Springfield: Built without a Series A

Bass Pro Shops started in Springfield in 1972 out of the back of a liquor store, when Johnny Morris began selling fishing tackle out of eight square feet of retail space his father owned. It grew into the largest outdoor retailer in America. Their headquarters and flagship store still sit in Springfield, drawing millions of visitors a year to a city of under 170,000 people. O'Reilly Auto Parts was founded in nearby Springfield in 1957 and has grown into one of the largest auto parts retailers in the country (with an incredibly catchy song), publicly traded, still headquartered in the same city where it started.

Prime Inc, headquartered in Springfield, is one of the largest privately held trucking companies in the United States, running thousands of trucks out of a metro that most people don't associate with logistics at that scale. That trucking base, combined with Springfield's position along I-44, has made the city a real freight and distribution hub even though it gets none of the attention Kansas City or St. Louis gets for logistics.

The eFactory, run out of Missouri State University, functions as Springfield's version of a startup incubator, giving founders shared space, mentorship, and access to the university's engineering and business programs without requiring them to relocate to a bigger city first.

Brad Pitt grew up in Springfield and graduated from Kickapoo High School before leaving for Los Angeles, a good reminder that the city has exported serious talent even in industries that have nothing to do with retail or trucking.

Talent is everywhere. Network connectivity is not.

Johnny Morris still lives in Springfield and still runs Bass Pro personally. The founder who built the anchor company never left, and that kind of staying power tends to set the tone for everyone who comes after.

Springfield does not run on venture capital. Southern Missouri has never had much institutional VC to run on in the first place. It runs on retail, trucking, and manufacturing companies that started small, stayed private, and scaled without ever needing a Series A. Missouri State University anchors the city's talent pipeline, and Drury University adds a smaller, more specialized base on top of it.

What Springfield proves is that a startup ecosystem doesn't have to look like an ecosystem at all. It can look like a liquor store that turned into a billion-dollar outdoor retailer, and a founder who never left.

Building outside the venture path in Springfield?

Sign up for Roots to connect with founders who built the same way.