St. Louis has the wrong understanding of the problem. Money isn't the solution to building a tech community. Funding isn't usually the issue in getting a startup off the ground.
The development of the tech community is how you entice entrepreneurs and technologists to your area. Entrepreneurs and developers flock to where there is a community of like minded individuals. Build the community and the people will come. Once the people come, the capital will come.
Look at what NYC is doing. They are building a tech community that rivals Silicon Valley out of the ashes of former investment banking software engineers. The city government is actively supporting groups like New York Tech Meetup and General Assembly. They are nurturing the tech community and encouraging them to grow roots in the city.
St. Louis needs to work on this rather than just throw money at the problem.
I agree. I see this in a lot of the places that don't have a strong entrepreneurial community. I see people bemoan about not enough investors or not enough resources. Their solution is then another website or another LinkedIn group or more mingling with suites like it will magically solve the problem.
The places outside the Valley that have succeeded have all done so because they have nurtured and embraced the entrepreneurial and tech community. St. Louis and elsewhere should do the same.
Hi Tazzy, funny, I moved from NYC to STL about a year ago. I know what you mean.
My take has been to mimic the entrepreneur community infrastructure represented by an NYC on a smaller scale here. Building community here has been my biggest priority.
The community is here. It's small, but it does exist. And the capital--also small, but it's coming. I don't think $500k is really that impressive. One company should burn through that much on their way to VC, let along a myriad of startups...
"Once the people come, the capital will come." We are in complete agreement. Now we want some more people--how does $50k sound? ;)
I was trying to work out where people stood on SOPA to get some idea of how much they understand internet startups. But I don't understand enough about Americna politics to get very far - all I have is that the Senator for Missouri, Claire McCaskill, was a SOPA co-sponsor.
How do congress-people fit into this? There seem to be lots more of them...
There's two "houses", the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Senate contains two Senators per state, the House of Representatives contains over 400 representatives, each of whom individually represents a "district" that can range in size from part of a large city to an entire state--the goal is to have at least one district per state, but for each district to have roughly equal population.
So Missouri actually has two senators, McCaskill and Roy Blunt. "Congressmen" are usually members of the House of Representatives, and a state might have anywhere between 1 and about 50 or so.
For legislation to pass, it has to be passed by both houses and signed by the President, who's elected separately. If the President vetoes it, both houses can pass it over his head with a 2/3 majority. Constitutional amendments require a 2/3 majority and then some. And it's not like a parliamentary system where the whole party always votes the same way. The House in particular has often attracted idiosyncratic candidates who can only get elected in their particular district, and almost never vote with their party--guys like Ron Paul, James Traficant, and Zell Miller. Though of the three, only Ron Paul is still in office, and he's retiring soon.
The House and the Senate have different rules and regulations and traditions, and each can do things the other can't, but that's basically how it works.
The development of the tech community is how you entice entrepreneurs and technologists to your area. Entrepreneurs and developers flock to where there is a community of like minded individuals. Build the community and the people will come. Once the people come, the capital will come.
Look at what NYC is doing. They are building a tech community that rivals Silicon Valley out of the ashes of former investment banking software engineers. The city government is actively supporting groups like New York Tech Meetup and General Assembly. They are nurturing the tech community and encouraging them to grow roots in the city.
St. Louis needs to work on this rather than just throw money at the problem.