprises.If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.

First up is Greg Wilder of Orpheus Media Research, the music technology company and Switch presenter. As always, the conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

When did you actually leave Philly? And where did you go?

December 15th, to Brooklyn’s DUMBO area.

Why did you leave for Brooklyn?

We knew for a while that Orpheus Media Research needed to move in the beginning of 2011.

The reason we needed to move OMR is, because we are working in media and music, there were no clients or momentum in Philadelphia. We were Megabusing it all the time. That gets old very fast. We weren’t gonna move to Los Angeles so we decided New York is the place to be then.

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