Posted on 05 February 2012
(via supervisorofthelovelessaverage)
Tags » truth • productivity • startups • advice •
An excellent idea. Critics may moan about some of the reading being Brad & associates’ books but that would be totally missing the point, also known as “Haters Gonna Hate.” Techstars has a ton of information about entrepreneurship. No other place has as much real observation and participation with startups on both the sides of entrepreneurs and investors. Coupled with Brad, Jason and David’s track records inside and outside of Techstars, it is a researcher’s dream of an information store. The fact that Brad et al are willing to share this in a course format is sort of a backdoor glimpse into the world of Techstars.
Tags » techstars • startups • entrepreneur • entrepreneurs • boulder •
This is huge! I’m so happy for them. And very fortunate that I was able to be a part of the first one in Boulder, CO in 2007. In a space above University Bicycles, something magical was created by +Andrew Hyde and the Boulder community.
Tags » entrepreneur • startups • google • startup weekend •
Congrats to the Sphero team!
Hattip to Monlezun.
Tags » sphero • startups • boulder •
Excellent post by Rob over at http://blog.kischuk.com/2011/03/04/exits-not-exoduses/ about the Atlanta startup community’s brain drain.
Any startup community would do well to read the above. If nothing else as a reminder of how far the community in your area as come. If there is not a startup community where you live, then this is a great overview of the problems should be accounted for if trying to create a startup community.
So go read it. I’ll wait. Seriously. I have some things to read.
…
Ok all done? Great. Now here is my response.
I moved to Atlanta in January 2009 hoping to get plugged in to the tech community. As a former member of the Boulder, CO startup community and a Techstars 2007 alum who’s company was the first successful exit for Techstars, I have seen what Boulder has done to encourage the startup community to grow. I have also seen all of the problems with Atlanta’s startup community that you outlined. From my experience with Boulder and my observations of Atlanta, Atlanta’s issues seem to stem from community (Boulder is all inclusive and actively recruiting talent in all disciplines) and geography (metro-Atlanta is much larger, and tougher to navigate, than Boulder). Its TheSouth(TM) where everything is spread out a great distance so nothing will change that (except maybe real public transportation). But we should remove the ideological clusters. With social becoming a more integral part of the SaaS / B2B market and just businesses’ day-to-day operations, lines among technologies are blurring. So too should the clusters of the tech community.
From Open Coffee Club, Boulder/Denver Newtech Meetup, Techstars, Startup Weekend (remember it started in Boulder in 2007) to the Boulder.me movement (started by some of the same people that started Startup Weekend), Boulder keeps telling the country and the world about its community. And Boulder keeps building their community. The Boulder.me initiative has been a huge success and help in doing so. It centralized all the efforts of everyone in the Boulder tech community into one real, tangible event that was easy to “market” to other areas.
Having moved to Atlanta in hopes of finding a community ready for tech entrepreneurs, I am happy to say I was not completely let down. Organizations like ATDC, TAG/GRA, SEVC, etc are doing great work. And individuals like Lance Weatherby - whom I was following before my move to Atlanta and who helped me learn more about the scene - and yourself are instrumental in helping correct these issues. It will take all of us, some ego and pride swallowing and some hard work to make this area great. But it can be done. It should be done. Its the way forward for the metro-Atlanta area.
So what is the takeaway? You give some great points at the end of your post that we need all-stage investors and entrepreneurs to stay in Atlanta. However, I would add to that. We need the clusters to all meet, once a month, to show off the cool things we are building. We need open discussions before the work day begins on topics of interest to tech and traditional businesses. And we need a sense of community like Boulder. We need people to feel that if they pursue their “crazy” idea, the community will encourage it. We need an organization like Entrepreneur’s Foundation of Colorado (of which, my company was one of the first to sign up and make good on its equity commitment) here in Georgia.
But what we really need are investors that are educated and are willing to continue to educate themselves. But even if they do not, we need a community that will at least try.
We do need exits. But we also need a banding together of all the “clusters” into one, unified community, with one unified goal: That Atlanta is a great place for startups.
Tags » atlanta • startups • community • problems • solutions • next actions •
Today Convore was released to the public. It is a real-time group chat web app.
First question that jumps to mind is “Why another group chat application / website?” I cannot answer that for the Convore team but my guess has a few parts.
First, the site is secure. Even before you have signed up, the site forces SSL. This is an excellent idea and as Steve Gibson of Gibson Research Corporation has mentioned, SSL/TLS must be used to protect users from having their accounts taken over.
Second, it looks great. Aesthetics are not done for aesthetics sake. They actually make the site usable. Its a lesson we learned at Socialthing that I still believe in today. If it doesn’t look clean, there will be a lot of confusion and then abandonment by users.
Third, and stick with me here. I think this could become the new RSS. While RSS is great for getting the latest topics from your favorite blogs, news sites, etc, it does take constant curation on your part to keep form being buried under mountains of things to read. With Convore, it looks like that curation will take place more or less effortlessly and fluidly. You chose the groups you want to follow. No doubt, TechCrunch, Mashable, CNet, CNN, etc., will be there soon, posting their stories as topics. Comments will then pour in below. A John/Jane (my term for a Convore patron) will quickly see if the article is worth reading and can move on.
Of course, things will shake out as “the three Erics” get lots of feedback from the early adopters. Currently I see three possibilities:
One potential issue? The 20 group limit
Pretty big news for the tech press (you know, TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb.com, etc.) and they seem to have overlooked this fact.
According to the Startup America Twitter feed they made an announcement 3 hours ago stating
White House announces #StartupAmerica Partnership to Foster Innovative, High-Growth Firms in the U.S. http://bit.ly/hu9vn6
No one is covering this? The fact that Techstars, IBM and The Case Foundation are involved is huge news.
Of course, even bigger news are the commitments the involved partners are making. IBM investing $150 million in 2011 for entrepreneur programs and Techstars promising to help startups create 25 000 new jobs by 2015 are two of the highlights. Of course it doesn’t hurt that Google, Intel, HP and Facebook are involved.
Go visit StartupAmericaPartnership.org to learn a bit more about it as well as the White House Page for Startup America.
Tags » techstars • startup • whitehouse • obama • entrepreneurs • startups • ibm • hp • intel • google • techcrunch •
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