This isn’t going to be some enlightening post on the fact that local search and all that crap is great. You won’t find that here. This is rather going to be a simple post on a simple subject: where you start your business matters. A lot.
When we got started in St. Louis, MO and had tried to get going on the little resources we had, leveraging connections seemed like one of the best ways to push forward, even if just a small amount. The problem with that is that if you’re in a locale that’s not exactly tech “savvy”, then you could be left out of the game. We sort of ran into that with St. Louis.
Now I’m not saying there aren’t great minds there, or at least what appears to be a budding tech community, but simply put, the connections just aren’t there. Only two weeks into the TechStars program, we have leveraged so many new connections. This, of course, is partly due to the fact that we’re getting introduced to a lot of people through the mentoring program, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that the Boulder/Denver area is pretty high-tech.
Two weeks ago, we met Brad Feld, a local Venture Capitalist and all around super-smart guy. Last week we hung out with Danny Newman of PocketFuzz, Stan James of Lijit and Kevin Cawley from NewsGator, among others. That’s just two weeks…I think we met ONE other web startup in St. Louis in the 8 months we were there. Granted, there were plenty of people that had design shops or did freelance, but not very many web startups call their home STL, and for good reason too (at least now that we’ve found this out).
The energy in Boulder/Denver is incredible. There is so much of a “work together” vibe out here. If one person hasn’t accomplished what you’re looking for, the next person might, or they might know someone who can. The talent in this area is amazing, and of course there’s a huge land grab for it.
Of course I’ll divulge more into the great connections we’ve been making later, but for now, I just wanted to say that if you’re starting up a web company and can’t decide on a place to settle, come out here…you’ll thank me later.
- Matt
[tags]location, boulder, denver, colorado, st. louis, missouri, startups, danny newman, pocketfuzz, stan james, lijit, kevin cawley, newsgator, techstars[/tags]
