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Nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and fueled by leaders and social hubs such as Micah Baldwin , Tech Stars mentor, #followfriday creator and now chief community caretaker at Graphic.ly of Digital X, and Robert Reich, the founder of Boulder/Denver Tech Meet-up, Boulder's startup community is pumping, even in the midst of recession. Boulder is the home of Blue Mountain cards , one of the first successful online greeting cards websites. In the 1990s, Fortune 1,000 tech companies popped up all over the Western prairie between Boulder and Denver. Since then, Boulder's creative, crunchy, beautiful mountain environment has nurtured a self-supporting startup tech ecosystem. Sponsor We already wrote about Boulder in our Never Mind the Valley series , and recently had the chance to visit the city and lunch with four of the region's startups. Here is what we found. Community Support RWW's Never Mind the Valley series: The Boulder startup community, continues to be a supportive, passionate community with talented individuals, inspired ideas that is affecting change politically and economically in the United States. Lunching with four startups that Micah Baldwin organized was like lunching with a family. The group we talked with share office space, mentor each other and talk proudly of each others ideas and accomplishments. The Underground Rail Road Attracting talent is foundational to any startup environment. Eric Marcoullier, co-founder of Gnip described the "underground railroad" of transients that have made their way from Silicon Valley to Boulder. "Weekly I would get emails asking about what Boulder was like. Eventually I just started telling people to come here, visit and ask the locals themselves," he said. Venture capitalists have also made their way from busy Silicon Valley to the Boulder Valley. Affecting Change - The Startup Visa Act Once you have the foundation of talented motivated individuals, ideas flow. Brad Feld of TechStars took the idea for a national startup visa bill and made it a reality. TechStars receives proposals from all over the world. Startups based in foreign countries come on tourist visas with great ideas - and potential jobs are being sent home with them. The startup bill seeks to change this. The bill will enable companies that do not have U.S. citizen or resident status, but who have blessed by at least $100,000 in VC investment, to start their companies in the United States. Measuring Outcomes The four thought-provoking, pioneering startups we met with had had nothing but positive things to say about TechStars and starting a business in Boulder. Each had a unique story; two of them were locals and all of them men. Gnip Eric Marcoullier , co-founder of Gnip , launched two years ago with the unique idea of providing data collection and analysis of social signals across multiple social websites to help companies improve their product and service experience. The Gnip platform and service bridges the gap between the data APIs between large companies and multiple social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Post Rank. ReadWriteWeb has covered Gnip extensively . Since its launch, Gnip has changed its technology strategy and will be re-launching soon. Everlater Natty Zola and Nate Abbott spent one year sleeping on couches as they traveled across five continents before they came up with the concept for Everlater . Everlater allows travelers to easily record and share their travel experiences through Twitter and Facebook. The platform allows users to use data from across multiple photo sharing sites. People can also publish their travel "scrapbooks". An algorithm lays out the book automatically so you don't have to. For hopeless photo organizers like me, this is a godsend! Next Big Sound Alex White , co-founder Next Big Sound , provides cultural analytics specifically to music companies. Music professionals can track how fans interact with their music, or music from many musicians across sites such as MySpace and LastFM. It is currently developing a premium service. Graphic.ly Micah Baldwin is not only social hub-connector extraordinaire, but also works for the uniquely cool comic book community Graphic.ly . Graphic.ly, which is currently in private beta, hopes to open opportunities for comic book creators, publishers and enthusiasts that are currently suffering under a one distributor model - as well as reawaken America's and the world's love for online comics. Members can both purchase and discuss comic books on Graphic.ly. Ties to the Universities Startup's ties with Colorado universities are immature, but starting to materialize. The morning of our lunch someone from the Colorado startup community (who we promised not to name) had met with the University of Colorado. As the individual put it, "Universities are turning out graduates prepped for a traditional computer science career at the likes of Lockheed Martin. We don't need MBAs - we need coders." The local Universities are overlooking careers in startups that are based - literally - around the corner or down from "The Hill" as a viable career option. An exception, University of Colorado Law School is has been offering startups free legal advice in exchange for student experience. Judging from the close-knit group of entrepreneurs we saw, Boulder has matured significantly since the dot-com boom and bust. The only thing lacking at lunch was more estrogen. Discuss
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Never Mind the Valley: Here's Boulder, Part 2
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A ReadWriteWeb Guide Ever since its inception, the Internet has blurred the boundaries between author and audience. Whether you're a blogger, a pillar of the printed word, a podcast coinnaseur or a developer dealing with the latest CMS, navigating the next step in Internet publishing can be a feat. So, hit up these 10 events at SXSW Interactive 2010 to say goodbye to Gutenberg and hello to the interactive, multimedia, real-time, crowdsourced and community-funded future of online publishing. Sponsor This is part of a series of ReadWriteWeb guides to SXSW Interactive 2010. If this guide isn't your cup of tea, be sure to check back for more information soon! ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income Wanna ditch that desk job for the cubicle-less life of a professional blogger? What better way to kick off your SXSW Interactive 2010 than with a book reading from the editor and founder behind ProBlogger , Digital-Photography-School.com , and Twitip , three blogs that collectively reach over 3 million unique readers a month. Before you get into any panels predicting the death of this or that, let's start off with how you're going to start a blog and become rich, wealthy and wise. The Revenge Of Editorials If book readings aren't your bag, then how about a workshop on how to get to the bottom of all this content we create by the second? "As the Internet has accelerated the creation of all types of content, it's become more and more difficult to sift through that content and find something of quality. We've tried it with machines and even mass consensus but the results are either wrong or lowest common denominator. The irony in all this is that we really need other humans to help us. The vast breadth of content on the Web only highlights what we've always relied upon: the valued opinion of others." Critical Tits: Rights, Cameras and the Immediacy Age What happens when every member of an audience suddenly becomes an author? Eyes from every angle and a battle over the right to create versus the right to privacy. Come watch as CNET News ' Daniel Terdiman and Burning Man's Andie Grace surely take two separate sides on this issue. "The EFF recently argued that Burning Man's not as open or nurturing as people think, and uses the DMCA to control photographers' rights. This caused a firestorm of controversy, forcing Burning Man to say its interests are protecting its trademark and attendees from being exploited by unscrupulous photographers. This panel will explore the tensions and the legal/community issues this controversy raised." Funding Your Projects from the Crowd "Crowdfunding inverts much that is wrong with traditional funding by breaking down the barrier between creators and audiences, and turning fundraising into a interactive experience. This panel brings together several perspectives from the world of crowdfunding to explain different approaches to raising money from the audience for bloggers, artists, podcasters, developers, filmmakers, musicians, and more." Wikipedia Gets an Upgrade: Collaborative Video We can't really get away with talking about the wild world of online publishing without mentioning one of the founding fathers of all that is interactive and communal - Wikipedia . But can Wikipedia really take the next step and go to video? "Wikipedia is the most successful collaborative experiment in human history. Now it's getting a big upgrade: video. OGG Theora video paired with open source tech by Kaltura is evolving the wiki and prompting some big questions. Can wiki video work as well as wiki text? What does video mean to the Wikipedia community? How long until Grandma can hop in and improve the video entry on her favorite old crooner?" Transmedia 2010: Are We There Yet? While we're at it, not only have we left the printing press in the dust, but our standard categorization and assembly of media may be on the way out too. So, let's throw the baby out with the bathwater and get to talking transmedia . And you thought Wikipedia might be complicated. "The promise and possibilities of transmedia storytelling have been on the horizon for several years. The concept involves immersive storytelling that utilizes multiple media outlets concurrently to enhance and advance the narrative. Some see this as a better way of totally involving an ever more fragmented and distracted audience. So join us for a "late breaking" assessment of the state of the movement. Has transmedia finally arrived?" ReadWriteWeb's Party Continuing along with the idea of traditional and less-traditional media, we'd love it if you stopped by our party on Sunday night! We're cohosting with NPR, PBS and a few others at KLRU's Legendary Austin City Limits Studio. We'll have live bands, Tex-Mex nosh, margaritas - the quintessential Austin experience. Free shuttles will be available at the Hilton. How To Save Journalism With Drew Curtis of Fark , Jeff Webber of USAToday , Kelly McBride of The Poynter Institute and Matthew Palevsky of The Huffington Post , find out how the Internet is going to save, not kill, jouarnalism. "Much has been said about the death of journalism, but little has been offered in way of solutions. This panel will focus on solutions instead of problems, consensus viewpoints from both old and new media, and offer new insights into the operational structure of journalism and media for the 21st century." A Brave New Future for Book Publishing Bringing it back down to a realm we've almost forgotten, what about the life of the good old book? What's coming next? Will we break out of the binding? "Call SXSW 2009's infamous ''New Think for Old Publishers'' (aka ''Geeks School New York'') a missed opportunity. How did book publishing become the last media industry to embrace digital and how will this change? New publishing models, strategy and a brave future for books and we who love them." R.I.P. Content Management System What better way to end your SXSW 2010 with a timely prediction of the death of CMS as we know it? "The medium is the message. On the web, the medium is community. This shift has made legacy CMS products as outdated as scribes and printing presses. Open source technologies are disrupting this market and moving into mainstream enterprises. Join Drupal founder Dries Buytaert as he discusses how social publishing will bring content and community together." Those are our SXSW Interaction recommendations for publishers of all stripes. If you've got suggestions or feedback, let us know in the comments! See you in Austin, folks! Discuss
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SXSW 2010 for Publishers
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I had the opportunity to talk Monday with Danny Wong, one of the co-founders of the startup Blank Label which allows customers to create custom men's dress shirts . Users can pick fabrics, collar styles, cuff styles, size and fit options, as well as embroider custom monograms. The company is the brainchild of Wong's partner, Fan Bi, who developed the idea during an exchange program between the Boston area's Babson College (a school we've mentioned before for it's entrepreneurship programs) and his school in his home of Australia. Sponsor Bi and Wong initially hired locally, bringing a Boston-based graphic designer on board, but eventually they were forced to look beyond the east coast for a programmer. After hiring their lead developer in Orange County, California, Bi's exchange program ended, forcing him back to Australia, and splitting the Blank Label team across three distant locations, but the fledgling company has still managed to grow. Bi now lives in Shanghai where he can run the company's supply chain with their manufacturer, while the rest of the team works virtually in California and Massachusetts. Wong and Blank Label are an excellent example for startups in smaller communities that need to hire employees outside of their location. Here are some excerpts from my interview with Wong on the pros and cons of working with a split team in a startup as well as some insights into how they've managed to get off the ground and continue to grow. What lead Blank Label to become a split team? We couldn't find someone local. We dug really deep, we tried to leverage our secondary network. All three of us were in the Boston, Massachusetts area at the time, and we were trying to find this fourth partner who could do programming and who could make something really amazing for us without us having to outsource. We've had a tremendous amount of terrible stories with outsourcing, we even had an article written about us on Forbes.com about how we decided to bring someone onboard as opposed to outsourcing because we had so many issues with outsourcing. But the fact of the matter was, on the east coast, we couldn't find anyone that was good. Theres definitely an abundance of software talent on the west coast and getting an awesome, passionate technical co-founder even at a distance who believed in the vision, who had thought about the idea space a few years previous was a bigger advantage than the disadvantage of not having him local. So you were looking for someone who could program but also had the entrepreneurial mindset? Yes. And that was hard to find on the east coast? Because I'm sure there's plenty of programmers coming out of the colleges out in Boston. Some of them have the entrepreneurial spirit as well, but part of the problem was that a lot of them didn't believe in us because we were an unproven concept. We had an idea, and our team didn't have the best credentials, but we had an idea and we were incredibly motivated. Naturally, people will be skeptical. That's interesting because that's kind of how ventural capital goes too, east coast to west coast. You won't get as much funding on the east coast for something that's not as proven a model as you would in Silicon Valley where they're more likely to invest in something more risky . Yeah, well there's also a cultural difference. We're more conservative on the east coast, just as a culture. On the west coast they're incredibly liberal, they're not averse to risk taking. They're not averse to change. That's why you see all of these disruptive startups coming out of the west coast. There are some people pushing it on the east coast, but certainly not as many in proportion or in volume compared to the west coast. So you eventually found your fourth partner? So we found a co-founder, we found him through the web...We've just had an interesting relationship since. A few more details about the team dynamic: we've never met Zeeshan. And he's the programmer from California? Yeah he's out there. Alec, our graphic designer, and I are now in Boston... Towards the end of 2009 Fan was finishing his exchange program at Babson, I attend Bentley, Alec graduated in June from Roger Williams. Alec and I barely see each other, but we go out now and then on the weekends. Fan's visa soon expired because he finished his exchange program at Babson in December... Immediately after new years he flew out to Australia, spent some time with his family, and now he's moved to Shanghai for the business...We decided to move Fan out there because it was the best solution for the company. Now he's working with our supplier directly, and we have a new supplier, we have better quality control, we can source more fabrics, we have transparency with the supplier, we know more about our raw costs, the time it takes to produce a product, and then we've figured out better shipping options to get the product to the consumer faster. So how do you collaborate over such long distances? We use web-based document sharing, we use Dropbox and Google Docs . We use video conferencing, we use ooVoo instead of Skype because ooVoo allows us to do multiple-person video conferencing. We also use a couple project management tools, Acunote specifically to set goals and sprints for our web-based projects. What's it like to set up a manufacturing partnership with a company in China? That's got to be a daunting thing to look at. Yeah. When Fan was living in Australia he used to go over to Shanghai every summer because that's where his [extended] family was. He would get his products custom made and that's how he came up with this idea...He decided to go snooping around and he found a manufacturer and they had direct contact at the beginning...He set up the supply chain. We were working through an agency which put us through to a manufacturer so that was a little sloppy. The manufacturer itself was talking directly with us so we couldn't tell them exactly what we wanted. There were too many steps in the process because we would talk to the agency who would talk to the manufacturer, and the agency was pretty much a middle man, and the problem there was our costs were higher, and sometimes the message gets mixed up. It was complicated, it definitely was, and there was also a time delay because we have to talk to the middle-man and the middle-man has to find time to talk to the manufacturers. Not to mention the time-zone differences. Yeah... Our original manufacturer, their main business was suits, and they just happened to do shirts too, and we pushed them to do things a little different, and they said "Oh, what are you doing? No one ever does this?...You're putting to much pressure on us, you're asking for a quick turn-around, we don't have time for this...For us to make one of your shirts, we could have made 4 other shirts that were mass produced." So our interests weren't really aligned, and they're expertise weren't there. Our tailors now work specifically with creating dress shirts every day, so we just told them to do things a little different and they've done very well. So being bootstrapped, was that one of the things that led you to create this split-team? Yeah, if we had investors I'm sure they would have pushed us to be near each other. And that's the problem with seeking investment right now, there's no way we could relocate Zee because he has a competitive salary at his day job right now. I would think that if you did relocate, I would think San Francisco would be a good place not only because its Silicon Valley and investors are there, but its also a bridge city from China and Japan where manufacturers are. Right, that's a good point, and we certainly would not be averse to moving over to California. The only problem, for one, there's Fan's visa issue. Alec and I are free to move, I'd be happy to take some time off from school if that's needed. There would be no problem for us to move, and we'd be more than happy to. One potential problem might be that we're comfortable with our network here [in Boston]. Fan's talked about how he'd be excited to move out to the west coast, it's where startups thrive. It seems like you've got a pretty good setup going right now with the manufacturers in China. Yeah and we need him there for a couple more months at least. It's undetermined how long he's gonna be there, but fortunately the cost of living is low. It's not ideal for him to move back here. Are you looking to get funding, or are you trying to bootstrap as long as you can? That's a good question. I would say that we're going to be bootstrapping it for a while. We're not actively seeking funding, and we have no real intentions of seeking funding anytime soon. Perhaps a year from now, but I certainly would say any earlier than six months from now. Has anyone approached you about funding? We spoke to TechStars because Bill Warner even ordered one of our shirts. He was interested in us applying, it wasn't an offer but he encouraged us to apply, but then the program would have been this year and we're a split team so it just wouldn't work out. I would think that you guys might be perfect for an incubator situation but you guys are so split up that it makes it a lot harder. Yeah we're too far split apart [for an incubator]. We were looking at, "How are we going to deal with Zee, how can we negotiate to allow him to be there?" Now we're going to be split between Boston, Orange County and Shanghai for quite a while. Do you think that not being able to work face-to-face has been a hurdle you've had to overcome, or is it not that big of a deal? I feel connected to the team because I get to see them twice a week because we're video conferencing. It adds a little more reality to a situation. We used to do phone conferences, and for one I hate holding my phone to my face for that long and two, you're looking at other things while you're talking. With video conferencing you get to see your partners' gesticulations, facial expressions, it seems more real...We use Google Chat or Skype for IM or small calls. Is there anything else you want to add about the split team experience? For some teams it will be important to have a split team for business and split operation puposes. Fan is in Shanghai managing our supply chain, I'm here building our Boston network, Zeeshan's out in Orange County...with the world's top developers, learning more, exchanging tips and notes. Networking and business purposes, it can be very beneficial for those reasons. If you can have it any way you wanted, which would you choose? Is the price of being split up worth the advantage of being able to network in these different cities, and tap these different talent pools? Yes! I full agree with that statement. Going back to your first question, I honestly wish I was in Europe right now. Because fashion is huge out there? Yes, they have so much purchasing power compared to us. If we were to charge our prices over there, people would swallow up our product. For a product with our value proposition, I certainly think that we could make a lot of money there. We are launching international shipping in a week or so, but I would love to be working over there. It would be great to just get on the map and be disruptive globally. Is there a situation for startups that you would recommend they split up their team? Especially since you guys are from Boston which is one of the bigger east coast startup cultures but it's not the largest in the states, so you are forced to look around in other cities for talent. Would you suggest that startups in a similar situation try to do that too? Yeah I certainly would encourage startups to look for resources elsewhere. The status quo was that you had to find someone local that you can sit and have coffee with every day. If you were too poor to afford an office, which most people are, you can sit in Startbucks and get free refills everyday. But things are changing, and luckily with the evolution of technology you can interact virtually with a team and you can have a wonderful team dynamic this way. I would encourage people to look near and far to find the people that have the skills necessary for their business to explode...There's someone out there who can add value to your team and that is more than happy to jump on. Discuss
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Managing a Split Team: An Interview with Blank Label's Danny Wong
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In the West, the concept of the 'read/write Web' is a relatively easy one to get behind. Everybody can contribute content to the Web ('write'), as well as read it - it's a very democratic notion and a big reason why I named this blog ReadWriteWeb back in 2003. However in countries where democracy doesn't prevail, the read/write Web is often subject to censorship rules. In fact, ReadWriteWeb China was taken off the Web - as one part of the closure of community translation service Yeeyan - for about a month starting early December 2009. In preparation for an upcoming event in New York City with Chinese digital activist and artist Ai Weiwei - in which I'm a participant, along with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey - we look into the censorship issues and closure risks facing Web publishers in China. Sponsor The Global Times recently published a special report about censorship in China . It is an illuminating analysis of a number of publishers who have been censored or who self-censor themselves in order to survive. Join us for live streaming from the Paley Center in New York City , on March 15, for a conversation between Chinese digital activist Ai Weiwei, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and RWW founder Richard MacManus. The topic of the event is the emergence of digital activism for fostering positive social change. According to Wikipedia , Internet censorship in China is "conducted under a wide variety of laws and administrative regulations." In particular China looks to censor political or social content. In mid-2009 a number of prominent Western social networking sites were blocked in China, including Facebook and Twitter . Western media speculated that the bans were put in place to prevent activists from using social networks to organize themselves - which happened in Iran in June of 2009, when Iranian election protesters used Twitter to call attention to their cause. Self-censorship Inside China, self-censorship is practiced by many web publishers in order to prevent trouble. "Self-censorship is the rule of survival that prevents popular websites from being shut down," said veteran web developer Zoe Wang in The Global Times. However, self-censorship is difficult to do in practice - because it's not regulated by a single authority and so there are a lack of clear rules on what to censor. Web publishers in China are never sure what could get their site shut down. On sites driven by user-generated content, publishers routinely censor political content. But while this may appease the government, it risks upsetting the core users. The Global Times article outlines what's happening on Douban , a popular social network in China with 33 million registered users. Censorship has recently tightened on Douban content, including photos, poetry and book reviews. Site Closures, Including RWW China The Golbal Times points to three recent examples of sites closed down by authorities: Fanfou, Yeeyan and Blogbus. The latter two were recovered in January. These site closures directly affected our own company, as Yeeyan is our syndication partner for ReadWriteWeb China. Yeeyan is a community translation website (our initial review 3 years ago ), which publishes some well-known Western news sites such as Guardian, The Guardian, Time Magazine, the New York Times and of course ReadWriteWeb. In early December, Yeeyan was forced to shut down its site - including ReadWriteWeb China. At the time of the closure, the following message was posted to the Yeeyan homepage by the Yeeyan team: "Due to our errors in handling some of the articles on the website, we went against the relevant regulations; therefore Yeeyan has to temporarily shut off its server, and adjust the relevant content." Ethan Zuckerman from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School concluded that "at least one of the authorities that control the Chinese internet - which include the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology - found the prospect of frequent, high-quality translation of US and European media [from Yeeyan] threatening." Yeeyan was back on the air in January (using .org instead of .com) and I'm certainly very pleased to see that ReadWriteWeb China is back as a result. Free the read/write Web! There's no shortage of rhetoric from the West about why China should cease censorship of the Web. Indeed Google made a brave move earlier this year by threatening to pull out of China if its continued to be pressured into censoring its search results. While there has been no resolution in the Google-China case as yet, at least the issue is being highlighted and challenged by companies of Google's stature in 2010. We hope that ReadWriteWeb's participation in the March 15 event at the Paley Center in New York City, where I will be discussing these and other issues alongside prominent Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei and Twitter's Jack Dorsey, helps encourage China to set the read/write Web free. Bookmark our special Weiwei webpage to track the latest buzz about the March 15 event and view a video about Ai Weiwei's art and digital activism. Discuss
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Censorship in China: How ReadWriteWeb China Was Closed Down For a Month
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