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

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

#61

Post by palish »

PooperPhilo wrote: post #27
palish wrote: post #12

EDIT: Post removed. I truly apologize for offending you. I don't like the idea of making people unhappy, so I've removed my post.

I disagree on the intellectual scene - it depends where you are in Saint Louis. The Metropolitan Area is most definitely socio-economically segregated and that is going to have an impact on the distribution of intellectuals. In the area there are some fairly solid institutions as well with intelligent researchers and employees working at them - atleast two med schools, two business schools, a handful of other misc. u…

Hi! Thanks for the kind reply. Would you mind putting an email address into the "about" box in your profile? I had a question or two, if you have time.

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

#62

Post by untog »

Alex3917 wrote: post #49
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, at least not for any amount we've seen spent to date. It has to grow organically." I wouldn't be surprised if NYC does it. I think if you funded 40 companies at 250k each in grants then you could easily get a class as good as YC with the right people as judges, and considering they are already pumping 2 billion dollars into this Cornell Technion thing it seems likely that some…

NYC is doing a wide array of interesting things- they've run a few hackathons and have an app creation competition running right now (http://www.nycbigapps.com) with cash prizes and the possibility of becoming a TechStars finalist. They haven't gone as far as offering up huge grants, but I wouldn't surprised if something like that happened for Cornell Tech grads.

Disclaimer: I entered an app into the BigApps competition, so I'm partly biased in publicising it.

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

#63

Post by STLthrowaway »

jroseattle wrote: post #59
2mur wrote: post #46

I hate writing this comment because I actually have a lot of warm feelings about St. Louis. I grew up there and went to college + medical school there (until I was about 25). Then I left. I always say that St. Louis is a nice place to be from. It's a nice place to raise a family. But I'm never going to move back. Or under extreme protest if my wife decides she wants to move back to be by family. There's just nothing…

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?

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

#64

Post by ratsbane »

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..."

At least, not for that amount of money. But maybe they can. The first step is to try.

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

#66

Post by chrisamiller »

tptacek wrote: post #37
jws wrote: post #25

Things to know about St. Louis: The City of St. Louis is a separate entity from St. Louis county. When I last checked the employee map for a 150 engineer software company, there were two employees living in the City of St. Louis, (a receptionist, and a newly divorced man in an apartment) the remainder where in St. Louis County, St. Charles County, and living on the "east side" in Illinois (but far enough to clear Eas…

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.

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

#67

Post by almost_usual »

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?

Haha, sorry for the pointless comment but this is on point.

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

#68

Post by almost_usual »

natesm wrote: post #53
2mur wrote: post #46

I hate writing this comment because I actually have a lot of warm feelings about St. Louis. I grew up there and went to college + medical school there (until I was about 25). Then I left. I always say that St. Louis is a nice place to be from. It's a nice place to raise a family. But I'm never going to move back. Or under extreme protest if my wife decides she wants to move back to be by family. There's just nothing…

> They drive there to ... drink Well, that's a little terrifying.

Welcome to the Midwest

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

#69

Post by wheels »

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.

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 to date". You probably could buy a startup scene. But not for a laughable $500k. Both pg and Brad Feld have written on such. The gist, from memory, is that it'd take a whole lot more money and a couple decades.

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

#70

Post by jroseattle »

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?

Haha, so true. I was actually going to include the "where did you go to high school?" question as an example, but thought it would be tl;dr.

To those not from St. Louis, take heed: you're measure in "class" is determined by your answer to this question. If you're an outsider, you're relegated to lesser-than status.

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