Vision of the Future
From Exponential Entrepreneurship
Here is a way that nextNYers is doing video around NYC to bring together info about local companies
From Jonathan:
What does it take to change this trend? First, I think critical mass.. more entrepreneurs, more customers, more everything really. Austin is not a big city all and all, we need a disproportionate amount of entrepreneurs to be any kind of hub. They come from industry, from the universities, but usually as the exception rather than a prestigious opportunity. One way to solve this is to strengthen ties between the unique demographic triangle that is Houston, Dalllas, Austin, San Antonio. Now you are talking a population size in excess of 10-12 million, all within 3.5 hrs driving / 1 hr flight. Facilitate large, ongoing gatherings next to the airports of either of these cities and purposely invite large contingencies of all entrepreneurs to buy the cheap ticket round-trip ticket to spend the day networking with one another. Invite academics, inventors, funding parties and more. Fill up 'Demo Busses' with early stage entrepreneurs and take them on roadtrips around Texas. They will be familiar at the end of a 2-day tour, and can meet 4X as many people as in a conference in any one city.
Next, mobility of knowledge. Employees need risk tolerance, the culture to leave a comfortable job and risk failure, and more than anything the observed confidence that they can do it.. visible role models. Academics / Inventors need constant, direct contact with real entrepreneurs and the willingness to mutually benefit from ideas. Angels / VCs need to understand the real risks of technology businesses in all phases - seed stage, early stage, growth... without a culture for investment in the most early and innovative of ideas / technologies, the city falls exponentially behind the curve. Entrepreneurs need to learn to profit through innovation, and through the use of innovation - we need to figure out how to both use the region's resources, and also bring connections, thinking, and talent from SFBay, Seattle and Boston to the city.
Then, public success - real success, not the gay PR that is the front page of the ABJ, like 'Some company gets $20M C round'. That is great, but honestly, who cares? Did they really solve any kind of need? Should the only community judgement of success really be pegged to what some investment parties (who are probably from outside of Austin) thought about a company? Yea, how can you even begin to claim we are a tech hub if the only public success announcements come when Austin startups get 'validated' by investment from outside of the city? We need a big, open, sprawling site where real successes are announced. Selling the first product; hiring employee 2, 5, XX; reaching sales of $100k, $1M, $10M; getting awards from people who matter; getting a commercially viable patent; web traffic statistics; etc. Keep track of points for each venture, keep record boards, let users vote up the announcements they think are most useful.
Finally, rules of engagement. This one really falls under the category of mobility, but also to networking in general. There should be an unwritten understanding of how things work within the innovation community. How do you approach academics and inventors as an entrepreneur? How do you get hired into a startup? How do you get introduced to an investor? All of these things really come through understanding of a common culture, but without a successful history of this it may be more powerful to make it a deliberate educational process. Social protocol greases the wheels of knowledge mobility because it sets common expectations between very different worlds.
I see a couple revenue models in the ideas above, that would probably not take much money to get started. They are just brainstorms of course. You could probably hold an open discussion on the subject. Also, I think this goal is in line with the DCI, and probably many other budget wielding non-profits. More than anything though, if you can enable something new that visibly and measurable impacts the success of even just one business in the region, I think you will find many repeat customers.
