Thursday, February 25, 2010

The Debut of Ignite RailsConf

As a Baltimore-based Rails hacker, someone who loves Baltimore and who loves Ruby on Rails, I was pretty excited to hear about RailsConf coming to town on June 7th. The Rails community here in town is determined to make a great impression on our fellow programmers (especially given the negative reactions by some people to the choice of our city). Along those lines I'm pleased to announce Ignite RailsConf taking place on 6/6/10 at 6 pm at the Sheraton Inner Harbor. More details at http://igniterailsconf.com.

Labels: baltimore, rails

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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Steal my ideas for Baltimore's tech culture!

Gus Sentementes was nice enough to go on vacation and let a group of guest authors contribute to his excellent blog, BaltTech. My first post just went up, a list of ideas that I think would be cool to implement in Baltimore to further advance our tech culture.

Labels: baltimore, entrepreneurship, tech culture

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Sunday, July 26, 2009

What's an Ignite event like?

One of my favorite parts of Ignite Baltimore is getting to work with talented local companies and showcasing their great work. If you're wondering what Ignite events are like, a video production company in town called HYPE Online made a really great short hype video explaining what it's about, embedded below.

Labels: baltimore, Ignite

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Saturday, July 18, 2009

Startup opportunities for programmers in Baltimore

Labels: baltimore, entrepreneurship, hacking, programming

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Monday, February 23, 2009

Maryland Software Entrepreneur Survey Results

Last week I asked all of the software entrepreneurs I know in Maryland to fill out a quick survey about what they kinds of help they'd like to receive in building their companies. I asked this because I want propose a project to help my fellow entrepreneurs in Maryland, but I felt I should do more listening before I do any more talking.

I promised I would anonymously summarize the results of the survey, so here's what people had to say. Ten people of very different backgrounds responded. It's totally unscientific but I think it was a fairly diverse sample.

What type of assistance would be most useful to you in starting or growing a software business in the greater Baltimore area?

• "...an organization, funded by the state or outside investments that acts as a seed funder for startups...an Angel-like organization that invests time/resources rather than capital. Local people with ideas for new software would submit proposals and the team would decide on the top 1-3 and develop a beta. So rather than having a group of investors involved, it would be a group of developers that invest their time in exchange for equity."
  
  
• "A mentor match-up service of some sort might be good. With our startup, we have basically had to teach ourselves everything because we didn't really have anyone to talk to who's already been through it."
  
  
• "I think the most needed type of assistance, in my opinion, is business/legal administration. Such things as incorporating a business, accounting, taxes, payroll, accepting credit cards for products/services, etc. I might have a great idea and working app, but then need to put in almost as much work to setup and manage the business side."""
  
  
• "A real calendar of tech events, with .ICS (so I can import into Google Calendar or Outlook or whatever I use), embeddable (just via GCal), RSS feed, twitter feed. Something where I can actually go and see a list of events hosted by Refresh, Bmore on Rails, etc...You'd think this problem was solved already, but apparently not."
  
  
• "...some forum / roundtable type of thing where people can just talk ideas would be neat too. Perhaps OpenCoffee, with some more structure, up in Baltimore somewhere. It would be nice if something like this varied in location, so that for example, it's not always down at the hive. Then again, there is arguably some benefit in having it at a standardized location."
  
  
• "Funding...Baltimore Angels is good, but they only meet every other month."
  
  
• "Exposure. Needs to be more talk about what local entrepreneurs are building...have to raise the profile of Baltimore for outside money. People have to hear about what is going on in Baltimore and see it as a hub of growth and activity, and look at startups in the area as worth investing in."
  
  
• "Support - I love the local Open Coffee...it's less than 5 people, and everyone is doing their own thing, so no one is afraid to be open and talk. It's been very helpful for me and I've found the atmosphere great."
  
  
• "Peer groups/advisors/coaching, all of which I have found in the area."
  
  
• "1) access to capital
  2) talented technologists
  3) universities that are engaged in the entrepreneurial world
  4) service providers (lawyers, accountants, insurance agents, PR firms, recruiters, etc) who understand start-ups, and have appropriate business models
  5) mechanisms which support the free flow of talent
  6) a cheerleading environment where mentors are easily found and entrepreneurs benefit from the region's self-promotion
  7) a culture which recognizes those who try -- even when they fail."
  
  
• "...my greatest challenge was in recruiting talent. Finding people who have actually marketed software, or developed commercial C++ applications was an enormous challenge!"
  
  
• "We are terribly underserved by the absence of an entrepreneurial culture at JHU. Perhaps, that's beginning to change, but it will take time to play out. I recently attended a discussion on the macroeconomic impact of entrepreneurialism at MIT; it's simply staggering!...Without the active engagement of our local universities, we'll never build a sufficient flow of new companies into our region."
  

What are your biggest challenges?

• "The biggest problem is tapping into true seed money. It seems that seed money for early stage startups is virtually non-existent. There are various Angel groups in the area and there is money to be invested, but rarely are the investors ever interested in being the first dollars spent by the company.
  
  "Given this, it seems that a development based Angel group could help mitigate the high risk of true early stage companies such that more good ideas would get off the ground"
  
  
• "Again, never having done this before, our biggest challenge is knowing what it is we're supposed to even do or not do as a 'real' business."
  
  
• "One big problem with not knowing what to do, is not immediately knowing who can help you sort those things out. With regards to legal issues, we've already been through two big-name law firms that charged big $, but they had almost no experience with startups and were not able to guide us well at all."
  
  
• "I think my biggest challenge is once I have established business and working app (which is a challenge in itself), is marketing and getting the word out as well as creating a sustainable revenue model."
  
  
• "Knowing who to trust....and whose referrals to trust."
  
  
• "Finding talent. Dealing with taxes."
  
  
• "...finding leads is of course a big thing."
  
  
• "As for products, hashing through marketing and sales plans...Putting processes in place to fill a pipeline, getting the word out, building sales efforts, etc. And 'getting the word out' - and marketing and sales in general - is different for products for a niche vs. products for the online masses. Looking for money too is a challenge...but it seems like Baltimore Angels is trying to address that."
  
  
• "Money. Finding good people. Money"
  

Is there anything else you'd like to say?

• "Go Baltimore. All of this stuff is wicked exciting. I moved here because it was the closest city to home. I'm staying because Baltimore is poised to claim a huge stake in the future of big tech happenings."
  
  
• "I think some kind of Y Combinator in Baltimore would be great. The combination of funding, help creating a company, and ongoing support is what I would really need to create a successful software company. I also like the idea of having a group or association of small, local software companies that have weekly/monthly meetings to discuss and brainstorm and help each other out with their ideas and possibly code."
  
  
• "I think there is still a gap between the money and then entrepreneurs. It's a hard gap to bridge."
  
  
• "I've heard many times that there just aren't enough companies in Baltimore to justify more private equity. That's just not true! Moreover, there are micro communities emerging - such as with gaming or social media...Growing these communities brings more talent to the region, which leads to more successes."
  
  
• "...individuals are vitally important to an entrepreneurial success. When they come together, they create new companies. When they network, they're looking to challenge themselves, often by changing jobs. Changing jobs in Baltimore's tech world is difficult due to its relatively small size and lack of a networking forum. Making it easy for individuals to meet and network not only eases the free flow of talent (one of the things that makes Silicon Valley so successful), but causes people to want to continue their association with the networking forum that's proven helpful."
  
  
• (Several respondents graciously offered to help out or be included in any discussions, so I'll be sending some emails and things -- add a comment below if you are interested)

Labels: angel investing, baltimore, entrepreneurship, software, startups

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Sunday, January 25, 2009

Baltimore's Internet Economy as I See It

There are a lot of creative people in Baltimore working with Internet technology. At events like SocialDevCampEast, Beehive, Refresh, Bmore on Rails, Twin Tech, Outlet, or Ignite, you'll meet a ton of them. Many technical people in and around Baltimore have a national following, and I've run into them at far-flung events like Techcrunch50 and Lone Star Ruby Conference. We have several successful entrepreneurs in our midst who have built great Internet businesses. A recent accounting of greater Baltimore's IT industry gives us top rankings for many tech indicators. Baltimore's economy definitely has the human capital to succeed in the Internet industry.

Yet few of these talented people are starting or working for product companies. I rarely meet someone who's involved in making something that he or she owns. Baltimore's Internet economy, as far as I can tell, mostly comprises consulting work, services, and government contracting. Those sectors are very strong, and bring a lot of wealth to our region, but product companies have much more potential to improve the long-term prospects of our economy. Because they involve greater risk, product companies create a lot of wealth for investors and early employees, who then go on to invest in the next round of startups. Service businesses have less growth potential since they are ultimately constrained by the hourly labor of their employees. When they don't work, income doesn't come in.

Why should it be this way? How do we encourage more product-based technology companies to form here? Starting a risky venture requires a leap of faith and a maverick move against the grain of what society expects you to do, so how can society foster these choices? In an email, Dave Troy gave me a great metaphor:

"...you can't make a wild mushroom grow. The only thing you can do is be sure the conditions are right. That means there needs to be enough biomass in the underlying organism, there has to be sufficient food, moisture, and the temperature has to be right. The mushroom has to want to grow on its own."

I don't presume to be any kind of a "startup mushroom farmer", as I am still working on my first startup. But I do think we have the potential makings of a startup ecosystem in place:

• Exemplars of success: Advertising.com, BillMeLater, Image Cafe, and other companies were started here, and there's a strong software game industry in Hunt Valley.
• Integrated economy: Baltimore and DC are closely connected, being less than an hour away by train or car. We are part an Amtrak corridor connecting us to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.
• Low cost of living: you can buy a lot of house in Baltimore in a nice neighborhood (including one of the best-planned great places in America) and lead the kind of urban, connected lifestyle much prized by creative people.
• Tolerance and diversity: Although our neighborhoods are largely segregated, it's still the kind of town where noncomformists can feel at home. We've got John Waters, the High Zero festival, Theater Project, Creative Alliance, and the Visionary Arts Museum, just to name a few examples.
  
• Community spirit: In my experience, people in Baltimore really want you to succeed at whatever you're starting or trying. If you want to make a movie or start a business or become an activist, few in this community will tell you that you can't; most will say "that's cool, how can I help?" I experienced this vividly when I helped found the Baltimore Improv Group and Ignite Baltimore. People in this city could not have been more supportive.
• Culture and recreation: The greater Baltimore area encompasses many amenities that entrepreneurial people enjoy. Museums, symphonies, parks, book stores, art house movie theaters, coffee shops, major league sports franchises, etc.
• Excellent university: There are many good schools in Baltimore, but Johns Hopkins in particular has a global reputation, and is a fertile recruiting ground for local technology companies.
• Talent pool: there are over 100,000 IT workers in Maryland according to the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore [link requires registration]. The Washington-Baltimore region is first in the US in the number of residents holding Bachelor's and graduate degrees.
  

With a little more investment of energy, time, and resources, I believe we could capitalize on these assets by priming the conditions for startup growth. Here are some ideas for what else we could do:

• More visible angel investment: If I have the skills and ambition to start a technology company, how do I meet someone who has the capital and appetite for risk to invest in one, or tell me my idea needs more thinking through? As Dave Troy puts it:

"One of the valuable functions of an angel community is that it creates a mechanism for telling silly entrepreneurs to go pound sand; or to come back with a better idea or team. We don't have a very functional mechanism for handling any of that here right now. What we have is some risk-averse investors telling potentially good entrepreneurs to pound sand, and we have a lot of silly entrepreneurs pursuing ideas that they probably shouldn't. So, towards the notion of 'supporting' local startups, in my opinion the best way to 'support' them is not to encourage them or patronize them, necessarily, but rather to find ways for them to fail more quickly.

"...We need faster failures and quicker morphing of bad teams into good ones, and the pursuit of good ideas instead of bad ones...we need to provide real, objective guidance mechanisms to help entrepreneurs navigate the money and power networks they will need to master in order to succeed..."

Awesomely enough, Dave recently announced the formation of Baltimore Angels, and at last count 14 angels have signed on.

• Develop a bootstrap network: Baltimore does not lack for ambition or ideas. I know of at least nine companies in various stages of growth (600block, Localist, Ipiqi, MPTrax, Ubernote, SpotCrime, AwayFind, DiscoverED, Sleep.FM -- these are software companies, because that's the field I follow). We should build up a bootstrap network to support and mentor such entrepreneurs and connect them to potential investors.
• Reach out to students: Jared Goralnick pointed out to me that technical people graduating from college today assume they have only one choice - to get a high-paying, stable job (i.e., at a big consulting or contracting firm). It's an admittedly attractive choice - who would turn down the chance to make $80,000 or more right out of college? But students need to know there are other options that could prove more lucrative: starting their own company or joining a startup, options which may payoff financially but will no doubt payoff in terms of the business and technical education they offer. Recent college graduates can take bigger risks as they have less to lose and more to gain, but few students get that message. Jared is organizing an event scheduled for 4/11, watch his blog for more details.
  
• Encourage self-organization: No formal entity could have started SocialDevCampEast, Coworking, Refresh, Outlet, or Ignite, but entities like GBTC, the University of Baltimore, and many local businesses have shown tremendous support for them. These groups are all run at low-cost with little or no budget, and they still need help. Our business and government leaders could do wonders by helping with facility rental, marketing, or publicity, or by attending the events, speaking at them, and mixing with the technical community.
• Improved communications: I'd love for someone to start a blog chronicling the local startup scene and self-organizing tech events.
• GBTC Round Table: I hear really good things about the GBTC's round table groups. If there was a group that focused on startup technology companies, I bet people would flock to it, as there aren't many opportunities for local Internet entrepreneurs to mingle exclusively with their peers. It would also demonstrate GBTC's commitment to helping product companies.
  

I've made some generalizations here, and what I've written is pretty specific to my experiences, but it's from the heart. My own startup, OtherInbox, is based in Austin, Texas, because that's where the principal founder is located, but also because it's a really ideal place to start a technology company. It's got all of the support mechanisms I mentioned above, and has had a few rounds of successful startups, so now the startup community is self-sustaining. Technical people in Austin can't help but encounter many examples of success, and there are a lot of investors willing to mentor them and invest in their dreams. Truly, Austin is ripe for wild mushroom growth -- yet Austin is more culturally and economically isolated than Baltimore. If they can do it, why can't we?

I'm a entrepeneur and technologist, a hacker and improvisor, and I want to spend my life starting and running technology companies. I'm also a transplanted son of Baltimore, with many friends and connections and roots here, and I really love this city. I want to make my dreams come true here, and I'm committed to doing whatever I can to make this the kind of place where every entrepeneur has that chance. So let's get going!

Thanks to Dave Troy, Stephen Muirhead, Bill Mill, Prescott Gaylord, and Jared Goralnick, who read drafts of this post and gave me great feedback.

Labels: baltimore, startups

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Friday, January 16, 2009

Baltimore's Tech Calendar is PACKED

I'm looking forward to all of these awesome upcoming tech events in and around Baltimore:

• Twin Tech III in DC on 1/22/09: At Twin Tech II there were a ton of Baltimore luminaries in attendance, so this definitely counts
• Tech meetup in Ellicot City on 1/27/09: This is the first event of a meetup organized by Todd Marks of Mindgrub
• Social Media: User-Driven Experience in Canton on 1/27/09: I'm a panelist at this event, which aims to explore how companies, individuals and events have utilized social media successfully
• Outlet Baltimore in Hampden on 1/28/09: This is a great idea, a casual social event for the new media crowd
• Debut of Beehive Baltimore's coworking space in Canton on 2/1/09: I'm an active participant and big-time coworking buff. This is going to be awesome having our own space.
  
• Ignite Baltimore #2 in Station North on 2/5/09: The event I organize with Patti Chan of 600block, along with guest organizer David Adewumi.
• B'more on Rails in Upper Fells Point on 2/15/09: Topic is TBD, but this is where all the Rubyists in town converge.
  
• First meeting of Baltimore Angels in Canton on 2/24/09: Spearheaded by local tech guru Dave Troy, this will really help raise the profile of angel investing in town
• WordCamp Mid-Atlantic at the University of Baltimore on 5/16/09: This is Technosailor's baby!
  

February should also see another Refresh Bmore event, and before you know it, it'll be time for another SocialDevCampEast! If things keep going, we're gonna need to build a DC Tech Events style calendar!

Labels: baltimore, community

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Wednesday, November 5, 2008

SocialDevCampEast #2 recap

SocialDevCampEast #2, held in Baltimore on November 1st, was another great tech event in Baltimore.  The biggest value for me was making and reenforcing weak ties by connecting with people I don't directly work with or socialize with on a daily basis (especially people I only converse with via social media).  For example, I got a chance to meet Adam Boalt and hear him talk about the success of RushMyPassport.com, which is the exact kind of business I'm interested in building in the future (something with online and offline components, and something that is not considered 'sexy' by most of the cognoscenti). 

Labels: baltimore, SocialDevCampEast

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Ignite Baltimore Call for Participants

Hey everyone, we're organizing Ignite Baltimore, and we're looking for interesting topics.  Check out the site for more details, or visit these other city Ignite pages for inspiration:

Labels: baltimore, Ignite

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Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Startup community in Baltimore

I just found about a very interesting Barcamp called SocialDevCamp East planned in Baltimore on Saturday, just a few miles south of my house. It's very heartening to see enthusiasm building for a tech community here on the east coast and this has gotten me thinking about the Baltimore startup community in general. Below are some notes on startup life in Baltimore.

• Here are some Baltimore startups I know about:
  
  
  
  
  
  • http://cogmap.com
  
  
  • http://fetchfood.com
  
  
  • http://twittervision.com
  
  
  • http://600block.com
  
  
  
  
  I'm sure there are more; send me some and I'll add them to the list.



• I've talked to many other Baltimore entrepreneurs with ideas in various stages of development, and there are lots of hackers here working remotely (or commuting to DC and Northern Virginia) on startups. We're also the home of advertising.com which employs a lot of smart people and brings a lot of talent to the area.



• I meet a lot of cool hackers through the local Ruby on Rails meetup.



• One of my favorite blogs is written by a Baltimorean, Paul Barry. He's a Ruby on Rails expert, but has in no way drunk the Kool Aid. He's got plenty of love for Java and Scala and whatever else gets the job done.



• I've been dreaming for awhile about organizing a "Baltimore Demo Night" where all of us could gather and show off our wares, get feedback, and so on. Who's down for that?

Labels: baltimore, startups

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