What a Startup Ecosystem Looks Like

Published November 19, 2009 @ 07:11PM PT

I'm a recent transplant to San Francisco. Before that, I was working just outside of Chicago, and before that, I was growing up in Maine. After even just a few months here, the difference in the nature of the startup ecosystem is unbelievable.

So what does that mean?

The first element of an ecosystem - perhaps the most important - is a critical mass of people who are in the same position. San Francisco and the larger Bay Area is sort of ground zero for startups - social and technology based particularly. In about a month, Assetmap will be hosting a mixer for startup-type people just based in our one neighborhood of the city and we've been able to find about 125 names to invite. This sort of surrounding means that the people around can commiserate, share, and collaborate.

To put a point on this...Last night I wrote about Supercool School, a very interesting new startup. Turns out their office is a block and half from mine and one of their founders lives one street away. This happens all the time.

The second is a diversity of actors. One of the things I love about being at the intersection of social and tech entrepreneurship out here is the ability to connect the two conversations. In addition to entrepreneurs, the Bay is obviously rich with funding - from foundations and all types of institutional and venture investors. Importantly, these assets often came from previous success. Which leads to...

Talent. Talent means both talented mentors with boatloads of experience doing the things you're trying to do as well as talented staff who can make your vision come to reality. Chicago is great, but it was pretty lacking in both of these areas when it came to technology, which was a big reason I moved on.

There are lots of additional pieces, but the last one I wanted to point out is events. I don't just mean conferences, but mixers, dinner parties, Foursquare coffee shop meetups, startup crawls. All of these things make the flow of community work. Rather than getting stuck in one spot and with one group, there are constantly new excuses to meet people.

(Photo: the logo of the first annual "Startup Crawl" - a chance for anyone interest to visit startups across San Francisco tomorrow night.)

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Author

Nathaniel is the founder of Assetmap, a San Francisco-based startup that builds web tools to help people better visualize and leverage their social capital. Before that, he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.