Chicago startups to watch in 2015

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 9:06 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #10

jjwiseman wrote: post #9

If you’re a recent startup founder, chances are you’ve taken a huge paycut. Well guess what - America was built on innovators like yourself and there are government assistance programs designed to help you while you sacrifice to grow your business. mRelief helps a user determine whether they qualify for Illinois government assistance programs like Food Stamps. Wow.

Chicagoan here. The amount of fraud in welfare here is astounding. I regularly go to the grocery store and see people with nicer cars than me using their link card to pay for "groceries." By groceries I mean high-end items like lobster and steak, which they are clearly cashing out the card on and not shopping for food like everyone else. I don't know how they qualify for this, but imagine via some creative accounting…

Post by antidaily » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 9:49 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #13

jjwiseman wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welfare fraud is one of those things that people seem to think is rampant, and politicians often encourage that idea, but when measured turns out to be pretty infrequent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_fraud#In_the_United_St... http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/12/20/255819681/the... http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/08/3136631/lepage-w...

None of your links are local to Chicago. Yes, diluted nationwide I'm sure its an acceptable loss, but locally things are different. Politics are local and dismissing my experience with nationwide links makes you look especially disingenuous here. This is like saying Detroit is very safe to live in if you look at nationwide crime stats. The only thing local here is the Reagan welfare queen comment from almost 40 years…

Post by tptacek » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 10:08 PM UTC

kevinmchugh wrote: post #6

I appreciate BuiltInChicago as an effective way to promote knowledge about the Chicago tech scene and I looked there the last couple times I was job-searching, but this list is really uninspiring. Uber for [moving, dry-cleaning, beauty needs], clones of better-known startups, clones of startups that have already failed. There should be more focus on what Chicago's uniquely good at, and what makes us not just a worse-…

Post by kevando » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 10:09 PM UTC

kevinmchugh wrote: post #6

I appreciate BuiltInChicago as an effective way to promote knowledge about the Chicago tech scene and I looked there the last couple times I was job-searching, but this list is really uninspiring. Uber for [moving, dry-cleaning, beauty needs], clones of better-known startups, clones of startups that have already failed. There should be more focus on what Chicago's uniquely good at, and what makes us not just a worse-…

Post by kevando » Fri, Feb 06, 2015, 10:10 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #25

kevinmchugh wrote: post #6

I appreciate BuiltInChicago as an effective way to promote knowledge about the Chicago tech scene and I looked there the last couple times I was job-searching, but this list is really uninspiring. Uber for [moving, dry-cleaning, beauty needs], clones of better-known startups, clones of startups that have already failed. There should be more focus on what Chicago's uniquely good at, and what makes us not just a worse-…

This isn't a very good snapshot of what's going on in Chicago. I don't know what kind of outreach this site does, but it seems to be tied to local investors.