When tech veteran Kate O'Neill first moved to Nashville in the early 2000s, the decision made sense. She was coming here to write music.
"When I first moved here … a lot of my friends from the [San Francisco] Bay area and Chicago and Portland were like, ‘Nashville? Why, why would you move to Nashville?’ " O'Neill told me over coffee Tuesday morning, one week before she's relocating to New York City. "And they understood because of songwriting. If I had moved here for any other reason than songwriting I don’t think it would have made any sense to them. Probably wouldn’t have made sense to me."
But O'Neill, who, among other West Coast technology jobs, worked at Netflix in its early days, soon became ingratiated in the emerging tech scene here. Over the past decade, with a resume that includes building technology systems at hospital giant HCA Holdings Inc. and launching her own marketing analytics firm, she's become one of the leading voices in the Nashville tech community.
Earlier this summer, O'Neill announced on Facebook that she, her fiance and her solo consulting business KO Insights would soon relocate to New York. Now as she prepares to leave, O'Neill's thoughts on what Nashville's been and what it might become are a reflection on the progress the market has made toward building its tech scene.
Generally, compared to when she first got here, O'Neill said, "The community is more aware of what it is and what it has and what it can be than it ever was."
"Which sounds really cryptic and ambiguous, but what I mean is there was always this sense, I think, in the early years of my being here at least, that the tech community had this aspirational idea of something that it could be maybe, but it seemed really far away and ... it was really only shared by a few people who had experience in ... more established tech markets," she continued.
Today, O'Neill said, that vision is more widely shared, and it's much closer to being realized. She pointed to continued interest from Google, and a more robust capital pipeline as signs of the market's maturation. Plus, she said, several key leaders are stepping up to ensure gaps are filled so the city reaches its potential.
"Nashville is legitimately figuring itself out, kind of figuring out the pieces it needs," O'Neill said. "There’s enough smart people ... saying, ‘What are the things we need?’ and then going out and either bringing them to town or creating them. ... It’s not all hype. I’ve just been too close to too many things that are actually happening."
O'Neill is quick to point out that her leaving Nashville is not a sign of "giving up" on the market in any way. There are simply opportunities for her consulting business in New York City that are challenging to close and move forward on remotely. But she'll still be around Nashville occasionally, both for organizational commitments and continuing consulting work.
"It’s going to be a fun adventure," O'Neill said. "I’ll always be talking up Nashville though."
Look for more from my conversation with O'Neill in this Friday's print edition of the Nashville Business Journal.