St. Louis Software Founder Builds a Hometown Alternative to Coastal Tech

Simone Aldridge-Petrov turned down three job offers from California technology companies in 2017 to start her own software firm in St. Louis, a decision former colleagues told her at the time was career suicide. Today, Gateway Loop Software employs 140 people building supply chain management tools for mid-sized manufacturers, and Aldridge-Petrov has become something of an evangelist for building technology companies outside the coasts.

"Every recruiter told me I needed to be in San Francisco to be taken seriously," Aldridge-Petrov said from the company's office in the Cortex Innovation District. "I decided to build something that made that advice irrelevant instead of following it."

Turning Cost of Living Into a Hiring Pitch

Gateway Loop Software's early growth strategy centered on recruiting experienced engineers from coastal tech hubs who were burned out on long commutes and high housing costs. Aldridge-Petrov said the pitch was straightforward: comparable salary, dramatically lower cost of living, and equity that would actually be worth something without needing a decade-long vesting horizon at a company already valued in the billions.

"We weren't competing for engineers who wanted to work at a famous company," she said. "We were competing for engineers who wanted to own a house before they turned forty."

That strategy helped the company build an experienced engineering team faster than its funding round sizes would typically allow. Gateway Loop Software has raised three funding rounds from investors, including a Series B that Aldridge-Petrov said she structured specifically to avoid diluting the company's ability to make independent decisions about where and how it operates.

Serving an Overlooked Customer Base

Rather than chasing large enterprise contracts, Gateway Loop Software has focused on mid-sized manufacturers, a customer segment Aldridge-Petrov argues is underserved by software companies more interested in flashier enterprise deals. The company's supply chain platform now serves manufacturers across the Midwest, including several in Missouri's advanced manufacturing sector.

"Mid-sized manufacturers have been using spreadsheets and phone calls to manage supply chains that are honestly pretty complex," Aldridge-Petrov said. "Nobody wanted to build for them because the contracts are smaller than what you'd get from a Fortune 500 company. We built for them anyway, and now there are a lot of them."

Investing in the Local Tech Pipeline

Aldridge-Petrov has become active in St. Louis's broader technology ecosystem, mentoring early-stage founders through a regional accelerator program and recruiting heavily from computer science programs at Washington University and Saint Louis University. She said building a local talent pipeline has become essential as the company competes for engineering talent against both coastal firms and a growing number of St. Louis-based startups.

The company is now developing a predictive inventory feature that Aldridge-Petrov believes could open a new tier of enterprise customers without abandoning its core mid-market focus. "St. Louis doesn't need to become San Francisco," she said. "It needs to become really good at being exactly what it already is."