Tech grads find Blacksburg fertile ground for e-mail firm

by Deborah Nason
For Virginia Business
September 2005

Webmail.us has proved that you can go home again. The fast-growing Blacksburg-based company provides hosting services that allow companies to outsource their e-mail functions. The company was started by two Virginia Tech undergraduates who moved the company to Vienna in Northern Virginia after graduation in 2002.

Moving a startup from a small town to a large metro area is commonplace, but moving back is not. That’s what CEO Pat Matthews did last year.
After two years in Vienna, the firm found it a challenge to recruit highly skilled workers because it was a small fish in a big pond. “The best talent we could find was located in Southwest Virginia,” says Matthews. Several key employees hired by the company insisted on working from the Blacksburg area.

Finally, he says, “we got to the growth stage in 2004, where we decided to centralize.” The company returned to Blacksburg that August, settling into Virginia Tech’s Corporate Research Center.

The move has been profitable. In the past year, the firm grew from eight to 28 employees, more than doubled its customer base and tripled its office space. It is signing up nearly 400 new business customers per month. Webmail.us currently provides e-mail hosting to more than 7,000 businesses worldwide.

Location is playing a key role. “By being next to Virginia Tech,” Matthews explains, “we’ve been able to recruit a lot of great people — part-timers still in school, part-timers that became full-timers upon graduation, etc. — something we could not do in Northern Virginia.”

He recently revived a dormant social networking group for Blacksburg professionals, renamed the New River Network. “I started it with one purpose,” he says, “to bring people together. You can’t just think about 9-to-5. Unless things like this take off around here, it’s going to be hard for local companies to attract and retain talented people.”

Matthews is a strong booster for the region. “I really want to help put this place on the map, technology-wise,” he says. “I feel my company can have something to do with that.”