9 out of 10 Atlanta entrepreneurs agree, Atlanta’s investment ecosystem is sorely lacking in the area we need it most: small investments in good ideas. We aren’t talking about millions or even hundreds of thousands of dollars; that’s WAY more than most of us need! We also aren’t talking about mature businesses with great projections; these business don’t look good on spreadsheets because we’re still building them!
So we banded together to create START Atlanta, a non-profit to fill exactly this void. The goal of START Atlanta is to get the funding and support that Atlanta’s young startups need to cultivate their ideas, build great teams, and “graduate” them to the next level (whatever they define as the “next level”.) We will achieve this by bringing the community together and creating a site that acts as a hub for investors and high-net-worth individuals to match up with early-stage companies and entrepreneurs. We hope that low friction and high visibility will foster the kind of growth Atlanta’s startup sector desperately needs.
We’ve already arranged some great sponsors and excellent buzz around the idea, now we just need to build the site! So we’re holding a weekend event to do just that. So if you’re an investor, an entrepreneur, a developer, a designer, a blogger, or a potential sponsor, we’d like you to participate!
We created a Facebook event where you can go to RSVP for the weekend. Here are the details and schedule breakdown for the weekend:
Open Discussion: Friday, September 19th, 6:30pm
The first night is dedicated to listening to the community. We want the ultimate customers (entrepreneurs and investors) to participate in helping us gather requirements for the site. What functionality do you need? What features do you wish other investment sites offered?
Everyone is welcome on this night. We want a spirited discussion that sets the stage for the whole endeavor. As investors and entrepreneurs talk out their mutual needs, legal and insurance will be offering advice, developers and designers will be gathering requirements, and you lovely bloggers will be covering the birth of this magical new entity in loving detail.
Development Jam: Saturday-Sunday, September 20th-21st, All Day
The rest of the weekend is devoted to construction of the actual site. The development team is made up entirely of local designers and developers, many of whom are also (of course) full-time entrepreneurs, volunteering their time, talent, and effort to seeing this vision realized. We have all manner of product management roles filled, and with many Startup Weekend Alumni in attendance the weekend promises to produce the amazing results we’ve come to expect from this community.
Location: The Appcelerator Offices in Buckhead
Here is the map to the address, but i understand that directions from there are still pretty difficult. The best i can tell you is cross-reference the map with this image, and be nice to security:
If you have any questions or concerns, just drop me a comment!
Hi Loren,
Your blog post was fwded to me by a colleague, Glen Gordon.
I think your idea is phenomenal. But have you had a chance to look at some existing solutions that already do something similar? Companies like Angelsoft, YouNoodle, FundFindr, Vator.tv, TheFunded etc. help accomplish this in some way. Do you think there’s an opportunity for a partnership there somehow?
Best,
ai
Comment by Anand Iyer — September 12, 2008 @ 12:50 pm