I’ve come to learn from others and from our own experiences that its natural – and necessary – to continuously address how duties are divvied up among leadership – especially among multiple founders. When Contactually was first incorporated, we had a pretty simple split between “build” and “sell.” Tony was brought on to “sell” while Jeff...
I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while, as it’s something I’ve often stewed about (when in truth I shouldn’t). There are a lot of charlatans in the startup journey. Charlatans that claim to be angel investors, but haven’t written a check in years, if ever. Charlatans that claim to be working on their startup. Charlatans that will happily advise your...
After a meteoric rise, LivingSocial has had a tough go recently. Between layoffs, lowered valuations, competitor out-maneuvering, and one of the longest downtimes I’ve ever seen in a consumer site, it’s pretty hard to imagine them fully recovering from this to the grandeur that they used to be. For better or for worse, online forums have been watching, and in some cases even cheering...
When comparing friends’ respective industries, one point of pride for the early stage tech community is the strong focus on giving back and helping those one, two, three billion rungs below you up the venture ladder. I would not be where I am today without the advisors and mentors I’ve connected with – whether I’m on the phone with them every day, or simply exchanged a...
I’ve been putting all of my time into Contactually. I’m hesitant to state that we’re “killing it” “crushing it” or “doing really well” as, while we are certainly trending upwards on everything that matters, every day is an intense battle amidst a sea of rejection. Due to that, I’ve scaled back my involvement and presence in the DC...
It’s been a little over a year since we held the first DC Tech Meetup, and a little over a year and a half since we launched ProudlyMadeInDC, which can be considered a catalyst for the Meetup. One can confidently say that everything has been up and to the right with all aspects of the greater DC startup ecosystem; more startups, thriving startups, investments, acquisitions, M+A, etc. For...
One year ago today, we launched ProudlyMadeInDC. I sent out this message to our mailing list In the wee hours of the morning, on December 2nd, 2010, the two of us started throwing together a simple WordPress site, after a dinner discussion with other entrepreneurs about improving the scene in DC. We posted a list of startups that we knew about (a total of 40!), and shared it with a few close...
The past sixth months we’ve seen an explosion in the DC community. Events where we normally may have expected a few dozen of the same faces to show up have now grown into the hundreds. There seems to be this constant flow of new people, new companies, and general enthusiasm around creating new ventures in the region. We’re hoping that this becomes self sustaining, and all signs point...
I’m honored to be on Washingtonian’s list of Tech Titans this year.
Onward and upward.
It’s been a little under five months since we launched the first version of ProudlyMadeInDC, a website that has helped shed light on the growing startup community in DC. It’s received more media attention and traffic than I expected when it was built. Since then, we’ve launched two additional initiatives – the DC Tech Meetup (800 attendees expected for next week) and DC...