aktear (Allan Tear)

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global partnership models, Innovation, international adventures, neighborhoods, open source / hackable organizations and communities, systems thinking

Recent Content

Title: Everyday Edisons Comes to Providence (Forum)

For those of you who are garage inventors of non-virtual things, the PBS show "Everyday Edisons" is doing an open call in Providence for the next cool gizmo.

Staples, Home Depot, and other big retailers are sponsoring this as a form of crowdsourcing.

Title: The role of state-funded incubators in startups (Forum)

Brian Lash, a young Pittsburgh techpreneur, has an interesting POV on the unintended consequences of state-funded seed funds and incubators.

The most efficient way for a risk-averse investing public to perform due diligence on investing opportunities is to let others do it for them. No one's more willing to do that than the incubators who can finance it with other people's money (remember, they're state-funded). So it becomes a sort of right-of-passage for technology startups that they should pass through these incubators before they see an opportunity for venture capital, and more and more, for angel money. And you can't blame the investors... it's an economically-sound decision on their parts.

I went to college in Pittsburgh, looked at moving a company there, and think it has a lot of similarities to Providence. However, I think the interplay between our state-funded resources and our entrepreneurs works differently, and I said so here.

State seed funds and incubators adjust their form and shape to the vacuum that is unique to their locale. The number of existing tech angels, volume of startups, dominance of universities, proximity to major startup markets and the local cultural attitude to high-risk investment form the boundary conditions to which the state entity will (unconsciously) conform.

What are your thoughts on how funding, diligence, and gatekeeping works in RI for tech startups? What elements are we missing ? Who should be providing them ?

Title: "Open Coffee" percolates in Rhode Island (Blog)

Eight techpreneurs. Two companies in growth mode, three in launch mode, and a few more getting off the ground. Three solid tech tips, two leads on developers, and one customer introduction. Oh, and about 20 cups of liquid caffeine.

Last Wednesday saw the first Techpreneurs Open Coffee , held at 729 Hope Cafe. I heard conversations about coworking, Wordpress customization, seed investment, and finding interns. There were more topics, but the group continuously shifted around discussions throughout the 2+ hours.

I walked away energized, and committed to making the Open Coffee a regular event. So what's next for the Techpreneurs Open Coffee?

  • Regular frequency - twice a month, on alternate weeks with Prov Geeks . Still a casual - drop in, drop out format, so if you miss one or can only stay for a few, you know there is another one in a couple weeks.
  • More tech entrepreneurs, designers, and geeks - but not too many. Seems like the optimal size of this confab is 16-24 (2-4 tables), after which we'd probably overwhelm any coffee shop or start battling the regular patrons for tables.
  • An open invite to investors - without planning the coffee around them. Folks at the Coffee felt like having some investors in the conversations would be good for everyone, without biasing the honest cross-talk. I'm confident that where techpreneurs gather, investors will follow!
  • A change in venue - possibly. We chatted about finding a place closer to the universities than 729 Hope Cafe, but were at a loss for a coffee shop that satisfied the constraints of: seating, wireless, parking, and student walkable. Also wondering whether our entrepreneurial students and profs would show at 8AM? Opinions?

We'll keep the core the same, casual drop-in, drop-out, buy your own coffee. Fluid discussion topics focused around tech startups, a few will be suggested in the schedule reminder, but its up to those who show to decide what they want to talk about. Seems like "digging in" on an idea or question is what the Open Coffee can provide, along with a conducive setting to trade resources and connections.

So roll out of bed, break away from your email, and stop by, Jan 23 8-10 at 729 Hope Cafe!

Title: Ycombinator for RI? (Blog)

Today's post is by Allan Tear, a Providence-based strategy consultant. If you have an idea for a post you'd like to write, please let us know.

Those of us in the design|geek zeitgeist in Rhode Island are feeling pretty good about the energy in this corner of the global neighborhood. Despite hand wringing on the national and state economic front, the range and potential of truly interesting startups around here is rapidly increasing.

But just like a company that wants to grow quickly, we’ve got to figure out whether we are going to grow organically, or by acquisition. Organically is how we got here so far, and we’ve built a small but compelling core, and we’ve learned to support each other in new ways. Spend time at Geeks or similar confabs, and its obvious that our startup gems center around talented people.

So how do we get more? More talent, more ideas, more design|geek startups, more successes? Consider this story.

In 2005, two seniors at the University of Virginia, Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, were cooking up an idea for a Web 2.0 mobile application. They considered taking day jobs – programmer and web designer – to pay the bills while they built their idea in their “spare time”. But they’d also applied for a competitive seed funding program, Ycombinator, based in Boston.

Luckily for them, they got accepted, and they took the chance to move to Cambridge for 3 months to see if they could turn their idea into a real product that people would use. Ycombinator hooked them up with $12K in cash to keep the wolves from the door, and some good advice that their original idea was crap. Together, they came up with a better one, a Web 2.0 social news site.

Over the summer of 2005, with mentoring from Ycombinator, their prototype successfully launched as Reddit. They hit social bookmarking just right, and though they never caught up to Digg, Reddit climbed quickly to 70K users and 700K page views a day. In 2006, with 4 employees, having raised only $100K, Reddit was acquired by Conde Nast (Wired publisher) for $M’s.

Why am I telling you this story?

Well, what YCombinator and some similar models represent is a next generation funding platform that plays very well to the strengths and the needs of our design|geek community. By remixing the seed fund, the incubator, and the business pitch competition, this “early venture platform” channels the original intent of all those approaches.

It identifies and acts as a magnet for bright young sparks, most in/just out of college, then takes a chance on their talent. It gets them the right combination of seed funding, guidance, access, and drive for results so that their ideas can get a chance in the market. It uses a sense of place, colocating the companies and plugging them into an existing community of entrepreneurs, experts, and funders to nurture and advise the fledgling founders.

Although RI has many of the basic pieces to make this approach work – bunches of college students, a growing base of successful entrepreneurs, seed angels, service providers and freelancers accustomed to working with startups – no one has yet connected the dots. And each piece, in isolation, hasn’t made our design|geek startup rate hit escape velocity.

So what are your thoughts? Is there a place for this model in RI? If so, what would it look like? What would its hook be? Who would it target? How would it play with the existing ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors, and service providers?

Jump over to the discussion forum and let me know where you stand. There you can read more about the model and find links to the organizations that we can learn from.

Title: YCombinator For RI? (Forum)

Following on from the home page post on a new seed venture platform for RI similar to YCombinator. Please add your opinion, including (but not limited to!) answers to these questions:

Is there a place for this model in RI? If so, what would it look like? What would its hook be? Who would it target? How would it play with the existing ecosystem of entrepreneurs, investors, and service providers?

Here are some of the other examples, which are in various stages of development.

YCombinator – Cambridge and Silicon Valley
TechStars – Denver/Boulder
Seedcamp – London
BoostPhase – Atlanta
LaunchBox – DC
YEurope – Vienna

Title: Suggested feature: Forum posts (Forum)

Recent Comments

Source: Help on a Brown University Engineering Project on Co-Working Spaces (Forum) Submitted: May 8th, 2008 - 8:21am link

Hi Lindsay, hopefully you've seen this ongoing thread.

Jack Templin or I can answer some of your questions and point you to people in the community that have been looking at all the different variations of this business model. You can contact us through our profiles on the site.

If you want to spur further discussion on the boards, I suggest that you put together a list of more specific questions, and post them once a week, such as:

  • What do you like better, rent-a-desk, buy a-la-carte services by the hour, or a "gym membership" model where you can use everything, but its first come first serve?
  • What would you pay for a co-working membership in your preferred model?
  • What would convince you to leave your (free) home office and be a customer or a tenant of a co-working space?
Alternatively you could do these as web survey, but it might be interesting to see other's responses.
Source: Spitzer Scandal Turns Spotlight to Music Startup (News) Submitted: March 13th, 2008 - 4:10pm link

Amie Street gets the Spitzer Bump ! For those who don't know/remember, Amie St started at Brown and spent some time around the Providence Geek community before they headed to NYC and got funded by Amazon.

I would bet getting the Spitzer bump is 10X the traffic from being TechCrunch'ed. 

Source: Gypsii: Social networking meets location-based services on your mobile phone (Blog) Submitted: March 7th, 2008 - 9:17am link

@Shane: if you aren't iPhone-ing it, what do you think is the best US handset for the Gypsii feature set?

@Jack: can you link the video overview directly? 

Congratulations ! Would love to see RI become an East Coast mobile hub.

Source: SxSW (Forum) Submitted: March 3rd, 2008 - 11:51pm link
Any opinions on the hot app to come out of SxSW this year ? I think Josh Catone from ReadWriteWeb will be there, as he's had a couple of posts on RWW on whether the next Twitter will emerge from the Festival.
Source: Mofuse has been TechCrunch'ed (Forum) Submitted: February 27th, 2008 - 11:25pm link

Looks like MoFuse got a nice bump from the TechCrunch mention !

Additionally, PBN did an interview with David this week.

http://www.pbn.com/stories/29880.html 

Source: RI Nexus Open Coffee (Forum) Submitted: February 21st, 2008 - 12:52am link
Thanks for hosting while I was away. Open Coffee and Geeks on the same day, and both well attended !
Source: Gauging Providence-area interest in co-working (Forum) Submitted: January 6th, 2008 - 11:31pm link

I just posted the inaugural Open Coffee for this Wed 8AM at 729 Hope Cafe in Providence. Seems like a good chance to talk further about Coworking...hope to see you there.

Source: The connection btw a good music scene and the local economy (Forum) Submitted: January 4th, 2008 - 11:54pm link
dB, you should check out my friend Al Basile, who is an extremely talented jazz trumpeter, and gigs with Swing n' Strings around the city-state. Theoretical physicist turned musician, he's the real deal - google-able if you're interested.
Source: XO Laptop meetup in RI? (Forum) Submitted: January 3rd, 2008 - 4:41pm link
I just posted the inaugural Open Coffee for next Wed 8AM (oops, corrected) at 729 Hope Cafe in Providence. You are welcome to converge there, if you'd like, huddle around a table, and XO to your hearts content...
Source: open coffee for entrepreneurs, developers and investors (Forum) Submitted: January 3rd, 2008 - 1:43pm link

I've set the first Open Coffee for next WED 1/9 8AM at 729 Hope Cafe. This was based off the few people that responded to the poll. Hope you can make it for some hanging out !