Creating a Mini-Valley in D.C.
Posted by Nick O'Neill on December 29th, 2007 8:21 PMBack at the beginning of September I discussed my desire to help create a Silicon Valley-like atmosphere here in D.C. Yesterday, I had three meetings with individuals, two of which are currently running their own startup. I will be posting interviews with both of them in the coming weeks. Over the course of the day, one topic seemed to come up in each of my conversations: the rise of a start-up communnity in Washington D.C.
Everyone seemed to think that the primary reason behind D.C. not building a thriving start-up community is that venture capitalists in the area are overwhelmingly conservative. I have to agree with this but it is beginning to change. Sean Greene (who I interviewed last week) and LaunchBox Digital will be just one of the contributors to this. Eric Litman of Washington VC (who I will be interviewing next week) will also be contributing to this as well.
Be confident that there are more to come. One of my own personal missions with the Social Times is to help leverage the site’s technology channel (we will soon add additional channels) to help build a thriving start-up community in D.C. With the rise of things as simple as D.C. Tweetups (I have been to two in the past couple weeks) and other local events, I am confident that it will happen.
I will be hosting an event about “How to Get Funding for Your Startup in D.C.” on February 13th. I haven’t officially announced it yet and haven’t picked a location but be confident that I will be working hard to put together many more events that revolve around building this community. I’m not the only one. People like Jared Goralnick, Justin Thorp, Peter Corbett, Rana Sobhany, Jimmy Gardner, Martin Ringlein, Ann Bernard and the Why Go Solo team, Ross Karchner, Jason Garber, the local VCs, developers, designers and many others (sorry if I didn’t get your name in here … feel free to shout in the comments) are also helping to build this community.
It won’t happen overnight but 2008 is going to be a big year for us. I seriously believe that while there was the rise and fall of the netpreneur era in D.C., it is rising again and I think it is possible to make it permanent this time around. I will host as many events as possible to help contribute and I will continue to post interviews with the people that are help building this community. What are you going to do to help? What’s missing? Can it be done?
Updated Community Contributors
Will Kern
Zvi Band
Jesse Thomas
Brian Williams
December 29th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Heh Nick,
First thanks for including me in this group. I do think we are on the cusp of something pretty cool in the area and I hope to not only help advocate it, but I also hope to be a part of it. As we spoke about the other day, I am in process of getting the final touches on a product I hope to launch in the next 30-45 days (www.mydropbin.com)
Second, I am absolutely looking forward to the events you are putting together and can’t wait till they come around. Let me know what we can do to help in any way.
Have a safe and Happy New Year
regards
jimmy
December 29th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Nick,
Don’t forget me, with NOVA Open Coffee Club and DC Startup Weekend
Will
December 29th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
What am I, chopped liver?
Seriously, I would attend almost every event, if they weren’t all on Thursdays. That’s my yoga night, and yoga isn’t negotiable.
December 29th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Ha, Not at all Joe. I should have posted some sort of speciifications for being listed or not listed anybody at all. All this will do is stir controversy
That’s not the point of the article!
December 29th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
I wholeheartedly agree that DC is slowly building itself up as an east coast hub for startups (after NYC + Boston). It’s people like you and many others (including myself, when I have the time
) going out and interacting with each other, and making things happen.
In reading articles and listening to interviews, I’ve paid particular attention to what makes Silicon Valley the place to be. Tom Perkins recently said (http://www.venturevoice.com/2007/12/vv_show_47_tom_perkins_of_klei.html) it’s a difference of psychology. He said one of the biggest influences is the number of experienced entrepreneurs in the area, who not only provide advice and mentoring, but give others the hope and confidence that they too can accomplish their dreams. This is something that is still missing in this area, but hopefully we can seek out and involve those few local seasoned entrepreneurs, who will in turn help change this region into what we all know it can be.
December 29th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Great point Zvi. Maybe we will start having more highly successful entrepreneurs. We have a couple but they aren’t active in the community or aren’t as well known for being successful entrepreneurs.
It also depends on your definition of “success.” Either way I think it’s building but we definitely do need more active entrepreneurs and also need to highlight each of them. I hope to do that on this site
December 30th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Nick -
Good post. I think the beginnings of this has been going on for a while (we work with a lot of start-ups at Viget), but its gathering steam thanks to you and some of the people you’ve included above.
The goal of a more start-up friendly business culture in DC is great — though I think we should embrace what makes DC different and not try to just copy the valley. DC has an incredibly stable economy overall, and that provides a lot of cushion for would-be entrepreneurs. There are other aspects that make DC unique — fairly transient population, predominantly risk-adverse businesses, most powerful city on the planet (from a political standpoint, anyway).
At the end of the day, what DC needs is a bunch of successful start-ups, and people will take notice. We’re trying to help that directly at Viget. We also need to celebrate the entrepreneurs we do have — which you’re doing. In terms of events, if we can help participate in, promote, sponsor, or host (as we did Startup Weekend) we’re all for it.
Looking forward to doing our part in 2008. Happy New Year!
Brian
December 30th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Thanks for the mention, Nick, and for continuing the discussion on this topic that’s been on everyone’s minds, but needs a good swift push to the forefront every once in a while…
First, I want to echo Brian in that there are some significant differences between the Hill and the Valley that are worthwhile and positive. His most salient point (to me) is that there’s a cushion for tech folks here, and I’d like to note that much of that is because we have such a thriving technology SERVICE sector, in that people with skills can put them to use in the B2B and government sectors here and get paid well for them…as opposed to in the Valley where most of those talents are put into big product companies (Google, Yahoo, etc) and startups. As such, many DC technology stars end up providing the grease (custom services) for the government and business without necessarily providing the engine or major parts (product development) that the Valley tends to create. It’s not as sexy…but it’s just as valuable in some sense.
Anyhow, back to the point: I’m glad to see that VCs are coming here with open minds to earlier stage businesses, and that more incubators are looking toward product startups. I think what we need is more events like the one you’re talking about putting together–events focused on how to start a technology company with nitty gritty details. VC funding is only one way and only one part of the equation, and I think that some kind of community events like those that Bootstrapping communities (like those in Austin) hold is also an important facet. There’s a lot about running a business that needs to be discussed, and I think there are at least enough success stories in the area for some role models to be able to speak out and hold quality discussions.
I guess I need to gather my thoughts on this a little more in the coming weeks, but I think that some focused events could really help to light the fire and spread the passion a little more. It’s really wonderful to see how far everything has come in 2007 and I’m excited for 2008. Thanks for sharing, Nick, and happy new Year!
Tangent: There was some related discussion why tech companies should or shouldn’t be in DC on the DC Technology Forum.
December 30th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
I agree with Jared and Brian that we should embrace what is already there. There are plenty of startups that cater to government needs and not just those that are web savvy. As you’ll see in the coming weeks I will also be interviewing people from the technology sector that are catering to government sector.
While many of those individuals see the startup community as a fringe community, perhaps there is a way that they could end up supporting it. I’ll be asking that in many of my interviews. Hopefully we can further this in the right direction. It’s an exciting time and will be an awesome year!
December 31st, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Nick, I love what you are trying to do. I finished up the MBA program at GWU last May, and was trying to get something off the ground there (incubator, seed fund, etc.). There was lots of interest, but the bureaucracy is tough.
I’ll be kicking my startup out the door in the next few months, and would love be be involved in helping create a more tight-knit entrepreneurial community.
December 31st, 2007 at 7:13 pm
[…] after reading Nick O’Neill’s post on the Social Times just the other day titled “Creating a Mini-Valley in DC“. I think he is dead on, 2008 will be a great year for the DC area and it startup/tech […]
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:12 pm
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