Jhonathan Vazquez and his wife moved from Houston, Texas, to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2021 and were surprised to find a thriving entrepreneurial scene.
Courtesy of Jhonathan Vazquez
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jhonathan Vazquez, 34, the cofounder and COO of Titan Intake, a healthcare referral startup. He moved from Houston, Texas, to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2021 as part of the latter's incentive program to entice more remote workers.
I'm a first-generation immigrant. My mother came to this country when she was seven months pregnant with me and I was blessed to be born here in the USA. We lived in my aunt's garage for a couple of years until my father was able to get us a small home in Houston.
It was a very humble upbringing. I was the first in my family to have a corporate job.
I met my wife in my early 20s. 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 homelessness issue in Houston, and I wanted something a bit safer for my wife to be able to walk the dogs.
So we moved again, this time to a Houston area called River Roads. I started spending a lot of time commuting to work. We wanted to buy a house in Houston, but finding one that suited our lifestyle that we could also afford would have been tough. We would have had to move outside the city.
During COVID, my wife's company went under. I was working in healthcare doing joint ventures and acquisitions, and my boss allowed me to go completely remote.
My wife found a program called Tulsa Remote, which is a $10,000 stipend to bring remote workers to the city. The goal is also to increase diversity in the city's talent pool.
To be honest, we had never heard much of Tulsa before. The extent of my Tulsa knowledge was when Chandler moved there in a "Friends" episode.
I saw the acceptance rate for the Tulsa Remote program was low, but I figured we had nothing to lose.
The Tulsa Remote program wanted people who wanted to be a part of Tulsa's community. It isn't just a stipend. It also sets you up with all these events in the city.
My wife and I love going to the opera, soccer, baseball, and basketball games. When we came and toured Tulsa we saw the city had many things we liked, including museums and a great ballet.
We made the move in January 2021.
The cost of living in Tulsa is ridiculously low. The city is a lot smaller than Houston but still has everything a big city has to offer. And there's no commute. Everything's within 10 to 15 minutes of driving.
Courtesy of Jhonathan Vazquez
One of my favorite things is that Tulsa has all four seasons. In Houston, it's just hot and humid. But here, there's a real winter, summer, spring and fall.
Here in Tulsa, we rent a house with a backyard. We just open the door, and the dogs have a yard. My wife got pregnant two years into our Tulsa journey and had our beautiful daughter. We would have had to move outside the city if we were still in Houston. But in Tulsa, we can afford to stay.
We also pay much less for gas because we don't have to drive 20 miles to get anywhere like we did in Houston. We also have noticed big savings in our housing, too. We're really happy where we're renting, but now that we have our daughter, we're looking to buy a house.
Tulsa Remote helped set me up with the connections to start my company. About a year and a half after we moved here, I saw something special happening in the entrepreneurship scene and wanted to be a part of it.
I met my company's cofounder, and we started Titan Intake in May 2022. We use AI to automate referrals. We've been able to create something special because of the community that exists here. We raised our friends and family around here in Tulsa. An incubator in the city helped us acquire our first clients.
Since then, the sky has been the limit, and we've continued to grow. Thanks to our app, about 76,000 patients have been seen, and more than 100 doctors use it. We recently closed our pre-seed round of $1.3 million.
Courtesy of Jhonathan Vazquez
Tulsa has a lot of programs to help entrepreneurs with non-dilutive capital, from their first idea to the MVP (minimum viable product) phase. That community is really strong here, especially for minority founders like myself. The community is about collaboration and not competition.
Tulsa is also taking steps to become a thriving tech scene. It was designated a tech hub earlier this year. There are a lot of programs that are trying to push it in that direction.
If people want to start an innovative venture, Tulsa is a great place to do that. The city really helps minority founders get their feet off the ground.
In my wildest dreams I never thought I would live in Tulsa and have a startup and a daughter born here.
I definitely miss the cuisine in Houston. It's so diverse, and things actually 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 see ourselves staying in Tulsa for at least five to 10 years. We want to continue to grow here.
