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Startup Fund Raising How(not)to
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Date: 30 December, 2007 - 10:57

I have to admt that prior to the last couple months, my involvement on the funding side of startups was essentially non-existent. I've always been on the development side of things... cutting code, making sure code works, or managing small teams. The funding is a whole other world...

The best thing is that friend and colleage Mike Ho (of QCodo fame) was in a similar role with his startup Uloop. When we talked at the DCPHP Conference early last month, he shared their experiences with hunting funding, preparing documents, and the general process. While we're quite a bit behind them in the process, it was enlightening and reassuring to hear that many of the same discussions, ideas, and stress are felt across the board.

Towards the goal of making it easier for the next guy, Ann Bernard has shared some of the missteps that we've taken within WhyGoSolo and what we've learned from them. Not to steal all of her thunder, here are a few of particular interest:

DC to Silicon Valley?
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Date: 25 September, 2007 - 08:08

Since the fine tech summit that was BarCampDC, there has been quite a bit of rumbling about the lack of investors (Angels & VC's specifically) lurking in and around DC. In the past couple weeks, some people have laid out a grand vision of "Bringing the Valley to DC" (Nick O'Neill), while others are focusing on building it from the ground up by motivating groups and connections (Will Kern), and others are just ticked because - despite pitching the idea a month earlier (Ann Bernard) - everyone is acting like its a new idea.

DC is a funny and unique place. In the 6+ years I've lived here, here are the key aspects I've identified:

First, there is a huge amount of tech. I've discussed this recently, on any given week you could easily attend 2-3 meetings in the area between downtown DC and Reston, VA. There are groups on everything from general web design to PHP to Ruby to Drupal to startups and probably more that I haven't heard of. And those are just the communities, when you consider the companies, the number quickly grows. The sheer amount of technology people and projects is staggering.