10 ms·

"As part of this, my wife and I are moving to San Francisco later this summer. ... Chicago is developing quickly as a technology hub, and I hope to continue to

"As part of this, my wife and I are moving to San Francisco later this summer. ... Chicago is developing quickly as a technology hub, and I hope to continue to find ways to support the amazing community of entrepreneurs here." So stay! I understand you probably get nauseous every time you run in to someone from Lightbank, but we could really use you here. The city has gotten behind entrepreneurship, there are great mentors and accelerators. Tons of businesses are getting started. But what we sorely lack is people who have gone huge, took the big risks, learned a lot, made a bunch of money and now want to dive in and give back. Obviously you want to do this, and YC is great, but TechStars Chicago could use you a whole lot more.

tptacek 13y ago
Can I say real quick on my way out the door that I've helped run a company from Chicago since 2005, was born and raised here, and think it's a great place to build from "startup scene" or no "startup scene", but that I have absolutely no idea what it is Chicago does to foster startups or even know what the scene here is? We organize meetups every other month for people in my field (information security) and get a strong turnout, but very few of them seem to be engaged in any kind of startup scene here either. Should we just be more involved in local Ruby and Python meetups?
- chrisduesing 13y ago
  There is some, but not a lot of overlap between the developer groups and startup groups. Come by 1871, it has become the nexus of the scene. I'd love to chat about what you see as ongoing challenges as a business owner. It has been a while since we had coffee and caught up anyway.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Say when!
- ironchef 13y ago
  Yeah...those, geekfest, the clojure meetup, the node.js meetup, tech cocktail, various things at 1871, subscribe to chicago startup, etc.
- brandnewlow 13y ago
  The city needs to 4x the amount of investment capital going into Chicago-based companies. That's the real problem underlying everything. There's not enough money. It's too hard to raise money for a new startup in Chicago. This leads to fewer startups being funded, which leads to fewer startups, which makes it riskier to join a startup that could go belly up and leave you unemployed for a few months. In the Bay Area, if you're an engineer and your startup tanks, you can have 5 job offers in a week from other startups. If those tank, you can get 5 more offers, and so on, until something "pops". That's not how it works in Chicago, so there's real risk to joining a startup there. The reason this works in SF is because there's just a lot more money there going into startups. A lot of the Chicago startup booster events I've attended in recent years were based on the assertion that the city wasn't retaining top technical talent, but it could if the startup community would just try harder, or something. The reason the best devs in Chicago are leaving or not working on startups there is because there's not enough rich people and VC funds funding startups to make it risk free and interesting for them to do so.
  - chrisduesing 13y ago
    I might argue some of the finer points of your assertions, but in general I believe you are correct. The existing investor community in Chicago did not make their money in tech startups, and therefore are more apprehensive to invest pre-revenue and at what have become industry standard terms. Ultimately I think people like Andrew staying, investing and leading the way is what we need to make that transition to the next level.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    I'm talking my own book here a little, but I've hoped for awhile Chicago might germinate a different kind of startup from San Francisco, based on bootstrapping instead of outside investment. Or, even better, companies that start off as professional services teams and transition to products. Chicago is a terrible place to raise money, but it's a great place to do business, better than SFBA.
AJ007 13y ago
Its the network effect, people gravitate to one location. SF & NYC benefit greatly from this. Chicago is nice, inexpensive, but sparse. Labor intensive operations, like Groupon, benefit from Chicago because of the cost and availability of real estate. On the other hand, so does most of the rest of the United States.

tptacek 13y ago

Can I say real quick on my way out the door that I've helped run a company from Chicago since 2005, was born and raised here, and think it's a great place to build from "startup scene" or no "startup scene", but that I have absolutely no idea what it is Chicago does to foster startups or even know what the scene here is? We organize meetups every other month for people in my field (information security) and get a strong turnout, but very few of them seem to be engaged in any kind of startup scene here either. Should we just be more involved in local Ruby and Python meetups?

chrisduesing 13y ago
There is some, but not a lot of overlap between the developer groups and startup groups. Come by 1871, it has become the nexus of the scene. I'd love to chat about what you see as ongoing challenges as a business owner. It has been a while since we had coffee and caught up anyway.
- tptacek 13y ago
  Say when!
ironchef 13y ago
Yeah...those, geekfest, the clojure meetup, the node.js meetup, tech cocktail, various things at 1871, subscribe to chicago startup, etc.
brandnewlow 13y ago
The city needs to 4x the amount of investment capital going into Chicago-based companies. That's the real problem underlying everything. There's not enough money. It's too hard to raise money for a new startup in Chicago. This leads to fewer startups being funded, which leads to fewer startups, which makes it riskier to join a startup that could go belly up and leave you unemployed for a few months. In the Bay Area, if you're an engineer and your startup tanks, you can have 5 job offers in a week from other startups. If those tank, you can get 5 more offers, and so on, until something "pops". That's not how it works in Chicago, so there's real risk to joining a startup there. The reason this works in SF is because there's just a lot more money there going into startups. A lot of the Chicago startup booster events I've attended in recent years were based on the assertion that the city wasn't retaining top technical talent, but it could if the startup community would just try harder, or something. The reason the best devs in Chicago are leaving or not working on startups there is because there's not enough rich people and VC funds funding startups to make it risk free and interesting for them to do so.
- chrisduesing 13y ago
  I might argue some of the finer points of your assertions, but in general I believe you are correct. The existing investor community in Chicago did not make their money in tech startups, and therefore are more apprehensive to invest pre-revenue and at what have become industry standard terms. Ultimately I think people like Andrew staying, investing and leading the way is what we need to make that transition to the next level.
- tptacek 13y ago
  I'm talking my own book here a little, but I've hoped for awhile Chicago might germinate a different kind of startup from San Francisco, based on bootstrapping instead of outside investment. Or, even better, companies that start off as professional services teams and transition to products. Chicago is a terrible place to raise money, but it's a great place to do business, better than SFBA.

AJ007 13y ago

Its the network effect, people gravitate to one location. SF & NYC benefit greatly from this. Chicago is nice, inexpensive, but sparse. Labor intensive operations, like Groupon, benefit from Chicago because of the cost and availability of real estate. On the other hand, so does most of the rest of the United States.