Our first month in St Louis after we won an Arch Grant

This is written by Amit Kothari and Pravina Pindoria — a married couple who run a startup called Tallyfy. This post attempts to cover their first impressions when they arrived in St. Louis to grow their startup. They came here from London after winning a $50k Arch Grant. Things have exponentially grown better for them since they arrived, and they intend to stay in St. Louis in the long-term.

Last year we found ourselves getting deeper and deeper into our startup and we were praying that after winning a $40k grant from StartupChile, that something just as amazing would come along so that we could keep on going. Now, we were looking for a bigger market and less barriers to grow the company. The travel bug had not yet worn off and we ideally wanted to be in a place where language and culture would not be a business barrier. Thankfully, the startup scene is tight-knit and we happened to hear of a unique entrepreneur programme, Arch Grants — no equity investment supported by philanthropic locals and so — we applied. The chances of winning two such grants would be pretty slim, but we gave it our best. And, we won! The terms were that we’d receive the money, if we headquartered our business to St. Louis Missouri. We both of course jumped at this opportunity!

Bitter-sweet start

Half a year later, we were finally granted an E2 visa to enter the USA to carry out business. We flew into St Louis during a bitter cold spell, locals said it’s the coldest it had been for over a while. We had decided we would not invest in a car and would use public transport to get into downtown (the city centre) where Arch Grants and our office was based. Google Maps and AirBnB had been our only guidance during this decision-making process. We had thrown a dart at the map and decided to live in the Central-West-End (CWE) to start with, a well-connected place next to a MetroLink that runs into the centre of the city. CWE happens to be a vibrant and swanky place for young people and students to hang out. The city’s Forest Park was a stone’s throw away, we were happy with our choice.

City of angels

Flash news had interrupted our movie on TV, warning us of a blizzard, so we decided to ration up. On day 2, we coated and booted up and ventured out in the minus 10 degree (Centigrade) biting-cold air for our first grocery shop. We were very chuffed to learn that most commodities were on average cheaper than London, and we left the store with almost 10 bags hanging off our backs, fronts and shoulders, about 30 kilos of rations to get through the blizzard. We had barely made it halfway out of the car park and we heard a car pull up right by us and honk. It was the store security guard. Amit had been speaking to her, fascinated with her gun. She rolled her window and insisted that she wanted to give us a lift home. We were strangers to her, she was a mum clocking off her shift early so she could get home before her kids were back from school, a woman holding down 2 jobs, a lady who had time to give two strangers in a new city struggling with heavy bags in the cold. Our hearts sank, and at that moment we began to fall in love with St Louis.

Everyday efficiencies, pleasantries and surprises

Our weekly shop is different. We’re quite particular on what kind of chillies we like, we like them sharp and hot! Supermarkets give a ‘Scoville’ score for each chilli type they sell. It ranges from 0 – 20,000 Scoville units, the higher the score, the hotter they are, so damn useful! Supermarkets seem to just sell shredded cheese! That explains why we couldn’t find a cheese-grater in our AirBnB accommodations. Once you’ve done your shop, the checkout person takes seconds to bag up your groceries using this simple but super-efficient whizzy bagging system which spins around — it makes our shop so much less stressful.

After discovering that the snow-blizzards were not going to go away until spring, we invested in a car. No one we know really uses public transport. The MetroLink tram run infrequently. It ran through just part of the city centre and just wasn’t practical enough for a couple who lived on the edge of the city and like to explore. What is so refreshing about driving around the US is that most areas are based on a grid layout, and one can never get lost. You can also turn right on red lights, as long as you stop for a few seconds to check no one is coming — it saves so much unnecessary waiting. There seemed to be hardly any billboards in St. Louis — strange, but we’re not complaining, we love taking in the view of the monumental buildings and mansions on our drive into work.

All bath tubs have a double shower curtain, why? So that one side with a magnet stays in the bath tub to keep the water from splashing out and the other side stays outside to look pretty. Very useful and prevents careless tenants ruining the bathroom floor.

The pharmaceutical ads on TV are hilarious. The 5-minute long ads had images full of life and vitality, a voice tells you the benefits for the first 30 seconds and for the remainder of the 4.5 minutes the voice continues to positively talk about very horrible side-effects and that the drug may actually — kill you. Thank you for being so honest, we won’t be buying that then.

Static electricity was everywhere, due to the dry air in the winter! Touching a door knob, putting on our coats and even shaking someone’s hand was scary. Vegetarians in particular seem to be highly sensitive to this, apparently because of their heavy green-leaf eating habits — leading to high iron levels. The trick is to always walk around with a metal object (a pen, not a knife) and tap/poke the object with it first to break the electric shock your about to get. It’s really is quite unnerving.

Eating out

So, we have to tip in the USA, but we don’t mind. Especially if you always get a glass of water with ice without asking and a complimentary bread basket. We walked into a Vietnamese restaurant in CWE (Little Saigon) on a very cold evening, and we couldn’t bear to take off our coats and gloves. The waiter brought over a teapot of hot water just so that we could put our hands around it to warm us up, all without asking. Good customer service here seems to be defined by genuine empathy. There seems to be some real innovation here because of this ethos. Apparently the Sub-Zero vodka bar in CWE is the first place in the States to serve flavoured beer on tap, but we weren’t sure about the coriander which happened to be the flavour of the hour when we visited. The popular Ted Drewes frozen custard is the pride of St. Louis, we look forward to joining the queues to try this in the Summer. We’ve been to a few burger joints and brisket places, they serve meat and burgers on a tray with simply a sheet of paper on top. I guess it saves them doing the dishes.

So these were our first impressions of America — a while ago. We are now settled in St. Louis Hills, and could not be happier living here — surrounded by wonderful people and growing a wonderful business!