Challenging the Status Quo: the Love Mobile® CEO on purpose, disruption and building in Tulsa.
Tulsa spent the week of September 21 thinking big. Tulsa Tech Week filled the city with meetups, demos and open doors. At its center sat CHROMA 2026, Gradient’s flagship innovation conference, sold out and packed with founders, investors and enterprise leaders.
On Thursday, September 24, Love Mobile® co-founder and CEO Koddi Dunn took the CHROMA main stage for “Startup x Disruption: Challenging the Status Quo.” The panel asked what it really means to disrupt. Koddi’s answer was clear. Start with purpose. Build what the purpose needs. Then protect it.
Tulsa Tech Week ran September 21 through 26. It is not a traditional conference. It is a week of dozens of community-driven events across Downtown and North Tulsa, most of them free: meetups, panels, showcases and happy hours.
The week opened Monday evening at Gradient and ran through Saturday. Its focus areas span advanced manufacturing, energy, aerospace and defense, transportation and logistics, cybersecurity and autonomous systems. The goal is simple. Put technology within reach of everyone in Tulsa.
CHROMA is the flagship conference of Gradient, Tulsa’s innovation hub. Gradient lives in the historic OTASCO warehouse in the Arts District and serves more than 4,000 members across 112,000 square feet.
This year’s theme was “From regional potential to global impact.” The day asked one question: what does it take to turn regional strengths into globally significant companies?
More than 300 founders, investors, enterprise leaders and community members were expected, and the event sold out. The program featured more than 20 startup showcases, curated one-on-one matchmaking and a keynote from Alex Banayan, bestselling author of The Third Door. That evening, 10 finalists pitched at the Startup World Cup Tulsa Regional for a $1 million investment prize. Stride Bank presented the event.
Gradient CEO Devon Laney framed the mission before the doors opened. “Founders in this region do not need another room where everyone talks about access. They need the people who can actually open the door.”
News On 6 anchor Erin Conrad moderated. Beside Koddi sat Simon Turner, managing partner at Gitwit, a Tulsa venture studio that builds new companies, and Vincent Murray of Manna, the drone delivery company bringing its service to Tulsa.
Three different industries. One shared belief: solve a real problem and serve people well.
Erin cast the panel before it started. Simon was the real talk. Vincent was the hype. Koddi was the heart. By the end, the room knew why.
Every movement starts somewhere. Love Mobile® started with a question at a kitchen table.
Koddi is a wife and a mom of seven. As their oldest prepared to leave for college, she and her husband, Wade Dunn Jr., asked themselves something big.
“Have we done enough to give back to society?”
The answer became a company. Nearly everyone has a phone bill. Love Mobile® turns that bill into a way to give back.
Disruption is one of the most used words in startup circles. On this stage, it got a sharper definition.
For Koddi, disruption is about innovation and solving a real problem. She calls Love Mobile®’s approach enterprise philanthropy: giving built into a service people already use every day. She chose a bill families rely on every month. That makes the giving steady and dependable.
Love Mobile® is carried on three of the major US networks, branded Love Pink, Love Blue and Love Red. Each monthly bill supports local education, the environment, community and pets.
Giving back is the foundation of every Love Mobile® partnership. If Love Mobile® can’t give back, it isn’t the right fit.
Koddi and Wade spent about 15 years building a streaming technology company before Love Mobile®. “Nothing is wasted,” she said.
That experience mattered. The tools to give back with every bill, and to offer multiple networks on one phone, didn’t exist yet. So the team built them. Love Mobile® spent a full year in beta getting it right.
Today, as Koddi put it, “people are switching.” Other companies now ask how Love Mobile® does it.
Leading in a new space comes with a reward. “You get to make the rules,” Koddi said.
Love Mobile® works with nonprofit partners to show how it can put up to $120,000 a year into their organization. One partner shared that the support could help protect a program providing mental health services for young girls. That is the standard Koddi hopes other industries will follow.
Her advice to founders: protect what you build early. Love Mobile® secured its trademark before launch. “We are The Cellphone Company That Gives Back®. And we own the trademark.”
A nonprofit can receive up to six figures a year. Give Back Model™ figures are illustrative and vary by program, selected plan, nonprofit partner and participation.
Koddi also shared a lesson from her recent talk at PMI. With AI, it is easier than ever to start a company. The applause comes at the end.
“But it is the tension in the middle that really determines how you make it.”
Her advice: plan for every kind of day, lead your team and family with care, and build in community. Be “comfortable with being uncomfortable.” And secure the foundation first. Koddi builds Love Mobile® with Wade, her husband of 18 years.
Asked when founders are happiest, Koddi pointed to purpose. She is building Love Mobile® for the long term.
CHROMA asked how regional strength becomes global impact. Love Mobile® is one answer. Tulsa’s accelerators backed the company before it had its first customer.
“The first organization that was willing to put money behind my business came right here from Tulsa,” Koddi said. That early investment helped build the technology behind giving back with every bill.
That is the kind of door Devon Laney described. Tulsa opened it.
The conversation keeps going. On Wednesday, September 30, Love Mobile® takes the stage at Tulsa Sunrise Rotary.
Co-founder and COO Wade Dunn Jr. will share the Love Mobile® story with club members, from that first kitchen table question to the Give Back Model™ that powers every bill. A Q&A follows the presentation.
Love Mobile® is The Cellphone Company That Gives Back®. Carried on three of the major US networks, branded Love Pink, Love Blue and Love Red, Love Mobile® turns every monthly bill into local support for education, the environment, community and pets through its Give Back Model™. Love Mobile® was co-founded by Koddi Dunn and Wade Dunn Jr. and is headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Switch today at getlovemobile.com.
Love Mobile Inc., The Cell Phone Company That Gives Back
12 N. Cheyenne Ave., Tulsa, Oklahoma 74103 [email protected] | 1-888-271-LOVE (5683)
Copyright © 2026 Love Mobile Incorporated.
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