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Ten $50,000 grants for startups who move to St. Louis

archgrants.org

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Re: Ten $50,000 grants for startups who move to St. Louis

#71

Post by 2mur »

STLthrowaway wrote: post #63
jroseattle wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up there as well, and moved away and started my own company. Kudos to the team of people trying to get a startup environment off the ground, but I would temper anyone's expectations of this having much long-term value. As 2mur explains, it's a great place to grow up and awesome for families. That said, there are significant issues with the area that ruined any chance of me starting my company in St. Louis. Bey…

>>Beyond the in-your-face social issues, there is an insularity to St. Louis. Wait, where'd you go to high school?

lol it's really like a big small-town, completely exemplified by this question.

Re: Ten $50,000 grants for startups who move to St. Louis

#72

Post by jacques_chester »

chrisamiller wrote: post #66
tptacek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

St Louis has a city income tax?!

1% earnings tax if you either live in the city or work in the city. (If you both live and work in the city, it's still 1%) Frankly, I don't mind paying it. The city is entering a tricky time where it's got some momentum going with a lot of young people, a up-and-coming arts scene, more and more local businesses. If it puts the money to good use, there's hope for revitalizing the city core.

It's not the rate that is unattractive. It's having to deal with yet another income tax bureaucracy.

Re: Ten $50,000 grants for startups who move to St. Louis

#74

Post by Rariel »

wheels wrote: post #69
jpdoctor wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't just buy a startup community I don't know that I've seen it attempted before. More generally, I think this is a very interesting development. As developers move into the cloud, staying in places like silicon valley requires a burn that might not be necessary. Verrry interesting.

There have been a lot of places that have tried it recently. There have been startup "accelerators" and seed funding thingers in non-hub cities popping up like wildfire. I know of programs that have run in Toronto, DC, Chicago, Atlanta, Edinburgh, Santiago and there are many others that I've forgotten. Some of those had public funding. I think the key bit in tptacek's comment is, "not for any amount we've seen spent…

What program like this exists in DC?

Re: Ten $50,000 grants for startups who move to St. Louis

#75

Post by Eliezer »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #58

Honestly... I've lived in St. Louis my whole life (other than collage) and recently went to Startup Weekend St. Louis as well as php and code till dawn meetups. I know only a few people, angel investors from Startup Weekend, community organizers and others who are really trying very hard to get something started here. But it's a very VERY tiny tech community. However, there are angel investors, mentors, startup weeke…

Goal-factoring alert! If videoconferencing technology becomes sufficiently advanced or your parents sign up for cryonics, does that mean you can move to the Bay Area? Have you considered asking your parents if they would rather live in the Bay Area?

Re: Ten $50,000 grants for startups who move to St. Louis

#76

Post by wheels »

Rariel wrote: post #74
wheels wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been a lot of places that have tried it recently. There have been startup "accelerators" and seed funding thingers in non-hub cities popping up like wildfire. I know of programs that have run in Toronto, DC, Chicago, Atlanta, Edinburgh, Santiago and there are many others that I've forgotten. Some of those had public funding. I think the key bit in tptacek's comment is, "not for any amount we've seen spent…

What program like this exists in DC?

LaunchBox Digital started there, then moved to Durham, then moved back to traditional angel investing. In fact, most of the programs that I listed above at this point are defunct, which was kind of what I was getting at.

Re: Ten $50,000 grants for startups who move to St. Louis

#77

Post by vnchr »

Hi guys, I posted this just to see if there'd be a reaction--and wow, there has been. I do some community organizing in the startup scene (see StartLouis.com) in addition to some work with startup legal, funding and incubating. I'll get the Executive Director Sarah Spear to more directly comment to the HN community about this. Also, I'm pretty well informed now on what's going on with this initiative and related ones. Hit me up for questions.

Finally, please know that St. Louis, like any other place, contains diverse people with diverse goals. I have my own combination of concerns and confidence regarding Arch Grants. But bottom-line, it's a good thing and not a bad one. I'd love to chat about the concerns too. There's plenty of legit ones out there :)

Re: Ten $50,000 grants for startups who move to St. Louis

#78

Post by vnchr »

tptacek wrote: post #42

I wonder whether groups like this hadn't ought to stop doing grant/investment programs like this. You can't just buy a startup community, at least not for any amount we've seen spent to date. It has to grow organically. What seems likely to happen here is that adverse selection will allocate these grants to companies with poorer prospects than the total pool of startups, thus creating a track record of failure for th…

I think that's a totally fair assessment. The people backing it are more of the high level folks, testing out the idea--believe it or not, they've raised enough to do more than 10 grants but this is their test run. I'm sure they'll tweak as they go and pivot as necessary. Feedback like yours is great.

Re: Ten $50,000 grants for startups who move to St. Louis

#79

Post by vnchr »

jpdoctor wrote: post #50
tptacek wrote: post #42

I wonder whether groups like this hadn't ought to stop doing grant/investment programs like this. You can't just buy a startup community, at least not for any amount we've seen spent to date. It has to grow organically. What seems likely to happen here is that adverse selection will allocate these grants to companies with poorer prospects than the total pool of startups, thus creating a track record of failure for th…

> You can't just buy a startup community I don't know that I've seen it attempted before. More generally, I think this is a very interesting development. As developers move into the cloud, staying in places like silicon valley requires a burn that might not be necessary. Verrry interesting.

Yeah, I moved from NYC to STL a year ago. The rent differential was AMAZING :) Suddenly, the basics of life weren't a struggle.

Having a community of entrepreneurs around, however, has been a struggle. I started an all night programming group that meets once a month (meetup.com/allnightlong) and a social network for entrepreneurs (startlouis.com) that have helped address the community problem, scratching my own itch. Funding environment is getting better here, too. But it's far from perfect.

Re: Ten $50,000 grants for startups who move to St. Louis

#80

Post by vnchr »

wheels wrote: post #69
jpdoctor wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't just buy a startup community I don't know that I've seen it attempted before. More generally, I think this is a very interesting development. As developers move into the cloud, staying in places like silicon valley requires a burn that might not be necessary. Verrry interesting.

There have been a lot of places that have tried it recently. There have been startup "accelerators" and seed funding thingers in non-hub cities popping up like wildfire. I know of programs that have run in Toronto, DC, Chicago, Atlanta, Edinburgh, Santiago and there are many others that I've forgotten. Some of those had public funding. I think the key bit in tptacek's comment is, "not for any amount we've seen spent…

Yeah, what's key here is that there's more going on then just AG. I'm working with a group to launch a Founder Institute chapter here, for example. And we're working hand-in-hand with AG and a new seed fund that's popped up in the last year. No one initiative can build a community--rather AG's grants are a fruit of the community being built rather than a seed expected to start the whole thing off.
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