One Step Forward DC, Two Back

It seems that the DC area cant get the monkey off its back, no matter how hard we try. As you have read here, as well as elsewhere, there is a groundswell of a pretty cool tech community building here in the DC area. Granted we are fighting many stigmas and preconceived notions about the area and its viability to produce solid startup ideas, nonetheless we continue to try. A little help would be nice though.

On the heels of a great Mashable event in DC the other night comes a not so glowing review. Those of us that were there had a great time chatting about the various projects everyone is working on, for profit or just for fun. It is continued evidence of a the great vibe here in the area. So to be honest I was more than a little disappointed to read an article from the Washington Post recapping the event. Dan Beyer’s started out with

Washington has been trying to build a Web 2.0 community for more than a year. A cluster of AOL alumni, local college graduates, and people in their 20s and early 30s are trying to show that D.C. can be, if not Silicon Valley, a major presence for social networking Web sites, user generated content and cutting-edge Web apps.

and I couldn’t agree more. It was how he finished off the article that took me a back a bit.

Therein lies one of the big issues facing the local Web scene. Local venture capitalists are pretty skeptical of these companies, many of which have big ideas for the Web but little idea about how to make money from those ideas.

…

Unclear what some, or all, of those companies do? Join the club. (Hey–I’m not a luddite–I use a bevy of Web 2.0 tools in my daily life and know what the programming framework Ruby on Rails is. I even like white boards, the method of choice for diagramming sites in meetings. But it’s not clear how all these ideas are going to turn into businesses.)

It is absolutely true that the VC business is just that, a business and they need to be assured of a promising return on their investment. But a little enthusiasm for the local team would not hurt would it. And while he is looking around to see what startups have viable money making business plans, he should look elsewhere. Is it only the local companies who need to find the holy grail to get funding ? I doubt it. Lets see, I am not sure even now, Twitter has a business model. They have a user base and that seems to be enough for them, because if you build it and the users come, money will follow some how or another. Has he seen some of the shitty products out there that have actually been funded … why do you think TechCrunch has a “Dead Pool”? and I don’t see too many DC startups on that list.

What kind of got me even more was his down tone on the local companies. We have an uphill battle we are fighting here to begin with and it does not help when the local mainstream media continues to question the locals attempts at success. Interestingly enough at the Mashable event I had a was chatting with Nick O’Neill and Aaron Brazell and Nick made mention he was happy to see some of the Post writers at the event, and how a lot of what is written in the local press is so negative about the community. So I was very happy to see this post the next day by Post writer Kim Hart. But then it was all tempered by this dash of negativism.

As a growing community, we need all the help we can get, especially from the mainstream media. Like it or not, that is how many get their news. Unless that news becomes a little more positive the road will be long and hard to show people the possibilities are here. A long road yes, an impossible drive, No.