Hay-Bales-Harvest-Time croppedFour of the biggest surprises while starting RightNow were the advantages of a rural community:

  1. Productivity Dividend – In most large cities, people commute 1 – 2 hours each way to work.  That is 2 to 4 hours each day of unproductive time.  In a small town no one is more than 10 minutes from work.  The result is more time at home with family and often more time at work.  Families benefit and companies benefit.
  2. Small Town Accountability – There are so many people in a big city that, once you go home, you rarely interact with your co-workers.  In a small town, you can’t avoid your co-workers at soccer practice, church or PTA meetings.  That is a very good thing.  The big city offers workers the ability to go home and lead a completely separate life.  As a consequence, you can be a jerk at work and go home and still be the loving husband or wife.  In a small town, if you are a jerk at work, you are still a jerk when you get home.  The result is a very positive community pressure on our behavior.  I call it small town accountability.
  3. Employee Loyalty – I’ve run software businesses on the east coast and the west coast.  When I moved to Montana nearly 20 years ago, I recognized Montanans were more dedicated and loyal to the company.  When the chips were down, they circled the wagons and went to work.  Also, they took extreme pride in what we were doing.  A shot at the company was a personal attack on them.  They rode for the brand and it gave us a huge competitive advantage.  It also increased our commitment to the employees and their welfare.  As our company grew, we flew every new out-of-state employee to Montana for 1 to 2 weeks of training.  Coming here allowed them to drink up the Montana experience and start to understand what is means to be from Montana.
  4. Rural Work Ethic – Most of our employees grew up on farms and ranches, and when they came to RightNow they brought their rock-solid work ethic with them. In many urban places people have gone soft.  They don’t understand the virtue and worth of a hard day’s labor or the satisfaction of self-reliance. In contrast, if you’re out on the ranch and the baler breaks while putting up hay, you don’t form a committee or call a consultant.  You just fix the baler.  That “get’er done” attitude was a huge competitive advantage for us and will be for all high-tech businesses in Montana.

These are just some of the reasons why Montana-based high-tech and high-tech manufacturing businesses will surpass all others.