Lots of new startup blogs!
March 16, 2009
While we were in Austin at SXSW there were a number of new startup blogs added to the SpringStage network. I am not sure if their authors have had time to post, but watch out for great coverage of startup culture:
Abilene Startup Blog, Alabama Startup Blog, Ann Arbor Startup Blog, Atlanta Startup Blog, Belgium Startup Blog, Brazil Startup Blog, Caribbean Startup Blog, China Startup Blog, College Startup Blog, Colorado Startups, Dallas Startup Blog, Detroit Startup Blog, Florida Startup Blog, Fort Worth Startup Blog, Germany Startup Blog, Kentucky Startup Blog, Little Rock Startup Blog, Memphis Startup Blog, Nashville Startup Blog, National Startup Blog, New Hampshire Startup Blog, North Carolina Startup Blog, PSU Startups, Philadelphia Startup Blog, Philippine Startup Blog, Phoenix Startup Blog, Rochester Startup Blog, San Antonio Startup Blog, South Carolina Startup Blog, Tennessee Startup Blog, Texas Startup Blog, Ukraine Startup Blog, Vietnam Startup Blog, Washington Startup Blog, and West Lafayette Startup Blog.
There have been several articles about SpringStage recently and lots of people have been asking, “What is SpringStage.” I guess our communication has been confusing and I wanted to take a moment to clear it up. First, let me explain what SpringStage is NOT:
- SpringStage is not an angel network
- SpringStage is not an investment group
- SpringStage is not a business incubator
SpringStage is a network of community catalysts who are in tune with their local entrepreneurship and startup scenes. Our goal is to find entrepreneurs who are interested in promoting startup culture and community in their hometowns. The network formally launched in early 2009. This is the first step in ensuring that there is a visible resource in every community for early stage entrepreneurs.
Today, if you’re new to a city and you want to be involved in the startup scene there, there is no clear cut way to get involved. Springstage hopes to fix that by identifying and promoting credible catalysts in each community. We are providing the infrastructure for those catalysts to begin promoting their location entrepreneurship scene immediately.
David Cohen and Alexander Muse are the founders of SpringStage. Both have been blogging for years and both are natural catalysts in their respective communities (Boulder, CO and Dallas, TX). Their blogs are read by thousands in their community and are considered go to resources on entrepreneurial events and news in their area. Both are experienced angel investors and entrepreneurs.
Springstage was formed to take what we’ve learned and apply it nationwide to foster entrepreneurship. Every local community that hopes to improve the startup activity in their community can learn from those who have been successful doing so in the past. They can follow in our footsteps. 20 other bloggers are already doing so, and we’re just getting started.
Our vision for Springstage is to be a beacon for entrepreneurial activities in local communities across the country. When someone enters a community and wants to get involved with the local startup scene, we want them to think about the local Springstage catalyst as the perfect starting point.
We’re simply promoting and organizing what’s already happening. Springstage simply unifies the catalysts who are already so passionate about their startup community. We help them with best practices and joint learning. In turn, entrepreneurship wins. We’re growing the network out quickly, and are always looking for new “catalyts” who would like to blog in their community. If you’d like to become a SpringStage catalyst, please fill out this application form.
Texas Startup Dominates SXSWi
Our great friends at Dallas-based Squeejee (seen above) created a website called Tweet Congress. Chris and his team were nominated for a SXSW Web Award in the activism category and I am pleased to report they beat out some VERY tough competition and won! Awesome news for Squeejee and awesome news for Texas. They were frustrated with the lack of transparency in government so the created the web application to foster communication between members of Congress and their constituents using the popular microblogging tool Twitter. Tweet Congress helps you find your Senators and Representatives on Twitter. They built the application using Ruby on Rails and hosted it on Amazon EC2. More and more cool stuff is coming out of Texas and North Texas in particular than ever before! Way to go guys, you rock! The Squeejee team @sxswi:
