It’s been a little under five months since we launched the first version of ProudlyMadeInDC, a website that has helped shed light on the growing startup community in DC. It’s received more media attention and traffic than I expected when it was built. Since then, we’ve launched two additional initiatives – the DC Tech Meetup (800 attendees expected for next week) and DC Tech Summer (over 400 interns applied in one week). ProudlyMade remains our flagship destination, as well as the biggest time commitment.
In terms of hard costs, PMiDC is relatively cheap. It is however a huge time commitment. We have companies to review and add all the time. All day long, entrepreneurs, VCs, and established companies are reaching out to us asking how to get involved, to vet their ideas, and what they can do to help the community. It is an incredibly exciting thing to do, but when you’re building a startup while already running a successful business, and in general trying to find time to enjoy life a bit, the opportunity cost is high.
So why do it?
Really simple:
Main Reason: If I can do everything I can to make DC a great place to build and grow a startup, then that increases the chance that anything I create here will succeed. I could move somewhere else to do that, and that’s never out of the question, but I’m here now.
Secondary Reason: These are my friends, coworkers, collaborators. I’m lucky to personally know so many awesome founders in the region. As anyone who’s been in an entrepreneurial community for a while, the peer support is amazing. This is one of the best ways I can think of supporting the community.
Secondary Reason: I started out in the community knowing no-one, and am always out there to discuss ideas, work through problems, and figure out the best way to help each other. I want to know everyone in the community, to work with them, discuss ideas, maybe get funding. Having a central role gives me that visibility into the community.
I’m Not Doing it for Money: Sure, I want my startup to succeed and be profitable. But I’m not here to make any money directly off the community. A lot of people, after an article is published or a big meetup, will reach out to me inquiring to me about my services. I’m not accepting new clients at this time, no matter how much you ask. That being said, as our initiatives grow and become more of a time commitment, that may change in order to better balance our time.
What’s Next:
We just had a great meeting yesterday regarding the next steps in the community, and have a product in the works to support it. Just wait and see. People Discovery + Social White Pages FTW.
It’s been great watching the early stage startup community grow in the DC region over the past six to twelve months. Companies are getting funded, new ventures are being created every day, and on the whole, the entrepreneurs in the area no longer feel like lone wolves wandering around with no support network. As I’ve become heavily involved the mechanics of the community, through founding/co-founding ProudlyMadeInDC, DCTechMeetup, and Hackers/Founders, I’ve had a chance to speak with dozens of early stage companies. While the company may have an excellent founder, a great idea, and on occasion some seed funding, more often than not I hear the same thing:
“I’m looking for a technical co-founder.”
It’s a completely understandable situation to be in, putting myself in a non-technical persons shoes. You have a strong idea, (usually) a specific product roadmap, and a great marketing plan. All you need is someone to jam out some code in a weekend.
Limited Supply
The biggest issue in the market today is the extreme dearth of good, experienced developers. Even then, the good ones already have jobs, either at startups or large corporations with six-figure jobs and free cake once a month. And the more entrepreneurial types (referred to as hacker/founders) – most likely they’re already working on their own concept.
What do you offer?
A good developer knows their value in a startup. After all, they’re the ones who are actually building the product everyone is betting the farm on. In return for them getting payed a meager salary (or just equity), working 60+ hour weeks, and dealing with a plethora of product changes, users, system downtime, and all the other fun stuff with being the sole/primary developer, what do you bring to the table? What’s your track record? While they are building everything out, what are you doing? With them sinking so much sweat equity into cranking out code, what assurances do they have that you won’t just lose interest and walk away?
Here is some advice that I give out when I hear that line:
Refine your product vision: If you still think that “MVP” is a sports term, spend a good amount of team going through the plethora of content related to Eric Ries’ lean startup methodology. A good chunk of the lean startup dogma is devoted to refining your product down to the absolute minimum necessary in order to gauge interest and, hopefully, revenue. When I’m handed a twenty page spec document split up into five phases, I always try and boil it down to the most basic, ugly, product that shows that it’s worth someones time continuing to build it out.
Learn to code yourself: I’m sure I lost half the audience just by saying that. Some find too large a gap between someone who can architect software and someone who… tells them how to do it. But in truth, the difference is smaller than you’d expect. I’m not saying that you should expect to overnight become a master codesmith, but it’s certainly within your realm to learn enough Ruby on Rails (or PHP, Node, etc) to be able to crank out an initial version of what you’re trying to build. The documentation is plentiful, classes are always available, and due to the magic of open source software, there is a LOT of code that you can look at, learn from, and repurpose. Before you skip on this entirely, spend an hour starting off with http://hackety-hack.com/
Hire a Team – So you’ve given up on coding it yourself. But if you have a very strong idea about what you’re looking to build, it’s certainly possible to get a decent product by hiring outside designers and developers (heaven help you if you think you don’t need a developer…). This should at least get you an initial prototype, and hiring a local developer to help support it and make changes can be done for a lower price.
Are you a developer?
OK, you might be reading this and happen to be one of the developers that everyone is looking for. If so, get in touch with me, right now. I’ll set you up.
When Mike IMed me a few months ago to ask if I would join him and Kunmi for StartupXLR8R, I resisted at first. I am already focusing so much time on STRUCTO, and already distracting myself with side projects like WhoMails.Me and ProudlyMadeinDC (the latter of which Mike is a co-founder), that another project would be too much to handle. But we approached it with a different spin. While we all had our own startups, and all the other teams applying were for the most part well established startups, we were going to go from zero to launch. In two days (16 hours).
We had tossed around a number ideas, but ended up choosing a smaller idea that we knew we could launch an initial version of by 4 PM Sunday afternoon, when it was time to pitch our product for “investors” (not that we had any interest in raising capital for this). We settled on an idea I had, a daily e-mail customized for you.
So Saturday morning, we headed off into our breakout room (thanks Microsoft for an absolutely gorgeous space), and just started cranking out code. Kunmi worked on the frontend display, Mike on the email and configuration backend, and myself on all the data sources. It was an exciting weekend, with sixteen straight hours of heads down, don’t-talk-to-us coding.
By 3:59 PM (we were pushing code as we were walking into the conference room), HeyAstro was born. In the few days since we’ve launched, we’ve had over 150 people sign up, an immense amount of amazing feedback, and a laundry list of new things we want to do with the product.
Sign up for HeyAstro, and let us know what you think!
Final Stack:
Ruby on Rails (#FTW)
Heroku for Hosting
Delayed Job for Queue Management
SendGrid for email delivery and analytics
Gems, Gems, Gems. There is no way we could have built this in any other language than Ruby, as so much of the backend relied on particular gems. Koala for Facebook, HttParty, Instagram, OAuth etc…
In February of this year I presented at the DCPHP meetup. Based on my experience deploying large client applications built in PHP using AWS and Rightscale, I gave a detailed walkthrough of how to set it up. Fuzzy video below:
As mentioned previously, I’m co-founder of ProudlyMadeinDC, a central site showcasing DC’s startups, showing to the world, and to ourselves, that DC is an up-and-coming startup hub. We started it as a small side project, but it’s grown to become real movement, helping to power the rise of DC startups. I presented at Ignite DC 6 (slides below, full video coming soon), so what I have below is, for the most part, my talk.
I’m here to talk about the efforts to rebuild a startup community in the dc area and how just one step by anyone can help make a difference. Because an awkward guy like me might appear to be the most unfit for the job.
I went to school in the region, and they did an awesome job of ensuring that we all were funneled into cubicles at a beltway bandit. It was only then I started learning about the whole concept of a start-up outside of the corporate bubble.
But I didn’t know anyone who involved in the start-up world. So I read voraciously. Every book, blog, and newsgroup I could. But still, I lacked the personal contact and war stories of a peer community to help me venture out on my own.
Three years ago, I stumbled across a wiki for barcamp DC. Here was a completely volunteer organized event, that help me meet so many entrepeneurs. Many of these people I am still in contact with today, and consider them my mentors, peers, and friends.
But it seemed that every founder walked around with a chip on their shoulder because they weren’t in the valley. And because of that their chances of survival were slim. VCs weren’t investing, media wouldn’t cover them, and there wasn’t much of a peer community.
Fastforward to today. Our community has grown. What’s great about most of these events is they aren’t organized for any major financial or PR gain. They’re organized by one or two people to get a bunch of like minded folks together.
While a small group of people actively try to improve the community, far too many find solace in complaints via Twitter and Facebook about the inability to start a company in our nation’s capital.
If you’ve spent any time in DC you’ve run into these people. While I’m not telling you to join an artists’ commune any time soon, their manifesto has always resonated with me. If you see a problem, stop complaining about it and do something to solve it. Isn’t that what every entrepreneur aims to do?
When Brad Feld, a VC who helped build Boulder as a startup hub, came to DC, he had no idea that Living Social is a local company. Lesson #1: No one was really talking about DC’s startups. So we knew that marketing DC is one thing that we could improve upon.
There are a number of events and resources in DC available for entrepreneurs. But figuring out where to begin is a daunting task. Lesson #2: Provide some kid of beachhead to guide newcomers to the right resources.
It was finally time to stop talking. With just one Red Bull fueled night, I was surprised with the outcome. 2 months ago, today, actually, I emailed my co-founder of what became Proudly Mady in DC with the first version of our directory.
The lean startup methodology teaches you to launch as quickly as possible. We had lots of big ideas for what we wanted to do, and debated the what-ifs – but we quickly put an end to that, opting instead to just jump off, and figure out the rest as we plummet to our demise.
Launch day is always a rush. About a week after the first version of the site, we started publicizing. And by “publicizing” I actually mean posting on Facebook and emailing about a dozen people.
What we learned was that if there’s a community backing you, your idea grows legs, really quickly. Thousands of visits and hundreds of tweets later, our directory of over 100 startups had made its mark. We can now sit andwatch visitors come to our site, and check out the startups on the list.
When we built the site, we set up a single email address where anyone could reach out. Since the launch day, emails have been pouring in from new startups, experienced entrepreneurs, and newcomers who just want to get involved. We do our best to guide them on the right path.
You won’t get it right. You may have much more grandiose plans. And you may have a lot of critics, as we did. But we made that first step, took a few hours of our time, and made something that has provided a 10-fold return to the community.
what’s next? What can you do? We’re at a critical time in making DC into a startup hub. We need to work better together, across different groups. We need to build that herd, support that new startup, because if we can improve the community as a whole, we can make it a better place to bring our own dreams into reality.
The next phase is the DC Tech Meetup, a place where anyone who’s involved with startup or wants to be, or just wants to support startups, can work together. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lean startup enthusiast, VC, hacker, lawyer, founder, whatever. We need you and everyone you know.
It sounds like your standard cliche advice to go out and just do something. But to make a community happen, it’s going to take all of us making one small step. The next time you think that something is hard in DC, stop complaining, and figure out a way to make it better.
For us, it started with just two people. We can now happily say that we have formed a supportive community around us and our idea. Find one or two people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and and decide together what your first step is. There’s no way to build a community alone. Thank you.
—
Really, it’s an amazing time to be involved in the startup community. There’s electricity in the air that wasn’t here six months ago. The conversation is no longer about whether or not a startup can survive in DC, it’s changed for the positive. People are leaving their silos, and figuring out how they can work together. It’s great to see.
ProudlyMadeinDC is still booming. We’re getting tons of email every week, from new entrepreneurs looking to get involved, startups asking to be listed, and people/organizations who just want to help. It’s amazing to have our fingers on the pulse of entrepreneurship here, and meet so many amazing people.
2010 has been an awesome year. Of course, after the previous year, I could have done nothing but sleep all year and it would have been better for me. A few highlights:
skeevisArts has been thriving. We launched a ridiculous number of websites (and those are the projects we can talk about), as well as diversifying into mobile development (both iPhone and Android, as well as some generic mobile web sites).
Launched Structo, my first “serious” startup venture with me at the helm. Initial feedback has been good, and I plan on continuing it in the new year.
Finally got real and took lessons on DJing, something I’ve wanted to do for years.
Moved from the ‘burbs into downtown DC. As much as I loved Bethesda, city life is completely different, and awesome.
Got more involved with the community, and had a chance to speak a few times. ProudlyMadeinDC is a big undertaking of mine, and working on it with Michael Mayernick has been awesome.
Best of all – celebrated nearly 5 years with Alex. Yay!
Further Lessons Learned
Building off of my earlier list – read that first.
16. Introductions are amazing. Give and receive. I introduce as many people as possible, and give referrals whenever possible. After two years, I can happily say I’ve never sent a cold call, never placed an ad, and never gotten any work off of Craigslist (though I tried to initially). All my work has been an existing client or someone I met referring me to someone else. I stated last year that building a network is important, and that’s been galvanized this year. And it’s true – give and ye shall receive. I do whatever I can to introduce people, and every time I meet someone, I’m always thinking about who in my list they should talk to, and follow it up with an email intro. DJ Saul really guided me on this, and it’s something I plan on promoting as much as possible.
17. Don’t do it all yourself. I got hit pretty hard with this. When I first started, I did every bit of work. Nowadays, I’ve become better not just at outsourcing or bringing on contractors for skills I lack (like good design), but to also assist in what I would be doing as well. So today I have a team of Flash developers, WordPress Developers, PHP + Rails, etc…
18. Ensure that you’re balancing time appropriately with non-revenue generating activities, and really think if an event is worth attending. When starting out, I attended every networking event, developer group, and conference – not only because I had the flexibility to, but because I thought that, in same way, it might help my business. Really judge whether an event or conference is worth your time. (Hint: If you attend a one day conference and you spend all morning on your laptop before finally zoning out at 2 PM to go to a side room to get work done… you’ve wasted your time)
I’m the kid who made mixtapes for his friends in high school. I got a small taste of it senior year, when I had my full setup in my basement, and hosted many sweaty fraternity parties (while destroying half a dozen speaker systems). But I never really understood what to do, and could never find a way of learning how (while most DJs I spoke to were self taught, it’s kind of hard to justify investing in equipment I had no idea how to use).
After finding out about the Beat Refinery program off of Thrillist, I signed up for their inaugural class. Taught by DJ Trayze, the beginners class was a perfect introduction into the basic skills and theory behind mixing. It was a lab-style class, where we each had our own station with the full setup a normal DJ uses, including Scratch Live, the industry standard.
After finishing up the first course, I went out and invested in a full rig, knowing that I’d actually have a clue how to use it. I just completed the intermediate course, where we learned some of the more advanced tricks, using more features available in Scratch Live, and getting a lot more hands-on time with the equipment, and great guidance and oversight from experienced DJs. If you’re in the DC area (classes are in Bethesda) – definitely check it out.
As busy as I am with skeevisArts and Structo, it’s nice to have something fun to take a break with.
As a hacker-founder (an entrepreneur who develops their own products), how familiar does this sound to you:
Have an awesome idea. Don’t tell anyone about it.
Decide to build it, convinced that everyone will love it.
Still don’t tell publicize it.
Keep working on the product. Not as wild about the idea anymore.
Come to some milestone in the product. Show it to one or two people.
Start to think about marketing. How are you going to market this? Haven’t really thought about this before…
Bleh, so many little remaining things to do.
Come up with another really great idea – even better!
Give up. Not like you had any users who gave a crap…
Move onto the next idea. See step 1.
I’ve been through this half a dozen times in the last two years alone. It sucks, as I look back on all the dead web applications and “startups” I’ve done. I still look back and think that some of them are still great ideas – in fact, similar products have come later that have been very successful.
No more. I’m not doing that again.
One of the main “lean startup” tenets is a focus on ensuring that customers want your product, making customer development more important than product development itself. As I was thinking about my next product (having built an awesome product previously, yet completely missed how to market it), I was interested in following this path myself.
Knowing how I work, an initial focus on customer development meant more than knowing that I’d be building a product that people wanted. Far more important than that, my belief is that, by gathering a following and users who actually want the product, I’d be motivated to continue it. I can’t give up if I have actual users, I’ll see it through to completion.
Here’s a generalized view of my method:
Come up with idea. Yes, this rocks.
Talk to as many people as possible about it initially. Gather feedback, generally positive.
Think heavily about my ideal customer, and figure out how to reach them.
Develop minimum viable product – in this case, a well designed landing page and screencast.
Make initial push to get users (and by users, I mean people signing up for updates via landing page).
Engage users.
Continue to network with anyone who is interested.
By step 6, something very different has happened. Without writing a line of code (for the real product) yet, I had interest – customers. Some findings:
I’ve gained a strong following of people interested in the product.
I’ve gathered commitments from a number of people to really use the product.
I’ve validated my idea as well as I can without having an actual product to use with.
Received interest from potential investors.
Downside: With my particular product, I’ve received a good amount of feedback that in order to continue pursuing costumers, I really need to have something people can tinker with. However, I can continue with product development knowing that I’ll have people willing to give it a spin.
Looking to learn more? Check out my startup Structo – we’re a hosted database that enables web developers to build web applications faster.
Structo was born out of a pain I saw as a web developer, and, in speaking with many other web developers, I found I wasn’t alone. There are many components in a web application that have to be repeated every single time.
What is Structo?
Structo is a hosted RESTful database. You specify your schema in a drag and drop interface, and then have a full infrastructure for your web application. You get to focus on what’s really important in your web app – we’ll handle the rest.
While I am firmly established as an entrepreneur, having started one company of my own (skeevisArts) and been CTO of a now-acquired startup, I know that the business that I’m in is a means to an end. As much as I love to work with awesome clients and grow my roster weekly, this is not what I want to do long term. My dream is to build products.
I’ve been lucky enough to surround myself with other experienced professionals who have made the switch from client services to products, and they constantly goad me to start focusing on my own product. I’ve realized, with more and more certainty, that now is the team. And I start ideating.
Then I look up at the list of active, on-deck, and potential projects. And I get back to work.
A local developer compared client services to a cheap drug – it’s easy to get high. And skeevisArts is going well, but I must keep fighting and re-focusing myself to build out a product (or products, to satisfy my multi-track mind).
After the Google style of working – I’m currently gearing myself towards an 80%/20% solution. 80% devoted to running skeevisArts, and 20% devoted to my own ventures. It’s more challenging than I thought, as I never imagined myself being this heavily in demand and having so little extra-curricular time. Others have said “well, just take on fewer clients.” Yeah right
I'm a hacker/founder, I'm working on Contactually, an email interface to CRMs. I'm also a freelance developer, working as skeevisArts while working on Structo, a cloud service for web developers.
When 
While I am firmly established as an entrepreneur, having started one company of my own (skeevisArts) and been CTO of a now-acquired startup, I know that the business that I’m in is a means to an end. As much as I love to work with awesome clients and grow my roster weekly, this is not what I want to do long term. My dream is to build products.