Austin Startup Community Vision – true alpha
…for Austin
- Austin has a Startup District. Blocks of startups flying their flags to the world – I want this to be an attraction when people come to Austin. Highest props to Dane Hurtubise for originally coming up with this one.
- The startup community in Austin knows each other. (Yeah.)
- When tech people come to Austin we twitter ‘em up and we welcome them as family. When they get they know wher to go and where they can stay. We love our community.
- AustinStartup.com has stuff to talk about non stop. Like the valley, people who run blogs about austin startups can live off just blogging. There is that much traffic; because people really care. right?! …this is how the community stays up-to-date with the people around them – people report on it.
- One of us hits a home run. I’m talkin Google. :)
- We have several kick ass coworking spaces – including one that is straight up free.
- (1 Year) We have a micro fund – 10-15 teams per year – 25K max. similar to ycom / techstars <— <3
- Oh, and we have people running the fund who know what they are doing — who are these people in Austin? Answer me that. …I know one I want on the team: Jared Slosberg. Sosa bothers would be nice. I could go on.
- there is a bar downtown that you can walk into at anytime and see some great startup people.
…for The University of Texas
- Coworking space for students, near campus -call it an incubator, call it a hatchery, i’ll call it coworking
- Official concentration in entrepreneurship available to all majors – similar to “business foundations”
- Grads and Undergrads know where to go if they have an idea or are interested in entrepreneurship -single place that embraces them, fosters them, understands them. COMEON!
conjunctured guys, john sibley butler, marc nathen, whurley, andrew hyde, Thomas Marriott … just so you know, i thought of all of you while writing this.
//
Forms and verbiage, feel free to pass it on:
Conjunctured is opening a Coworking space in Austin. We’re following the lead of some of our friends in other cities: [http://www.indyhall.org/] [http://nwcny.com/]
We’re looking to plant this space in the heart of a “Startup District.” A place where all the startups in Austin live. Where we proudly fly our flags to world. The district is an attraction in Austin. If you think you might be interested in playing with us, let us know by filling out this fancy form, here:
http://tinyurl.com/68f89z
If you don’t need / want a space. But you’re interested in sponsoring this endeavor (great for social capital, exposure to potential recruits, and PR), you can let us know that, here:
Julie Gomoll 9:48 am on April 9, 2008 Permalink |
I would *so* love for someone to figure out the microfund thing. Some of the problems with that:
* whether you’re investing 25K, 250K, or 2.5mil, you still have to jump through all sorts of legal and regulatory hoops. Half of the 25K gets sucked up getting all that set up.
* so you do a pool, right? 250K for 10 startups. But then the investor has to keep track of 10 companies – can’t really do that effectively.
I’ve done several startups, but never gone the VC route. Back in the day, AV wouldn’t even touch a company who needed less than a million – too much work for not enough profit. The couple times I looked for investors in the 90s, I found the 250K I was looking for was *not enough* for anyone to be interested, even if I gave them a good sized chunk of my profitable business.
That said – I’d be all over doing my part to help someone figure it out. So many talented people need that small boost to get started – it would pay of in so many ways other than financial. Hard to get investors to think that way though.
mattrepl 10:40 am on April 9, 2008 Permalink |
@Julie – By legal and regulatory hoops, do you mean incorporating and related tasks? That should be under $2k.
The quintessential (and only a few years old!) seed-funding group is YC, the members are startup veterans that have made their millions. Because the startup veterans relate to new founders, they decide who to invest in based on the {creativity, intelligence, potential} of a team. There’s a certain amount of trust given and the amount of investment is small enough that babysitting is not necessary.
Traditional VC folks are in the business of choosing investments from the analysis of numbers and many do not yet realize without early investment there will be no startups that can take a couple million and output a figure with more zeros attached.
Julie Gomoll 9:48 am on April 9, 2008 Permalink |
I would *so* love for someone to figure out the microfund thing. Some of the problems with that:
* whether you're investing 25K, 250K, or 2.5mil, you still have to jump through all sorts of legal and regulatory hoops. Half of the 25K gets sucked up getting all that set up.
* so you do a pool, right? 250K for 10 startups. But then the investor has to keep track of 10 companies – can't really do that effectively.
I've done several startups, but never gone the VC route. Back in the day, AV wouldn't even touch a company who needed less than a million – too much work for not enough profit. The couple times I looked for investors in the 90s, I found the 250K I was looking for was *not enough* for anyone to be interested, even if I gave them a good sized chunk of my profitable business.
That said – I'd be all over doing my part to help someone figure it out. So many talented people need that small boost to get started – it would pay of in so many ways other than financial. Hard to get investors to think that way though.
Julie Gomoll 11:23 am on April 9, 2008 Permalink |
The hoops I’m referring to are the agreements that need to be set up for investors and partners. Incorporating is not a big deal, agreed. I’m referring to the nuts and bolts of the investment. Is it an equity deal or a loan instrument? How are funds distributed? Will there be additional rounds? How do you avoid too much eventual dilution? None of this is rocket science, but someone has to figure this stuff out. I have a hard time envisioning a company that can be set up with investors for just 2K.
I’d be happy if you proved me wrong, though! And I’d definitely like to hear more about YC.
mattrepl 10:40 am on April 9, 2008 Permalink |
@Julie – By legal and regulatory hoops, do you mean incorporating and related tasks? That should be under $2k.
The quintessential (and only a few years old!) seed-funding group is YC, the members are startup veterans that have made their millions. Because the startup veterans relate to new founders, they decide who to invest in based on the {creativity, intelligence, potential} of a team. There's a certain amount of trust given and the amount of investment is small enough that babysitting is not necessary.
Traditional VC folks are in the business of choosing investments from the analysis of numbers and many do not yet realize without early investment there will be no startups that can take a couple million and output a figure with more zeros attached.
Julie Gomoll 11:23 am on April 9, 2008 Permalink |
The hoops I'm referring to are the agreements that need to be set up for investors and partners. Incorporating is not a big deal, agreed. I'm referring to the nuts and bolts of the investment. Is it an equity deal or a loan instrument? How are funds distributed? Will there be additional rounds? How do you avoid too much eventual dilution? None of this is rocket science, but someone has to figure this stuff out. I have a hard time envisioning a company that can be set up with investors for just 2K.
I'd be happy if you proved me wrong, though! And I'd definitely like to hear more about YC.
John Erik 1:01 am on April 10, 2008 Permalink |
@mattrepl sent this out over twitter the other day.. i think it’s a good starting place http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2008/04/can-the-y-combi.html
John Erik 1:01 am on April 10, 2008 Permalink |
@mattrepl sent this out over twitter the other day.. i think it's a good starting place http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2008/04/can-the-y-com…
mattrepl 12:37 pm on April 10, 2008 Permalink |
@John Erik – Thanks for following up with that.
@Julie – I was referring to the cost for individuals to incorporate, open up a bank account, and get a couple hours of a lawyer’s time when I threw out the $2k figure.
Even the investment and operation points you mentioned can be streamlined by providing would-be founders with a agreement templates that allow them to fill in the blanks. With fewer choices, the more optimized (in both time and money) the process becomes.
mattrepl 12:37 pm on April 10, 2008 Permalink |
@John Erik – Thanks for following up with that.
@Julie – I was referring to the cost for individuals to incorporate, open up a bank account, and get a couple hours of a lawyer's time when I threw out the $2k figure.
Even the investment and operation points you mentioned can be streamlined by providing would-be founders with a agreement templates that allow them to fill in the blanks. With fewer choices, the more optimized (in both time and money) the process becomes.
Coworking space, future plans at optimal experience 3:28 am on April 15, 2008 Permalink |
[...] Here’s a link to my personal vision(1.0) for Austin’s startup community http://blog.think27.com/austin-startup-community-vision/ [...]