I’m a startup founder who moved from Houston to Tulsa

• Jhonathan Vazquez moved from Houston to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2021.
• The first generation immigrant was looking for a more affordable cost of living and less traffic.
• Vazquez said he fell in love with Tulsa’s thriving entrepreneurial scene and artistic offerings.

This essay as told is based on a conversation with Jhonathan Vazquez, 34, co-founder and COO of Titan Admission, a leading healthcare startup. He moved from Houston, Texas, to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2021 as part of the latter’s incentive program to attract more remote workers.

I am a first generation immigrant. My mother came to this country when she was seven months pregnant with me and I was fortunate to be born here in the United States. We lived in my aunt’s garage for a few years until my dad was able to find us a small house in Houston.

It was a very humbling upbringing. I was the first in my family to have a corporate job.

I met my wife in my early twenties. We moved to downtown Houston. Both of our jobs were in the city, so we lived in a high-rise apartment. But there’s a big homeless problem in Houston and I wanted something a little safer so my wife could walk the dogs.

So we moved again, this time to an area of ​​Houston called River Roads. I started spending a lot of time commuting to work. We wanted to buy a house in Houston, but it would have been difficult to find one that fit our lifestyle and that we could afford. We should have moved out of town.

During COVID, my wife’s business went bankrupt. I was working in healthcare doing joint ventures and acquisitions, and my boss allowed me to work completely remotely.

My wife found a program called Tulsa Remote, which is a $10,000 stipend to bring remote workers to town. The goal is also to increase the diversity of the city’s talent pool.

To be honest, we had never heard much about Tulsa before. The extent of my knowledge of Tulsa happened when Chandler moved there in an episode of “Friends.”

I saw that the acceptance rate for the Tulsa Remote program was low, but I figured we had nothing to lose.

I went through the interview process and was accepted.

The Tulsa Remote program was looking for people who wanted to be a part of the Tulsa community. It’s not just an allowance. It also connects you with all these events in the city.

My wife and I love going to the opera, football games, baseball games and basketball games. When we came to visit Tulsa, we saw that the city had many things we loved, including museums and great ballet.

We took the plunge in January 2021.

The cost of living in Tulsa is ridiculously low. The city is much smaller than Houston but still has everything a big city has to offer. And there is no commute. Everything is a 10 to 15 minute drive away.

One of my favorite things is that Tulsa offers all four seasons. In Houston, it’s just hot and humid. But here there is a real winter, summer, spring and autumn.

Here in Tulsa we rent a house with a yard. We just open the door and the dogs have a run. My wife got pregnant two years into our Tulsa trip and had our beautiful daughter. We would have had to move out of town if we were still in Houston. But in Tulsa, we can afford to stay.

We also pay a lot less for gas because we don’t have to drive 20 miles to get anywhere like we did in Houston. We have also seen significant savings in our housing. We are really happy with where we are renting, but now that we have our daughter we are looking to buy a house.

The entrepreneurial community in Tulsa is great.

Tulsa Remote helped me make the connections needed to start my business. About a year and a half after we got here, I saw something special happening in the entrepreneurship scene and wanted to be a part of it.

I met the co-founder of my company and we launched Titan Intake in May 2022. We use AI to automate referrals. We were able to create something special because of the community that exists here. We raised our friends and family here in Tulsa. An incubator in town allowed us to acquire our first customers.

Since then, there are no limits and we have continued to grow. Thanks to our application, around 76,000 patients have been seen and more than 100 doctors use it. We recently closed our $1.3 million pre-seed round.

Tulsa offers many programs to help entrepreneurs with non-dilutive capital from their first idea through the MVP (minimum viable product) phase. This community is really strong here, especially for minority founders like me. Community is about collaboration, not competition.

Tulsa is also taking steps to become a thriving tech scene. It was designated a technology hub earlier this year. Many programs attempt to push things in this direction.

If people want to start an innovative business, Tulsa is a great place to do it. The city really helps minority founders get off the ground.

We love it here.

In my wildest dreams, I never thought I would live in Tulsa and have a startup and a daughter born here.

I really miss Houston food. It’s so diverse and things stayed open past midnight. I miss my family too. And we miss the easy access to flights. Now we have to drive to Dallas when we want to visit my family in Mexico.

But we plan to stay in Tulsa for at least five to ten years. We want to continue to grow here.