As the founder of a new startup that is nearing its launch I find the company that I keep is constantly changing based on the rapidly shifting priorities that an early stage startup demands. Over the last three years I divided my time between the various national conferences that relate to the space the startup is in and the seemingly endless number of professional and user group communities that relate to many critical aspects of the startup. You can’t miss out on who the up and coming competition is any more than you can miss out on the latest design and software engineering trends if you really want to be on the cutting edge. There is so much that I have learned during this time. Looking back at the experience ten years ago when I started my last software product company the conversations, conferences and groups seem a lot different. Back then every group seemed a lot more like a happy hour group and the conferences where where you went to learn something new. Maybe it is because I am older now or know who is who more, but I am beginning to notice that the user groups are where people are really going to learn and the conferences are where people are going to drink. Maybe this is because the conferences, while they are different in subject, are becoming more like the high tech happy hours. I attended numerous conferences and happy hours last year. The major difference seemed to be how much the sponsor fees were ($5000 vs. $50 for “BarCamps”) and where the venues were (actual Bars and night clubs vs. Company offices or University Campuses), not who spoke or what was discussed. The SXSW conference discussions (in particular) were more about the party and less about the learning and to top it off, the speakers were the same people that I was encountering at local happy hours. My stock answer for people regarding SXSW is still that I will be going to when I have something that I would like to share with a lot of people who will appreciate something new and cutting edge. The founders of Twitter seemed to both get this and benefit from it too.
In keeping with the title, ‘The Company That We Keep’, I should point out that along the way I have made a lot of amazing friends and acquaintances over the course of the last few years of user grouping, conferencing and hopping from happy hour to happy hour. But in all honesty, somewhere in the last year I started to sense that it was time to move on. Perhaps move on is too strong of a phrase and a better choice of words would be “evolve” or “diversify”. Maybe it was the session at BarCamp on Microbrewing that made it out of the gate or the fact that made a discussion around someone else’s presentation from another BarCamp (rather than being original) or the fact that the Web 3.0 discussion didn’t happen at all (due to a scheduling oversight that killed lots of other cool discussions too) or maybe it was just the fact that the real though leaders just stopped showing up as often and were replaced by the Social Media groupies. Whatever it was, the company that I keep has been evolving as the startup community evolves.
Lately I have found myself mixing it up with user groups when my team is looking for key people that may be found hanging out at a particular event. Right now, for example, we’re looking for a PHP, Ruby on Rails, and JQuery programmers so you may see me at a local PHP, Ruby on Rails or JQuery meetup near you. I’m also spending a lot of time mixing it up with other early stage founders who are considering whether or not to ask for money from investors or who are in the process of raising funds to keep the lights on. A few are looking to turn up the lights. The contrast between the crowds could not be more different. Suits and ties are more common. Hipster shoes are still pretty common. One thing that is a very noticeable difference is the proportion of sales outsourcing firms and lawyers to designers and engineers. While attending the social media mixers and early stage startup events I feel like there is always a large pack of freelance designers and developers. At the investor related events there is always a flock of lawyers and sales outsourcing firms. Another major difference is the number of companies and people who are still talking about offshoring software engineering. In the community and social media events offshoring is still very much a taboo subject, or at least a subject that doesn’t come up frequently. In the investor friendly community offshoring comes up a lot. Even still, there is crossover.
At the end of the day though, the biggest difference that I have found in the two different communities – the social media and early stage crowd vs. the middle to later stage crowd – is the fact that the later stage crowd is full of CEO’s who have done things and who have both feet in the fire vs. the do lots of little things CEO’s who have no idea whether or not they will quit their day jobs and/or freelance gigs to focus on rolling the dice. I still find myself somewhere comfortably in the middle of those two groups. I am self employed and have been for the last going on three years now and am incubating a second company that will be launched in the not so distant future.
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