NYC's Tech Startup Footprint & Co-Creation

The NY Times recently ran a very cool article, infographic style, on how tech startups are scattered across the New York Landscape.  See below for the image and check out the article here.

In a city where everyone is talented and ambitious, I am proud to be part of a community of people who are not only smart and passionate, but are also looking beyond the banks and law firms and attempting to build and create great things. One of the best aspects of Startup is that it is a fertile breeding ground for a cross section of industries, bringing together technology, business, art and design, marketing and entertainment.  The old divisions between these areas are starting to break down, with cross pollination and co-creation across different industries, skill sets and mediums coming more and more to define Startup. In a nod to this phenomenon, Fast Company is launching a website centered solely on co-creation, which will showcase "...pioneers who are meshing tech, culture, and commerce in new ways."  Personally, I think the startup and creative industries should continue to be celebrated. We need more creation in our lives, and less consumption.

New York Times,  AMY SCHOENFELD, TIMOTHY WALLACE and ALICIA DESANTIS November 19 2011 
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/11/20/nyregion/technology-footprint-starting-up-in-new-york.html?src=tp

Startup theme: Curation

One of the most prevalent themes that has been popping up in startup business models these days is curation. When I was a kid, the words 'curation' and 'curator' were associated most closely with museums, in that curators selected the content for exhibitions, baesd on their expertise in a particular area. Today, curation and curating have integrated into our daily lives without us even realizing. With so much information at our fingertips and the lack of time or desire to read it all, the need for curation has skyrocketed. We are constantly trying to answer the questions: how do I know which of this information is worth reading, and what is crap? What do I want to re-tweet, share and forward on to my friends because it's interesting or because it makes my brand stronger?

The most organic and unnoticed form of curation has been around since the birth of Facebook in 2004: social media and sharing of information through friends. Watching movies on Youtube and reposting the funniest one on Facebook  is a form of curation, for instance. Nowadays you would never walk into a random restaurant without a recommendation. The selection process would involve Yelping, checking on Facebook to see if anyone had recommended it or going to a recommendations page you trusted. Our friends share stuff with us, thereby guiding what we read and process. As we process information, we too are unconciously curating - we may trawl through many sites, blogs, articles and tweets a day but only 'on-share' the very funniest emails or most incisive articles with our own communities (or we might selectively pass on different information to different groups in our networks). The rise of the blog over the past few years has also supported the ease of curating, providing a perfect forum to curate products, ideas, and experiences.

Nowadays though, curation is truly becoming a revenue generating business model. Businesses have sprouted up to help us filter the vast waves of information and the sheer amount of stuff that comes our way daily. (It is not just information on the Internet which we need to filter and curate, but also the  products available for us to purchase - Americans today have more choice than any other country or generation in history. Even picking out a deodorant is sometimes overwhelming for me.) Apparently this was a challenge to others as well, because one day someone started a company which curated actual products and sent out monthly boxes to subscribers. Birchbox was one of the first to do this with makeup and skincare products, in their words, "a curated box of luxe beauty samples."

The coolest companies out there in the business of curation make it fun. Now there is Quarterly, where you can subscribe for curated care packages which are "engaging and have good taste". Subscribers don't technically need any of these things, but they are surprising and delightful "...and meet some standard of interestingness and originality." Others have made a business of curating happenings, culture, art and technology within a particular area. Cool Hunting seeks to provide inspiration by sifting through innovations in design, technology, art and culture for their readers. GOOD combines user input with curation through "Good Finder" where they invite users to "post anything inspirational, thought-provoking, mind-blowing, or otherwise good to share..." These submissions are then curated by GOOD's editorial team.

While the saying "there is no accounting for taste" is old and perhaps true, curation as a viable business relies on having the clout, expertise or track record to get people to shell out money because they trust or share your taste. In other words, what you recommend better be good. My sense is that many of these businesses started organically, with the Founders sharing something they were passionate about, and then realizing that being an expert in something that you are passionate about, and sharing that with the world through curation was actually a viable revenue stream. What could be better than having a day job that is all about sharing the things you love and think are interesting, with other people?

Startups - the latest hot ticket item for journos...

Despite the name of this blog, it's no longer summer, and we're almost beyond fall, on the cusp of winter. But I'm back and still blogging! It's been a while since the last post, for a few reasons. Workload is a pretty boring excuse and I do have a better one - Blogger changed their interface and during the interchange I somehow lost a post, which was really annoying. I was so pissed off that I am only now returning, after a brief flirtation with Tumblr.

There is a lot going on in the tech startup world here. Many of these themes seem to resonate with the media and it's amazing to me how often startups and Silicon Valley feature in serious sections, such as the Sunday Business section of the New York Times. Michael Ellsberg's article on whether "Dropouts will save America" was interesting. The Times also recently ran a feature on Andrew Yang, who is starting Venture for America, a "Teach for America for startups". I saw Andrew speak at the TiE FORSE conference in Boston and his idea is compelling. There are at least seven journalists with different slants writing on startups in the Small Business Blog and this is just the Times. We knew that startups had truly gone "Hollywood" after The Social Network hit theatres, but this cultural phenomenon was formalized when newspapers started covering which stars were investing in which new companies (in case you're curious, Leonardo Di Caprio invests in Mobli; for more gossip on which stars invest, read this Mashable article.) News vehicles from USA Today to the Wall Street Journal have been hitting the startup beat. Check out this article from Bostinnovation which associates entrepreneurship with being sexy.
The flavor of the moment is that startups are saving America from the recession and that we need to invest in entrepreneurship to drive our economy. Entrepreneurs are the new heroes because they are creating jobs. It's a hot ticket to be writing about startups, at the moment - which I love! However I can't help but feel unease at the bubble that seems to be growing around the startup sector, and the expectations that come with large IPO's like those of LinkedIn, Groupon (and maybe Facebook, sometime next year.)

I'm hoping to find the time and discipline to write more posts on the themes I've seen emerge in startup through my role at Catchafire. Tomorrow's post will be about curation: how it's emerged organically over the past few years and how entrepreneurs are taking it to a new level by building businesses purely on the basis of curation, or taste.

Picture courtesy of dierken on flickr