This is part of my Venture Studio Series where you can find tons of interviews with entrepreneurs and investors. Cyrus Massoumi and ZocDoc have raised $95M since that fateful day when he had a burst eardrum and couldn't find a doctor to see him right away!
Enjoy his story and insights.
I'm happy to report that this press release went out yesterday announcing the following partnership:
Endeavor Global and Startup Genome are pleased to announce a partnership that will help drive and deepen the cultivation of entrepreneurial ecosystems worldwide.
It’s the mission of Startup Genome to build the world’s most up-to-date database of entrepreneurial communities through a network of local curators. So far over 150 curators across the globe (including many developing nations) have begun layering real-time updates over the existing data in their respective ecosystems with profiles of founders, startups, investors, accelerators, incubators, universities, etc.
Co-founded by Dave Lerner and Shane Reiser, Startup Genome is going beyond mere hyperlinked lists and has already created the first of many data visualizations of these ecosystems to make entrepreneurial communities much more accessible and searchable for entrepreneurs and others worldwide.
Endeavor Global is now working with Startup Genome to add its own layer of curators in many cities and nations where Endeavor operates.
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This is part of my Series on Mentorship.
The last few days in NYC have been harrowing and humbling for everyone, but especially for those living in low-lying areas. Many have lost their homes, many have seen valuable possessions destroyed, and tragically for some of the unluckiest- Sandy took their lives and the lives of loved-ones. The city will be digging-out of the carnage for months- there is widespread destruction to the whole infrastructure of this town. Once again New Yorkers' sense of security and well-being has been massively jarred.
One remarkable thing I think most everyone in the city has witnessed though was the quiet heroism of the nurses, doctors, firemen, police and others that literally kept the city from descending into total chaos and even more pronounced tragedy.
One particularly moving example for us all (pictured above from the Associated Press) was the specter of nurses manually breathing for babies being evacuated down nine flights of stairs from the neo-natal intensive care center when the back-up generators at NYU's Langone Hospital failed. They literally pulled 20 of the most fragile and vulnerable human lives in this city from the abyss. And that was just one story among countless others that emerged over the last several days.
Once again, as was the case over a decade ago, it was the unheralded salt-of-the-earth folks whose grim heroics bore us up in some of the darkest hours New Yorkers have experienced. For these folks, it's just "what we do"- for the rest of us- we can only be awed and eternally grateful.
For the next post in this Mentorship Series, click here
I am a mentor for Blueprint Health and their winter program that starts on Jan 7 is accepting applications for healthcare start-ups. Blueprint Health is a healthcare-focused accelerator program based in NYC that helps early stage healthcare companies get started by providing access to a community, customers and capital. Their companies have raised over $7 million in seed capital from some of the most well-known and respected healthcare VCs and angels. Companies and floating founders can apply by visiting www.blueprinthealth.org.
Check it out!
Our Startup Genome project got some excellent coverage recently in the Silicon Prarie News. I've appended the text below. It captures what we're trying to accomplish for entrepreneurs and others in the startup ecosystem worldwide.
We've got a burgeoning group of remarkable city and state curators all around the world and we're honored to have Brad Feld of Foundry Group and Startup Revolution join us recently as curator of Colorado. Exciting stuff for sure and more to come soon with new releases.
Feel free to check out Startup Genome to learn more about our mission.
OMAHA AUGUST 22, 2012 by SARAH BINDER
Dave Lerner created maps of the startup ecosystems of New York City (partially shown above, click for full) and Boston. Inspired, Shane Reiser reached out. Today, the two are working to take Startup Genome global.
Ever wished you had a directory of all the startups in your city? All the investors who were interested in technology? Or just the right person to join your team?
Startup Genome, an effort by Shane Reiser of Omaha (far left) and Dave Lerner of New York (near left), aims to put all that information on a map, for every startup hub in the world.
Of course, this isn't a new idea. Startup enthusiasts around the globe have data tucked away in spreadsheets or mapped out on whiteboards. The best-known tools for organizing that sort of information include CrunchBase and AngelList.
Reiser, who also works full time with Kohort, noticed while traveling to different cities organizing Startup Weekend events that homegrown directories weren't easy to share, weren't interconnected, usually weren't up to date and were almost never very visual or interactive.
When he saw that Lerner, an entrepreneur, investor and professor, was making maps of New York City andBoston, Reiser reached out.
The goal, Reiser said: "One place where entrepreneurs can find everything they're looking for in their local community."
Use of local curation is what sets Startup Genome (which is not to be confused with the unrelated Startup Compass tool, the Startup Genome Compass) apart from other databases. While anyone can add to Startup Genome, a team of local curators will monitor and edit the information for their community. For instance, the organizers of StartupIowa announced on Monday that they will curate the Iowa Startup and Entrepreneur Directory.
Reiser's belief in the need for local curation was reaffirmed as he edited Startup Genome data for Omaha. After importing data from CrunchBase, Reiser ended up deleting nearly 60 percent of it — including fake companies, dead companies, individuals who had moved on and companies and individuals who weren't really related to startups. Reiser said Startup Genome started with a list of nearly 150,000 companies nationwide, but that has since been edited down to about 80,000.
Reiser said it will be just as important to keep the wrong information out as it will to get the right information in. Initially, startups, founders, investors and resources will be featured while consultants and service providers will be stripped away. Reiser said those auxiliary services might be added back later.
While Reiser and Lerner started discussing the project months ago, Startup Genome has only been in development for eight weeks. Reiser said the site is currently a minimum viable product. The basics are there — including profiles for people and companies, the ability to search by location and filter results (left) — but a lot of functionality, including AngelList integration and a publicly-available API, is still in the works.
The Startup Genome team also hopes that adding visualizations can make the data more useful and aesthetically pleasing. The first will be a Google Maps layer. The second will be a mind map, which is a type of graph that shows the relationships between data points. For example, if you selected a company on the mind map, you might see employees on one side, investors and mentors on another, and all the companies those people are connected to beyond that. Once the API is available, users will be able to build their own visualizations, too.
Startup Genome is a bootstrapped side project for Reiser and Lerner. While the mission is global, they're keeping an eye on the local.
"We care a lot about the city-based startup community," Reiser said. "We want the city to really own their Startup Genome page, and do what they want with it."
Lerner explains Startup Genome in the video below. For more information, visit the blog.
Here's a running compilation of massively helpful links that I've come across over the years that correspond to each phase of launching and operating a startup.
Getting from Zero to One (What To Do Before You Launch)
Dave Lerner: My Series on Getting from Zero to One
Paul Graham: Look in the Mirror (partial) and Look in the Mirror (full)
Venture Hacks: Quick and Dirty Guide to Starting Up
Thinking About Names for Your Startup
Julian Shapiro, Founder of NameLayer, gives an excellent overview
Understanding the Meaning of a Lean Startup
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
Finding A Technical Co-Founder
Humbled MBA: Stop Asking How to Find One: (You Have to Earn One)
Tech Crunch: Stop Looking for a Technical CoFounder
Pitching People
Founder Institute's One Sentence Pitch concept
Understanding Lean Incubation & Investing
Dave McClure, in his inimitable way, lays it out