Sometimes when you look in the mirror, you see something you don’t like.
Last week, I wrote a post about a growing aggravation with how Atlanta needs to improve the startup, entrepreneurial community. With the post, I repeated a rumor I had heard from another local entrepreneur about TAG and the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. I immediately got a nice email from Tino Mantella, the CEO of TAG – with a correction and subsequent comment clarification to my post.
Tino wanted to make it clear that TAG was a separate and distinct organization than the Chamber. Sure, I think we all knew that – but in case you didn’t, you do now. David Hartnett, the new VP of Technology Industry Expansion for the Chamber also commented, saying that he would convene a council to gather insight and make sure that he involved the community. That’s very Chamber-like and at least he’s voicing his public desire to get our input to this strategic initiative. And I applaud him for that. I think it’s good to also note that Tino is on the Executive Committee of the Chamber so I’m sure he’ll help represent the Atlanta technology community he represents for TAG.
What I’m also impressed by (should I be these days?) is two things: (a) both of these guys are reading blogs by people in our technology community and (b) they’re reacting to them by joining in the conversation. And, that’s a good thing in my opinion. I guess I shouldn’t be impressed, but I am.
But the other part of my post didn’t go unnoticed either. A number of local people chimed in immediately:
Josh Watts of Blue Violin had a very succinct summary of common myths about why Atlanta isn’t a startup friendly environment. Best part: he debunks all of them.
Tejus Parikh doesn’t even bother to title his post – it’s just called 49. I wonder if that’s how many startups he’s been part of or just his Karma score. Either way, he has a very good point about cultivating talent and opportunities by focusing on our local educational institutions (and the resulting population of fresh talent emerging from them). I think this is also part of the puzzle.
David Cummings posted a nice little teary-eyed beauty talking about how wonderful Atlanta is for his startup. David should know, he’s got a startup that’s almost no longer a startup and he’s under 30.
Good for David and the rest under 30 – as long as they don’t listen too much to us older and jaded Web 1.0 entrepreneurs according to Wayt King. Wayt’s no slacker – he’s the previous co-founder of N2Broadband. Yeah, the one that sold for $120M a few years back. But then again, he was a lawyer too.
Rob Kischuk noted that we just can’t focus on startups with low capital needs (referencing David’s post). And he’s right, although there’s probably more capital available for biotech in Atlanta than Web2.0 – but then again, like Wayt says, get some Ruby and some Jolt and you’re halfway there.
And Marketing Diva Toby Bloomberg even commented with her post questioning “whether Social Media is tipping” in Atlanta.
What I think we’re seeing is that the problem is multi-pronged – and it will take a multi-faceted approach to solving it.
What’s good about all of this chatter is that it’s conversation about improving the technology scene. And conversation, if we do something about it in the end, is a good thing. If you care about this topic, blog about, talk to your peers about it and get involved. We’re counting on you to make the difference.
P.S. If you’re coming to SoCon07 this weekend, I’d love to hear directly from you about this and what you’re doing to elevate our local community.
technorati tags: atlanta, georgia, startup, entrepreneur, socon07
Popularity: 7% [?]
Other popular articles you might enjoy:
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
