The dust from my cross country move is starting to settle, and after spending yesterday at Baker beach in the shadow of the Golden Gate bridge, I am refreshed and back to Enter Venture.

Over the past year (only some of which has been recorded on Enter Venture) I grew attached to the New York City startup scene, Silicon Alley.  It is the only startup hub this early entrepreneur has ever known, and, well, you never forget your first.  I started Enter Venture in NYC, and it is entirely based on shared ideas with friends and colleagues from there.

I tried out a number of different Meetup events ranging from Internet Marketing, Columbia Venture Community, NY Video 2.0, NY Tech, and a Mashable event or two.  The scheduling gods conspired to keep me from attending the New York Web Standards meetings, but for the web standards-curious, these sounded phenomenal too.

I loved the underdog feeling at NY Tech events.  There was a constant sense of mission to prove the success of NY Tech.  There is a feeling that the NYC technology industry is going through a special transition right now.  People are asking questions, but they’re also looking for answers.

I’m not alone in this feeling either.  Mark Davis — a VC, blogger, and leader of the Columbia Venture Community — is in a much better position to make this statement and says the same with his NY Region is Hot post on Get Venture.

While looking for jobs in the Bay Area, I noticed this.  It seemed to me that there were more jobs posted for NYC than the Bay Area.  That’s a highly unscientific assessment, but I have also heard several early entrepreneurs think about, and decided not to move to the Bay Area just to be a part of the NYC community.  Something’s going on in NYC.

Over the past year, I also worked for the NYC Dept. of Small Business Services on the NYC Business Express project and website.  Over the next few years, the site will change the way largely traditional, non-tech businesses interact with city government.  There are too many stories of restaurant, laundry and grocery store owners spending precious hours in line for permits, only to find themselves tripped up on the city’s maze of requirements.  The group I worked with is attacking these problems from every angle, and I was priveleged to be a part of this large, difficult project. (I wont say much more about my time with SBS except that I’ll probably come back to this.  There’s an enormous experience that I need to process a bit more.)

So why did I leave all of this and move my life to Silicon Valley?  The reasons are not all work related, but the ones that are have to do with experience.  Like my process with Enter Venture, I want to experience a wide swath.   There are lessons from Silicon Alley that I’ll take with me, but Silicon Valley, and San Francisco in particular, will require a new perspective.  Whether I fail or succeed with that new perspective, I believe I will be wiser for having taken the chance.

I’ll have a new job with a startup that will color that perspective, but I’ll also have  new events, new lessons, and new experiences to share with early entrepreneurs.  I’m aware that I’m entering the echo chamber but ready to embrace and explore it.  I even have a new whiteboard, currently full of a few months worth of post ideas.

Stay tuned.  Enter Venture has gone west

Posted in Blogging, New York City, SF Bay Area Comments