10 ms·

How we're going to change Georgia Tech

75 points by timtamboy63 13y ago

af3 13y ago
cool story bro.
rayiner 13y ago
I'd be interested to see if you can rope in people from the non-CS departments at GT. In my time there, my impression was that the culture was dominated by the old-school engineering departments, so there was a definite bent towards working for big corporations (e.g. Lockheed Martin in the city) rather than doing startups. That said, I think Atlanta would be a phenomenal place to do a startup. Good local engineering talent, low cost of living, and solid complement of supporting professional services. I don't know what the VC/funding situation is down there though.
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  That's definitely the plan, and it's something I've put a lot of thought towards. I really believe that hackathons are a great way to get people involved. Even if they don't code, a 10 hour bus ride with our hacker community is going to convert anyone :) ATL is absolutely booming right now for startups - Atlanta Tech Village, Hype. I feel like VC funding needs to innovate a little, they seem to be a bit stuck in their ways. Cummings is doing a great job though, and he's really giving back to the community
  - rthomas6 13y ago
    Georgia Tech ECE alumni here. I think the ECE department students would be on board, and be successful, too. There's lots of opportunity for hardware startups, in my opinion. Little single purpose PCBs seem like they've done just as well lately as clever code.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- mkr-hn 13y ago
  There's a small startup community out here in the Athens area: http://www.fourathens.com/ http://www.fourathens.com/ I don't know the situation closer to Atlanta though.
  - timtamboy63 13y ago
    This looks amazing. If you know who's running it, I'd love an email intro. If not, I'll shoot them an email myself :)
    - mkr-hn 13y ago
      I'm not entirely sure. I think there's a contact form on the site somewhere, and I know they reply on Twitter.
    - sciurus 13y ago
      It's Jim Flannery. http://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesjohnflannery/ http://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesjohnflannery/
- mjn 13y ago
  The engineering side produces entrepreneurs as well, but with a somewhat different culture, with more of a focus on R&D inputs. The style is less of the Silicon Valley one of: go to a hackathon, brainstorm ideas that can be built with <48 hours of R&D, built an MVP over the weekend. There's a bigger focus on finding a nice chunk of uncommercialized but commercial-potential research that could be spun off into a company. The other common non-big-company route is independent consultant. Lots of engineering alumni run profitable small consulting firms, which seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. However it's usually easier to do that if you work somewhere "in the trenches" for a few years first to build up credibility.
- jpb0104 13y ago
  Atlanta's startup community was already pretty strong. But it is growing fast: http://atlantatechvillage.com/ http://atlantatechvillage.com/ and http://atlantaventures.com/accelerator/ http://atlantaventures.com/accelerator/
  - timtamboy63 13y ago
    Definitely agreeed. Atlanta's community is great, but Georgia Tech still has some catching up to do. David Cummings is doing absolutely amazing things with ATV and Atlanta Ventures, high hopes there.
  - bsmith 13y ago
    also: http://www.hypepotamus.com/ http://www.hypepotamus.com/
- crusso 13y ago
  Wow, you did time at the North Avenue Trade School as well? Small world. I've worked a little with local VC and they typically seem like they have money to put in but very few vehicles for getting information on where to put it. The startup communication channels aren't there yet, although you'd hope that GT would help to lead the way. Atlanta is a great place for startups. I've been a part of several here. GT is a great source for new hires. I can't say that I've ever been disappointed with any of the dozen or so new-hire grads that I've worked with from there. The airport is the busiest in the world and has direct flights to just about everywhere. The culture is a comfortable Southern-friendly mixed with a healthy amount of cultural diversity. The weather isn't as hot and humid as Texas or Florida, but warm enough to avoid ever having to shovel snow off your driveway. That said, there's nothing incredible about Atlanta. You'll never have the museum experience of New York, the historic experience of DC, the weather of California, the views of Colorado, or the food of Louisiana. It's got a whole lot of nice, not much bad, but nothing extreme either way.
  - timtamboy63 13y ago
    For sure. There's a great post by Stephen Fleming on the ATL startup scene, definitely addresses this - http://academicvc.com/2013/07/05/startups-for-grownups/ http://academicvc.com/2013/07/05/startups-for-grownups/.
    - crusso 13y ago
      Yeah, the article makes the exact point about housing prices that convinced me to move out of the Bay Area. Then again, it's hard to enjoy that acre of yard when mosquitos are biting the heck out of you. :)
    - michaelochurch 13y ago
      I've spent 7 years in New York. Paying the absurd rents isn't that bad. You don't mind it in your 20s, because it's pretty easy to keep expenses low. I hate what it does to the culture, though. Startups need to direct all of their competitive energies toward the external struggle; they have to support each other and fight the world only. When you have engineers sabotaging each other because you need to make CTO before you can even think about starting a family, you get internal competition that destroys everything. Many of these New York startups are deeply dysfunctional and raise capital on account of founder connections (ex-bankers) rather than merit.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- tptacek 13y ago
  Atlanta has been a hub for startups in my field (information security) for a decade & a half, mostly owing to ISSX (now part of IBM, but huge before then). There are lots of little security and network tech companies out there that were originally fed by ISSX.
cyanbane 13y ago
"A year ago, I’d hardly heard of startups. Neither had just about anyone at Georgia Tech." Well that was a big jump in assumption within two sentences.
- mjn 13y ago
  When I was at Georgia Tech (2004-07) nearly everyone had heard of startups in the CS department, and grad students being involved in machine-learning / data-mining startups was a common summer job, so I'm not sure where this is coming from. Here's one big one cofounded by a professor: http://www.skytree.net/ http://www.skytree.net/
  - timtamboy63 13y ago
    That was worded poorly - as far as I've seen, a startup isn't really a viable option for undegrads. Yes, we've definitely had our share of successes, but it's not something that is particularly encouraged, especially outside of CS. I really want to see engineering based startups coming out of Tech. We've got the talent, and we have some amazing hardware hackers but it's incredibly rare to see them start a startup.
    - conjecTech 13y ago
      I know you're very well intentioned, but I don't think your methods support this. You aren't going to get people making companies in engineering simply by putting them in a room with a few arduinos and macs. And things like "3 day startup" completely miss the complexity that goes along with actual engineering projects and is heavily biased towards generic internet based ideas. You needs something more fundamental to get across what you are trying to do, and I think there are things on campus which are aiding in that. RoboJackets, for instance, has been rather influential in this regards. 2 of our old officers that are still in the Atlanta area are both involved in very successful startups, one of our electrical guys was at YCombinator last year working on a hardware startup, and we regularly have startup job postings go out on our email headers. I'm aiming for this to grow more, and things are slowly being put into action. I think the most fundamental thing you can do to get people to take these kinds of risks is to show them that it's possible to succeed. I'll be posting some stuff on the CS facebook group in the next few weeks dealing with one of our initiatives. If you'd like to talk about this at some point, I'm the treasurer of RJ and my name shouldn't be too hard to find with a bit of googling.
wil421 13y ago
Recent Kennesaw State grad here. Some classmates and I had a few ideas for start ups but didn't have a place to further our knowledge and learn how to get started. This would be great for the Atlanta area I know of other start ups in the area but they usually aren't from college students or recent grads. It would be great to have a place to share ideas with younger people and hack ideas.
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  You're exactly who we're trying to target. Tech has a bunch of great resources, but nothing that's really entry level. Flashpoint, Startup Gauntlet, ATDC are all great, but there's nothing out there that's going to take in people with ideas and show them everything we have to offer. Also, we had someone from Kennesaw State drive out to ATL for 3 Day Startup last Spring. Made our day at the hackathon.
bsmith 13y ago
When I was at Georgia Tech, I didn't care about startups per se—I just wanted to learn and build stuff. I was very disappointed to learn that, as a mechanical engineering major, I could NOT sign up for a computer science course I wanted to take because it wasn't in my college or curriculum. I also couldn't have access to a machine shop (even with proper training) unless I got a job in one of the labs. I truly had much more freedom in high school, where I had a master machinist helping me with all my side projects on weekends. So, bravo for going after the administration. They need to let kids actually learn and build shit!
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  Exactly how I feel - we've been butting heads with the administration for a while now. There are definitely some members who kick ass and who have our back 100%, but as an institution, Georgia Tech is pretty stuck in it's ways. I've got another ~4 years there, so if nothing else, I want to change that by the end of my college career.
- ghc 13y ago
  When I was at Georgia Tech (graduated '08), I was forced to take CS and EE classes. You could easily get exceptions to prerequisites for classes if you asked, and so I did. Having open access to CS/EE changed my life, and I changed my major. At the same time, reading "Hackers and Painters" and getting involved with the Georgia Entrepreneur Society, which encouraged startups on campus, changed the rest of my life. Georgia Tech is a difficult place to deal with, but it does teach you lessons outside of the technical. Access to resources was there, you just had to fight tooth and nail to get it. That lesson in particular has served me well.
- ak217 13y ago
  Exemptions are a thing, my friend. I have never been denied enrollment in a class (tbh I've been granted entry in a few classes that I wasn't even ready for yet). It's just a matter of persistence. I love what these people are doing though. Clough ULC is incredible compared to what Skiles was, and with groups like these, it could really transform learning at GT for the better.
cmacpher 13y ago
wow this is eerily similar to what we are doing at Purdue with The Anvil Cowowrking space: http://theanvil.us/ http://theanvil.us/ and the BoilerMake hackathon: http://boilermake.org/ http://boilermake.org/. Glad to see other students making moves as well. I'll be sure to reach out
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  Looking forward to it, it'd be great to bounce ideas off each other.
crusso 13y ago
Look into partnering with the Atlanta Lean Startup Circle: http://www.meetup.com/Atlanta-Lean-Startup-Circle/ http://www.meetup.com/Atlanta-Lean-Startup-Circle/ I've been to a couple of their meetings and was impressed that they're doing some things the right way.
rafeed 13y ago
I was at Tech from 2006-2010 in BME. So many senior design projects were being spun out as startups. Inventure also came out while I was there and was a big hit. If you had a good idea or executed on something well, it was probably going to be spun with the help of professors (you had to ask). The pace is definitely different at Tech, and for a major like BME, it was hard to come by free electives let alone free time (especially if you were doing pre-med). I do agree I would have loved to see more of a startup culture, but I think it was already brewing while I was there. I'd have loved to see more programming options offered for BME and other engineering majors beyond CS 1371, so we didn't have to get overrides and permits. CS 1371 basically made everyone shit their pants and left a sour taste of programming, although we needed to use the skills we had learned for future classes.
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  I've got a bone to pick with that class. Every single student who takes it comes out hating programming, and I think that's utter bullshit. At the same time, they're incredibly proud of the boat they've coded in Matlab, and that tells you something crucial about the students at Tech - they love building shit. They love that feeling of accomplishment when they've put hard work into something and it's worked out. So, in other words, they love programming, they just don't know it yet. The intro class for CS absolutely needs to be something that gets students to build. That alone would go a long way in changing the culture at Tech.
imalolz 13y ago
I love this - wish we had this when I studied at Tech (BS+MS in ECE, over a decade ago). I'm now working on my own startup (outside the US), and was actually thinking to try and meet up with investors in Atlanta. As others mentioned in this thread, ATL is a great city to live in - perhaps it's not as hyped as SF or NYC, but I enjoyed my time there and would love to come back one day. Keep up the good work!
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  Feel free to shoot me an email if you'd like some introductions to VCs in ATL or NY :)
  - imalolz 13y ago
    Thanks, sounds great.
kumarski 13y ago
YC companies/alums that are GT related--- Level RF- now Soylent (disclaimer:involved as ex-founder) ViaCycle -same YC class as LevelRF/Soylent Paul Stamatiou is a prolific entrepreneur/YC alum. InstantCab is a YC company started by Tech alums. --------additional------ Chris Quintero -ME 2011, went on to help start http://bolt.io http://bolt.io Bractlet is a GT alum company that is now in the surge accelerator program in Houston. CallRail and Design-A-mosaic are both founded by GT alum Kevin Mann. Robotic dragonflies came out of a kickstarter project. Titintech came out of GT as well from a Mechanical engineer.(disclaimer:involved in Rice BPC) One of the first VSats was launched by GT alums- Steve Chaddick who later went on to start Ciena, a massive telecommunications company. There seems to be a set of people who 'have to be entrepreneurs' and there's a set that 'want to be.' IMHO, The set of people that 'have to be' can be pushed anywhere and don't have as big a concern about coworking spaces,environment, meetups, hackathons etc.. ----------------------------- I myself failed 2 physical product ventures(thermoelectric at JumpStartFoundry and LevelRF at YC) while at GT and also worked for 2 at the ATDC that were both venture backed and had physical technologies. ------------------------------ Interesting post in any case.
- rafeed 13y ago
  Great list. Some awesome companies on that list, and I know some of the co-founders as well. I think it's clear that GT has a startup culture, but they're coming from highly motivated people who are passionate about what they're working on. Having openly available resources to any student openly would be a great start. If something like this were around while I was at Tech, it would have made things a lot easier in terms of networking and connecting with like-minded individuals.
- hpagey 13y ago
  AirWatch was founded by Tech alumni. The company was bootstrapped for 8 years and recently raised a massive 200 M series A round (one of the largest ever rounds). Doctime is founded by Tech alumni. They are currently based in ATV. I know the founder, used to work with him at AirWatch.
- beambot 13y ago
  One of the Lollipuff (YC W13) co-founders (yours truly) is a GT PhD. Also, don't forget FlashPoint... GT's own startup accelerator: http://flashpoint.gatech.edu/ http://flashpoint.gatech.edu/
jennyjitters 13y ago
I graduated from GT a couple years ago, and I have to agree with everyone who is saying they wish this had been around sooner. I wasn't interested in startups until after I graduated (read: I didn't KNOW I was interested). I always knew that I liked building and creating things, and I always struggled to feel engaged in a majority of my classes. Great job to those who started this. Hopefully all those struggling like I did will find their passion sooner than I was able to.
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  This means a lot, really appreciate it!
angersock 13y ago
I do some work with undergrads who are interested in startup stuff, both at a modestly prestigious private institution and a commuter public university. Data points I have are drawn from several 3DayStartup events, hackathons, daily interactions in labs, and working as a technical mentor to a few teams trying to make a startup. Some observations: - The technical know-how varies widely among teams in undergrad, and web technologies seem to be somewhat ignored at the prestigious school: though they are slowly getting better coverage, the fact is that the curriculum is really better for more traditional computer-science topics and things related to systems and computer engineering. The commuter school offers somewhat more vocational training (MIS/CS/ITish stuff not so theoretical), so the webdev talent there seems a bit higher. - The commuter school seems to have a bit more business hustle than the prestigious university. The students there seem to instantly grasp that revenue is an important thing, and have ideas which would appeal to the mass market a bit better. Conversely, for the really hard technical problems (not webdev stuff, but hard engineering and systems and math) the university students have an edge. - There are way, way, way too many teams (mostly at the prestigious university) that seem preoccupied with solving problems that only apply to affluent college undergrads. Worse, many ideas are adaptations of research or design projects which are "Let's build this thing cheaply for the third world", and they lack the skill (usually) to explain why that would be a lucrative investing opportunity. - At the accelerator for the prestigious university (now finishing its first summer round) some of the undergrad teams seemed to have trouble making the mental shift from "this is a school project like all the other ones I've done before" to "oh god this is a real business there is no rubric to follow i need to start hustling". ~ I'd be interested in hearing what others' experiences are doing similar work. I suspect that areas (say, Stanford, MIT, etc.) with more VC background probably have much different cultures.
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  It sounds like you have a tonne of experience with what we want to be doing. Mind if I shoot you an email a bit later to pick your brain?
  - angersock 13y ago
    I'm no expert, but I'm at least friendly! :)
possibilistic 13y ago
I'm at Georgia Tech's ATDC startup incubator [1]. OP/Author should definitely integrate this effort with what the ATDC is doing and take advantage of its available services and resources. I'd love to network with you guys. Feel free to email me. [1] http://www.atdc.org/ http://www.atdc.org/
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  For sure, definitely will shoot you an email
hmsolomon 13y ago
Chintan - I'm with VentureLab at Gatech. This post is fantastic! Aswin is a rock-star, and it's great that you are stepping into leadership at StartupExchange. Let's get together next week if you're in town. Harold.solomon@venturelab dot gatech dot edu
- kmassey 13y ago
  Harold is a rockstar at GTRI, go see him.
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  Hey Harold, definitely will shoot you an email. I'm still in NYC for the next few weeks, but I'd love to grab coffee once I'm back.
ynniv 13y ago
There are quite a few startups around Atlanta, and many of them involve GT alum. What you're probably feeling is that they're not making things that show up on Hacker News that you're excited about. This comes from the lack of local VC investing in the B2C technologies that get people excited about startups, which in turn comes from a lack of local B2C successes. But honestly, there are few B2C successes anywhere lately. An interesting new thing is more likely to have come from Google or Apple than a new kid on the block. Georgia Tech is following the Stanford model for building local business, which focuses on spinning out new technologies as B2B startups. That happens at the graduate level. Some of them are good, but they're heads down working and not drumming up popular interest. And since they're busy working, the only way to know about them or get a job with them is to have a personal connection to them. Compared to senior high frequency trading or missile guidance engineers, undergraduates might as well be high schoolers who can't program, so it really helps to prove your salt by completing and documenting technical projects. Theoretically you do this in those expensive classes, but sadly we can't trust those anymore. My advice to undergraduates is thus to build something more difficult than you at first think that you can complete, and write a couple of blog posts about what you have done. You'll learn a lot in the process, and you'll meet interesting people along the way. It might even turn into a startup. If you instead set out to "learn rails and do a startup", my prediction is that you'll slowly learn that most people talk a big game, web programming is more annoying and complicated than difficult, and making money is hard; all of which I can convince you of in 5 minutes. Also, don't ever say "rockstar" unless you're shredding a guitar in front of a sold out stadium.
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  > What you're probably feeling is that they're not making things that show up on Hacker News that you're excited about. I disagree. What I'm feeling is that the large majority of students don't even know it's an option. Especially when you move out of CS. I've heard people with great ideas for products who never did anything with them because they had no idea how to. That's what we aim to fix. If someone wants to build something, and start a startup, they sure as hell should be able to. Georgia Tech has the resources out there, with VentureLab, ATDC, Flashpoint, etc, but you can't keep throwing money and programs at something and expect the culture to change. You need dedicated, motivated students for that. > My advice to undergraduates is thus to build something more difficult than you at first think that you can complete, and write a couple of blog posts about what you have done. I completely agree. It's an incredibly rewarding process. > If you instead set out to "learn rails and do a startup", my prediction is that you'll slowly learn that most people talk a big game, web programming is more annoying and complicated than difficult, and making money is hard; all of which I can convince you of in 5 minutes. Everything you say there is completely correct, but I'd argue it's a very valuable experience, and you even if/when you fail with that first startup, you come out with a tonne of skills and valuable insight. Maybe the first time around you didn't do any customer discovery. The second time around, you'll make damn sure there are customers before you build. And really, how many successful startup founders make it the first time. If you're going to fail, it's a hell of a lot better to fail in college where you have a support network to fall back on, and a backup plan if you absolutely can't handle it.
stephenfleming 13y ago
Alright, I guess I'm the voice of the GT Establishment here. I'm certainly not going to argue with anyone who says "A year ago, I’d hardly heard of startups. Neither had just about anyone at Georgia Tech." But I'll point out that our early-stage incubator, VentureLab, just got ranked #1 in the frickin' WORLD (out of 150 universities) by UBI. And we've been doing that for 12 years. And ATDC is consistently ranked as Top Ten in the country, and we've been doing that for 33 years. We just graduated our third Flashpoint cohort. So you might want to dig a little more deeply before you throw around "no one" and "never"... That said, I'm loving the energy and the enthusiasm I'm seeing here. We're major fans of Startup Exchange and the rest of the undergraduate startup scene. I've found that most undergraduates seem reluctant to step into the Centergy building; they feel more comfortable at Hypepotamus. That's cool, we're friends, but don't forget that there's a heck of a lot of resources here in Centergy if you can get past our oh-so-corporate lobby. Here's a post I wrote a year or so ago about what I'd like to see happen with GT undergraduates: http://academicvc.com/2012/10/01/drownproofing-2-0/ http://academicvc.com/2012/10/01/drownproofing-2-0/ Finally, a lot of this thread has talked about Atlanta in general. Traditionally, Atlanta hasn't been a great B2C town (although some folks are trying to change that). We do great B2B startups, and we do great hardware startups. There's a lot of the economy that doesn't read Hacker News. You're young; don't limit yourself.
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  I'm a huge fan of what you guys do at VentureLab, I think it's nothing short of amazing. I'll admit, that first paragraph was a bit of an exaggeration - but I genuinely believe that the large majority of the undergrad population didn't know that startups were an option. I feel like that's a huge issue. We have an amazing support network around the school with VentureLab, ATDC, Hype, etc but the undergrads just don't know about it. > I've found that most undergraduates seem reluctant to step into the Centergy building; they feel more comfortable at Hypepotamus. That's cool, we're friends, but don't forget that there's a heck of a lot of resources here in Centergy if you can get past our oh-so-corporate lobby. Very true. Let's fix that. I'm meeting with Keith once I get back to Tech. I'd love to grab coffee with you as well and talk about how we can get more undergrads to come by the Centergy building. Heck, I've never been up there. Love the blog post by the way, and I agree with it 100%. I would absolutely love to work with VentureLab on this. I feel like Georgia Tech has some critical years ahead of it and the more we can get the word out about various resources around Tech, the better.

75 points by timtamboy63 13y ago

af3 13y ago

cool story bro.

I'd be interested to see if you can rope in people from the non-CS departments at GT. In my time there, my impression was that the culture was dominated by the old-school engineering departments, so there was a definite bent towards working for big corporations (e.g. Lockheed Martin in the city) rather than doing startups. That said, I think Atlanta would be a phenomenal place to do a startup. Good local engineering talent, low cost of living, and solid complement of supporting professional services. I don't know what the VC/funding situation is down there though.

timtamboy63 13y ago
That's definitely the plan, and it's something I've put a lot of thought towards. I really believe that hackathons are a great way to get people involved. Even if they don't code, a 10 hour bus ride with our hacker community is going to convert anyone :) ATL is absolutely booming right now for startups - Atlanta Tech Village, Hype. I feel like VC funding needs to innovate a little, they seem to be a bit stuck in their ways. Cummings is doing a great job though, and he's really giving back to the community
- rthomas6 13y ago
  Georgia Tech ECE alumni here. I think the ECE department students would be on board, and be successful, too. There's lots of opportunity for hardware startups, in my opinion. Little single purpose PCBs seem like they've done just as well lately as clever code.
deleted 13y ago
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mkr-hn 13y ago
There's a small startup community out here in the Athens area: http://www.fourathens.com/ http://www.fourathens.com/ I don't know the situation closer to Atlanta though.
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  This looks amazing. If you know who's running it, I'd love an email intro. If not, I'll shoot them an email myself :)
  - mkr-hn 13y ago
    I'm not entirely sure. I think there's a contact form on the site somewhere, and I know they reply on Twitter.
  - sciurus 13y ago
    It's Jim Flannery. http://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesjohnflannery/ http://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesjohnflannery/
mjn 13y ago
The engineering side produces entrepreneurs as well, but with a somewhat different culture, with more of a focus on R&D inputs. The style is less of the Silicon Valley one of: go to a hackathon, brainstorm ideas that can be built with <48 hours of R&D, built an MVP over the weekend. There's a bigger focus on finding a nice chunk of uncommercialized but commercial-potential research that could be spun off into a company. The other common non-big-company route is independent consultant. Lots of engineering alumni run profitable small consulting firms, which seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. However it's usually easier to do that if you work somewhere "in the trenches" for a few years first to build up credibility.
jpb0104 13y ago
Atlanta's startup community was already pretty strong. But it is growing fast: http://atlantatechvillage.com/ http://atlantatechvillage.com/ and http://atlantaventures.com/accelerator/ http://atlantaventures.com/accelerator/
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  Definitely agreeed. Atlanta's community is great, but Georgia Tech still has some catching up to do. David Cummings is doing absolutely amazing things with ATV and Atlanta Ventures, high hopes there.
- bsmith 13y ago
  also: http://www.hypepotamus.com/ http://www.hypepotamus.com/
crusso 13y ago
Wow, you did time at the North Avenue Trade School as well? Small world. I've worked a little with local VC and they typically seem like they have money to put in but very few vehicles for getting information on where to put it. The startup communication channels aren't there yet, although you'd hope that GT would help to lead the way. Atlanta is a great place for startups. I've been a part of several here. GT is a great source for new hires. I can't say that I've ever been disappointed with any of the dozen or so new-hire grads that I've worked with from there. The airport is the busiest in the world and has direct flights to just about everywhere. The culture is a comfortable Southern-friendly mixed with a healthy amount of cultural diversity. The weather isn't as hot and humid as Texas or Florida, but warm enough to avoid ever having to shovel snow off your driveway. That said, there's nothing incredible about Atlanta. You'll never have the museum experience of New York, the historic experience of DC, the weather of California, the views of Colorado, or the food of Louisiana. It's got a whole lot of nice, not much bad, but nothing extreme either way.
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  For sure. There's a great post by Stephen Fleming on the ATL startup scene, definitely addresses this - http://academicvc.com/2013/07/05/startups-for-grownups/ http://academicvc.com/2013/07/05/startups-for-grownups/.
  - crusso 13y ago
    Yeah, the article makes the exact point about housing prices that convinced me to move out of the Bay Area. Then again, it's hard to enjoy that acre of yard when mosquitos are biting the heck out of you. :)
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    I've spent 7 years in New York. Paying the absurd rents isn't that bad. You don't mind it in your 20s, because it's pretty easy to keep expenses low. I hate what it does to the culture, though. Startups need to direct all of their competitive energies toward the external struggle; they have to support each other and fight the world only. When you have engineers sabotaging each other because you need to make CTO before you can even think about starting a family, you get internal competition that destroys everything. Many of these New York startups are deeply dysfunctional and raise capital on account of founder connections (ex-bankers) rather than merit.
deleted 13y ago
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tptacek 13y ago
Atlanta has been a hub for startups in my field (information security) for a decade & a half, mostly owing to ISSX (now part of IBM, but huge before then). There are lots of little security and network tech companies out there that were originally fed by ISSX.

cyanbane 13y ago

"A year ago, I’d hardly heard of startups. Neither had just about anyone at Georgia Tech." Well that was a big jump in assumption within two sentences.

mjn 13y ago
When I was at Georgia Tech (2004-07) nearly everyone had heard of startups in the CS department, and grad students being involved in machine-learning / data-mining startups was a common summer job, so I'm not sure where this is coming from. Here's one big one cofounded by a professor: http://www.skytree.net/ http://www.skytree.net/
- timtamboy63 13y ago
  That was worded poorly - as far as I've seen, a startup isn't really a viable option for undegrads. Yes, we've definitely had our share of successes, but it's not something that is particularly encouraged, especially outside of CS. I really want to see engineering based startups coming out of Tech. We've got the talent, and we have some amazing hardware hackers but it's incredibly rare to see them start a startup.
  - conjecTech 13y ago
    I know you're very well intentioned, but I don't think your methods support this. You aren't going to get people making companies in engineering simply by putting them in a room with a few arduinos and macs. And things like "3 day startup" completely miss the complexity that goes along with actual engineering projects and is heavily biased towards generic internet based ideas. You needs something more fundamental to get across what you are trying to do, and I think there are things on campus which are aiding in that. RoboJackets, for instance, has been rather influential in this regards. 2 of our old officers that are still in the Atlanta area are both involved in very successful startups, one of our electrical guys was at YCombinator last year working on a hardware startup, and we regularly have startup job postings go out on our email headers. I'm aiming for this to grow more, and things are slowly being put into action. I think the most fundamental thing you can do to get people to take these kinds of risks is to show them that it's possible to succeed. I'll be posting some stuff on the CS facebook group in the next few weeks dealing with one of our initiatives. If you'd like to talk about this at some point, I'm the treasurer of RJ and my name shouldn't be too hard to find with a bit of googling.

wil421 13y ago

Recent Kennesaw State grad here. Some classmates and I had a few ideas for start ups but didn't have a place to further our knowledge and learn how to get started. This would be great for the Atlanta area I know of other start ups in the area but they usually aren't from college students or recent grads. It would be great to have a place to share ideas with younger people and hack ideas.

timtamboy63 13y ago
You're exactly who we're trying to target. Tech has a bunch of great resources, but nothing that's really entry level. Flashpoint, Startup Gauntlet, ATDC are all great, but there's nothing out there that's going to take in people with ideas and show them everything we have to offer. Also, we had someone from Kennesaw State drive out to ATL for 3 Day Startup last Spring. Made our day at the hackathon.

bsmith 13y ago

When I was at Georgia Tech, I didn't care about startups per se—I just wanted to learn and build stuff. I was very disappointed to learn that, as a mechanical engineering major, I could NOT sign up for a computer science course I wanted to take because it wasn't in my college or curriculum. I also couldn't have access to a machine shop (even with proper training) unless I got a job in one of the labs. I truly had much more freedom in high school, where I had a master machinist helping me with all my side projects on weekends. So, bravo for going after the administration. They need to let kids actually learn and build shit!

timtamboy63 13y ago
Exactly how I feel - we've been butting heads with the administration for a while now. There are definitely some members who kick ass and who have our back 100%, but as an institution, Georgia Tech is pretty stuck in it's ways. I've got another ~4 years there, so if nothing else, I want to change that by the end of my college career.
ghc 13y ago
When I was at Georgia Tech (graduated '08), I was forced to take CS and EE classes. You could easily get exceptions to prerequisites for classes if you asked, and so I did. Having open access to CS/EE changed my life, and I changed my major. At the same time, reading "Hackers and Painters" and getting involved with the Georgia Entrepreneur Society, which encouraged startups on campus, changed the rest of my life. Georgia Tech is a difficult place to deal with, but it does teach you lessons outside of the technical. Access to resources was there, you just had to fight tooth and nail to get it. That lesson in particular has served me well.
ak217 13y ago
Exemptions are a thing, my friend. I have never been denied enrollment in a class (tbh I've been granted entry in a few classes that I wasn't even ready for yet). It's just a matter of persistence. I love what these people are doing though. Clough ULC is incredible compared to what Skiles was, and with groups like these, it could really transform learning at GT for the better.

cmacpher 13y ago

wow this is eerily similar to what we are doing at Purdue with The Anvil Cowowrking space: http://theanvil.us/ http://theanvil.us/ and the BoilerMake hackathon: http://boilermake.org/ http://boilermake.org/. Glad to see other students making moves as well. I'll be sure to reach out

timtamboy63 13y ago
Looking forward to it, it'd be great to bounce ideas off each other.

crusso 13y ago

Look into partnering with the Atlanta Lean Startup Circle: http://www.meetup.com/Atlanta-Lean-Startup-Circle/ http://www.meetup.com/Atlanta-Lean-Startup-Circle/ I've been to a couple of their meetings and was impressed that they're doing some things the right way.

rafeed 13y ago

I was at Tech from 2006-2010 in BME. So many senior design projects were being spun out as startups. Inventure also came out while I was there and was a big hit. If you had a good idea or executed on something well, it was probably going to be spun with the help of professors (you had to ask). The pace is definitely different at Tech, and for a major like BME, it was hard to come by free electives let alone free time (especially if you were doing pre-med). I do agree I would have loved to see more of a startup culture, but I think it was already brewing while I was there. I'd have loved to see more programming options offered for BME and other engineering majors beyond CS 1371, so we didn't have to get overrides and permits. CS 1371 basically made everyone shit their pants and left a sour taste of programming, although we needed to use the skills we had learned for future classes.

timtamboy63 13y ago
I've got a bone to pick with that class. Every single student who takes it comes out hating programming, and I think that's utter bullshit. At the same time, they're incredibly proud of the boat they've coded in Matlab, and that tells you something crucial about the students at Tech - they love building shit. They love that feeling of accomplishment when they've put hard work into something and it's worked out. So, in other words, they love programming, they just don't know it yet. The intro class for CS absolutely needs to be something that gets students to build. That alone would go a long way in changing the culture at Tech.

imalolz 13y ago

I love this - wish we had this when I studied at Tech (BS+MS in ECE, over a decade ago). I'm now working on my own startup (outside the US), and was actually thinking to try and meet up with investors in Atlanta. As others mentioned in this thread, ATL is a great city to live in - perhaps it's not as hyped as SF or NYC, but I enjoyed my time there and would love to come back one day. Keep up the good work!

timtamboy63 13y ago
Feel free to shoot me an email if you'd like some introductions to VCs in ATL or NY :)
- imalolz 13y ago
  Thanks, sounds great.

kumarski 13y ago

YC companies/alums that are GT related--- Level RF- now Soylent (disclaimer:involved as ex-founder) ViaCycle -same YC class as LevelRF/Soylent Paul Stamatiou is a prolific entrepreneur/YC alum. InstantCab is a YC company started by Tech alums. --------additional------ Chris Quintero -ME 2011, went on to help start http://bolt.io http://bolt.io Bractlet is a GT alum company that is now in the surge accelerator program in Houston. CallRail and Design-A-mosaic are both founded by GT alum Kevin Mann. Robotic dragonflies came out of a kickstarter project. Titintech came out of GT as well from a Mechanical engineer.(disclaimer:involved in Rice BPC) One of the first VSats was launched by GT alums- Steve Chaddick who later went on to start Ciena, a massive telecommunications company. There seems to be a set of people who 'have to be entrepreneurs' and there's a set that 'want to be.' IMHO, The set of people that 'have to be' can be pushed anywhere and don't have as big a concern about coworking spaces,environment, meetups, hackathons etc.. ----------------------------- I myself failed 2 physical product ventures(thermoelectric at JumpStartFoundry and LevelRF at YC) while at GT and also worked for 2 at the ATDC that were both venture backed and had physical technologies. ------------------------------ Interesting post in any case.

rafeed 13y ago
Great list. Some awesome companies on that list, and I know some of the co-founders as well. I think it's clear that GT has a startup culture, but they're coming from highly motivated people who are passionate about what they're working on. Having openly available resources to any student openly would be a great start. If something like this were around while I was at Tech, it would have made things a lot easier in terms of networking and connecting with like-minded individuals.
hpagey 13y ago
AirWatch was founded by Tech alumni. The company was bootstrapped for 8 years and recently raised a massive 200 M series A round (one of the largest ever rounds). Doctime is founded by Tech alumni. They are currently based in ATV. I know the founder, used to work with him at AirWatch.
beambot 13y ago
One of the Lollipuff (YC W13) co-founders (yours truly) is a GT PhD. Also, don't forget FlashPoint... GT's own startup accelerator: http://flashpoint.gatech.edu/ http://flashpoint.gatech.edu/

jennyjitters 13y ago

I graduated from GT a couple years ago, and I have to agree with everyone who is saying they wish this had been around sooner. I wasn't interested in startups until after I graduated (read: I didn't KNOW I was interested). I always knew that I liked building and creating things, and I always struggled to feel engaged in a majority of my classes. Great job to those who started this. Hopefully all those struggling like I did will find their passion sooner than I was able to.

timtamboy63 13y ago
This means a lot, really appreciate it!

angersock 13y ago

I do some work with undergrads who are interested in startup stuff, both at a modestly prestigious private institution and a commuter public university. Data points I have are drawn from several 3DayStartup events, hackathons, daily interactions in labs, and working as a technical mentor to a few teams trying to make a startup. Some observations: - The technical know-how varies widely among teams in undergrad, and web technologies seem to be somewhat ignored at the prestigious school: though they are slowly getting better coverage, the fact is that the curriculum is really better for more traditional computer-science topics and things related to systems and computer engineering. The commuter school offers somewhat more vocational training (MIS/CS/ITish stuff not so theoretical), so the webdev talent there seems a bit higher. - The commuter school seems to have a bit more business hustle than the prestigious university. The students there seem to instantly grasp that revenue is an important thing, and have ideas which would appeal to the mass market a bit better. Conversely, for the really hard technical problems (not webdev stuff, but hard engineering and systems and math) the university students have an edge. - There are way, way, way too many teams (mostly at the prestigious university) that seem preoccupied with solving problems that only apply to affluent college undergrads. Worse, many ideas are adaptations of research or design projects which are "Let's build this thing cheaply for the third world", and they lack the skill (usually) to explain why that would be a lucrative investing opportunity. - At the accelerator for the prestigious university (now finishing its first summer round) some of the undergrad teams seemed to have trouble making the mental shift from "this is a school project like all the other ones I've done before" to "oh god this is a real business there is no rubric to follow i need to start hustling". ~ I'd be interested in hearing what others' experiences are doing similar work. I suspect that areas (say, Stanford, MIT, etc.) with more VC background probably have much different cultures.

timtamboy63 13y ago
It sounds like you have a tonne of experience with what we want to be doing. Mind if I shoot you an email a bit later to pick your brain?
- angersock 13y ago
  I'm no expert, but I'm at least friendly! :)

possibilistic 13y ago

I'm at Georgia Tech's ATDC startup incubator [1]. OP/Author should definitely integrate this effort with what the ATDC is doing and take advantage of its available services and resources. I'd love to network with you guys. Feel free to email me. [1] http://www.atdc.org/ http://www.atdc.org/

timtamboy63 13y ago
For sure, definitely will shoot you an email

hmsolomon 13y ago

Chintan - I'm with VentureLab at Gatech. This post is fantastic! Aswin is a rock-star, and it's great that you are stepping into leadership at StartupExchange. Let's get together next week if you're in town. Harold.solomon@venturelab dot gatech dot edu

kmassey 13y ago
Harold is a rockstar at GTRI, go see him.
timtamboy63 13y ago
Hey Harold, definitely will shoot you an email. I'm still in NYC for the next few weeks, but I'd love to grab coffee once I'm back.

ynniv 13y ago

There are quite a few startups around Atlanta, and many of them involve GT alum. What you're probably feeling is that they're not making things that show up on Hacker News that you're excited about. This comes from the lack of local VC investing in the B2C technologies that get people excited about startups, which in turn comes from a lack of local B2C successes. But honestly, there are few B2C successes anywhere lately. An interesting new thing is more likely to have come from Google or Apple than a new kid on the block. Georgia Tech is following the Stanford model for building local business, which focuses on spinning out new technologies as B2B startups. That happens at the graduate level. Some of them are good, but they're heads down working and not drumming up popular interest. And since they're busy working, the only way to know about them or get a job with them is to have a personal connection to them. Compared to senior high frequency trading or missile guidance engineers, undergraduates might as well be high schoolers who can't program, so it really helps to prove your salt by completing and documenting technical projects. Theoretically you do this in those expensive classes, but sadly we can't trust those anymore. My advice to undergraduates is thus to build something more difficult than you at first think that you can complete, and write a couple of blog posts about what you have done. You'll learn a lot in the process, and you'll meet interesting people along the way. It might even turn into a startup. If you instead set out to "learn rails and do a startup", my prediction is that you'll slowly learn that most people talk a big game, web programming is more annoying and complicated than difficult, and making money is hard; all of which I can convince you of in 5 minutes. Also, don't ever say "rockstar" unless you're shredding a guitar in front of a sold out stadium.

timtamboy63 13y ago
> What you're probably feeling is that they're not making things that show up on Hacker News that you're excited about. I disagree. What I'm feeling is that the large majority of students don't even know it's an option. Especially when you move out of CS. I've heard people with great ideas for products who never did anything with them because they had no idea how to. That's what we aim to fix. If someone wants to build something, and start a startup, they sure as hell should be able to. Georgia Tech has the resources out there, with VentureLab, ATDC, Flashpoint, etc, but you can't keep throwing money and programs at something and expect the culture to change. You need dedicated, motivated students for that. > My advice to undergraduates is thus to build something more difficult than you at first think that you can complete, and write a couple of blog posts about what you have done. I completely agree. It's an incredibly rewarding process. > If you instead set out to "learn rails and do a startup", my prediction is that you'll slowly learn that most people talk a big game, web programming is more annoying and complicated than difficult, and making money is hard; all of which I can convince you of in 5 minutes. Everything you say there is completely correct, but I'd argue it's a very valuable experience, and you even if/when you fail with that first startup, you come out with a tonne of skills and valuable insight. Maybe the first time around you didn't do any customer discovery. The second time around, you'll make damn sure there are customers before you build. And really, how many successful startup founders make it the first time. If you're going to fail, it's a hell of a lot better to fail in college where you have a support network to fall back on, and a backup plan if you absolutely can't handle it.

stephenfleming 13y ago

Alright, I guess I'm the voice of the GT Establishment here. I'm certainly not going to argue with anyone who says "A year ago, I’d hardly heard of startups. Neither had just about anyone at Georgia Tech." But I'll point out that our early-stage incubator, VentureLab, just got ranked #1 in the frickin' WORLD (out of 150 universities) by UBI. And we've been doing that for 12 years. And ATDC is consistently ranked as Top Ten in the country, and we've been doing that for 33 years. We just graduated our third Flashpoint cohort. So you might want to dig a little more deeply before you throw around "no one" and "never"... That said, I'm loving the energy and the enthusiasm I'm seeing here. We're major fans of Startup Exchange and the rest of the undergraduate startup scene. I've found that most undergraduates seem reluctant to step into the Centergy building; they feel more comfortable at Hypepotamus. That's cool, we're friends, but don't forget that there's a heck of a lot of resources here in Centergy if you can get past our oh-so-corporate lobby. Here's a post I wrote a year or so ago about what I'd like to see happen with GT undergraduates: http://academicvc.com/2012/10/01/drownproofing-2-0/ http://academicvc.com/2012/10/01/drownproofing-2-0/ Finally, a lot of this thread has talked about Atlanta in general. Traditionally, Atlanta hasn't been a great B2C town (although some folks are trying to change that). We do great B2B startups, and we do great hardware startups. There's a lot of the economy that doesn't read Hacker News. You're young; don't limit yourself.

timtamboy63 13y ago
I'm a huge fan of what you guys do at VentureLab, I think it's nothing short of amazing. I'll admit, that first paragraph was a bit of an exaggeration - but I genuinely believe that the large majority of the undergrad population didn't know that startups were an option. I feel like that's a huge issue. We have an amazing support network around the school with VentureLab, ATDC, Hype, etc but the undergrads just don't know about it. > I've found that most undergraduates seem reluctant to step into the Centergy building; they feel more comfortable at Hypepotamus. That's cool, we're friends, but don't forget that there's a heck of a lot of resources here in Centergy if you can get past our oh-so-corporate lobby. Very true. Let's fix that. I'm meeting with Keith once I get back to Tech. I'd love to grab coffee with you as well and talk about how we can get more undergrads to come by the Centergy building. Heck, I've never been up there. Love the blog post by the way, and I agree with it 100%. I would absolutely love to work with VentureLab on this. I feel like Georgia Tech has some critical years ahead of it and the more we can get the word out about various resources around Tech, the better.