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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 mon

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.

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.