Hot Cities

Peter Baron's expansion of Socket Public Relations from its original Atlanta home to Austin and then, most recently, Salt Lake City, might seem uncoordinated. The cities don't particularly resemble one another in size, culture or geography, other than that each sports an office of the high-tech public relations firm. But there is a method to Baron's moves.

"We've discovered a pattern," explains Baron, 39. "We look for a concentration of high-tech software start-ups. Then we look at the support infrastructure, particularly the high-tech PR firms. In Salt Lake City, there was a great base of technology companies and, to date, not a great base of well-established high-tech PR firms."

Salt Lake City offered a base for expanding toward the West Coast without actually setting up in costly and competitive Silicon Valley, California. Salt Lake City's work force was another factor. "We need to hire well-educated and well-traveled college graduates to be our consultants," says Baron, who has a total of 45 employees at his three locations. "And Utah, especially Salt Lake City, is known for that."

So far, the two-employee office is doing well, contributing to the $3 million in sales all three locations earned last year. "We've been on a bunch of new business calls and are getting a great reaction," Baron says. "Pretty soon, we'll have a good client base in Salt Lake City."

This article was originally published in the October 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Hot Cities.