MindSnacks moved to Bay Area for the best environment to build a startup: Andy Mroczkowski

This is Exit Interview, a weekly interview series with someone who has left Philadelphia, perhaps for another country or region or even just out of city limits and often taking talent, business and jobs with them. If you or someone you know left Philly for whatever reason, we want to hear from you. Contact us.
Andy Mroczkowski tells an important story without meaning to do so.
“Honestly I’m not that critical of Philly,” says Mroczkowski, 31, who moved mobile educational game development startup MindSnacks. “I just had an opportunity for adventure, and we thought the Bay Area was the best place for our company.”
A theme in the Exit Interview series has been a lack of competitive advantage for business in Philadelphia. Today is the last in the weekly series, though we’ll always seek perspective from those who leave — and those who come. In a fitting close, Mroczkowski notes that he’s actually rather fond of Philadelphia, he and his team felt that to give themselves the best shot at success, they planned to migrate westward.
Mroczkowski, a South Jersey native and Drexel alumnus left in January. The founder of local Mac programming group CocoaHeads, he had worked for the Neat Company and freelanced out of Indy Hall.
Last week, TechCrunch reported that MindSnacks, a DreamIT ventures startup that now has five full-time staff, raised $1.2 million in funding on the West Coast. So far, the plan is working.

What are the primary reasons you and your business left Philadelphia?

For MindSnacks, Philadelphia was temporary home. We wanted to give this company the best possible chance of succeeding, which meant we wanted to be in the very best environment for building a startup. The Bay Area was an obvious choice.

Personally, leaving Philly was not easy for me. However, I really try to keep pushing and challenging myself, and I felt it was time to leave my comfort zone and go for something new and exciting.
Was there a specific event or moment that you realized you had to/wanted to leave?
I was given an “I’m not angry. I’m from Philly” t-shirt and felt that I needed to move away to get the most use out of it.
Seriously, it simply would have been a lot more difficult to raise capital, build a team and grow a company like MindSnacks in Philadelphia. If it were a different business with different goals it may have been a different story.
Was there anything that could have been done differently to keep you?
I left because of a very specific, unique opportunity that came at the right time. I don’t think there was much that could have kept me, except maybe a solid gold house and a rocket car.
Do you think you would return to Philadelphia under appropriate circumstances?
Definitely. Philly is full of great people with a lot of talent. I would love to call it home again.
It’s hard to say what the appropriate circumstances would be since I just left, but I’m sure I’ll be back when the time is right.
When someone you meet from outside the region asks about Philadelphia and its tech community, what do you tell them?

I say that there is a growing, tight-knit, talented tech community. The startup scene exists, but it’s small and seems to have lost some momentum. However, I think the game development community is really picking up. I think it’s a great place for a small company or independent developer.
It is hard to see why you’d move a hot tech company to Philly though, especially with New York City so close. The environment just isn’t there yet.
What is the perception you most often find of Philadelphia?
Cheesesteaks, Rocky, and throwing snowballs at Santa.
I’m only kind-of kidding. Even though the tech scene has been really growing the last few years, Philly is still not on most people’s radar. They don’t see it as a place you would choose for a company unless you already had roots there.
What’s the latest you’re up to that we can plug or look forward toward?
There will be some big stuff from MindSnacks coming soon.
Also, I [was] on the Startup Bus from San Francisco to Austin for SXSW.