As many of you have recently seen with my last two posts and the condensed version on Voice of San Diego, I have shown some concern for the health of San Diego as a viable startup community. And this is not just because of some missteps of the community at large, but also because of our own city government putting in place a law that prohibits startups from operating from home in many instances, as well as limiting the hours from 8am to 5pm. I won't attempt to go into that with this post as Olin Hyde is doing a remarkable job of getting our startup community's voice heard with Katherine Poythress of the UT leading the journalistic investigation into it. She recently did a story on Plug and Play and featured CrowdClock pretty heavily as well. 

What I will instead focus on this time is what can we do to improve with the hand we have been dealt with in San Diego. Do we pack up like so many before us and head north? Do we look down on those of us who critique San Diego and do nothing to improve it? Believe me, I have been told to my face that "San Diego is not Silicon Valley, and it never will be". That attitude rubs me the wrong way because in effect it means even those of us considered "successful" in our community are not even trying to compete with the best of the best. We have to compete in my opinion. We should not try to become them, that is not what I have ever intended, but compete with them with what we have. Boulder, Austin, Boston, New York, these are all cities which are doing a damn fine job of it. Some of you look to the Forbes article about San Diego being the #1 city for startups. I love it! It's a great article, and a great morale booster for us. But let us not delude ourselves into thinking that we are anywhere close to where have to be. We must continue the fight. Blair Giesen is doing a very fine job of bringing lots of positive attention to San Diego as can be seen in his latest Voice of San Diego article, like Brant and Eric have been doing for years. So I am doing that by putting together something quite exciting with industry shakers and movers. The people who are already knee deep in the community, as well as those who are just starting out. There will be much more information coming out soon on this. You will hear from one of us about this soon. And eventually, everyone will. 

At CrowdClock we have some very exciting things going on as well. We've gotten a lead investor from the Bay Area, a very fine new Director of Business Development also joining us from the Bay Area who will help us grow to the next level. More on that announcement coming soon. 

Sincerely,