I’ve recently met with several universities, nonprofits, and government employees who’ve all asked the same question: how can we promote entrepreneurship?  Just like me, they’re distressed about the poor economy and jobs situation, which contrasts dramatically with the growth and tight labor market in the technology ecosystem.  They’re concerned with this issue at both the local and national levels.

The first and primary role of a government is to provide basic public goods competently.  Like many Americans, I’m disappointed that our government sometimes fails to do this.  Above all, I’d like our friends in government and the policy world to figure out how the US government can deliver what it’s supposed to but sometimes doesn’t: sound money; an affordable budget; effective education; functioning infrastructure (e.g. airports, less-intrusive airport security); functional legal system (tort reform); logical immigration reform; and a functional tax system (tax simplification).  To Mayor Bloomberg’s credit, he is using his bully pulpit for exactly this purpose, e.g., decrying US immigration policy as ‘national suicide’.  Sadly, he doesn’t control our immigration policy.

There are a range of organizations that help address issues in the technology ecosystem, including: Women in Technology, Technology Policy Institute, New York Technology Council and various other state technology councils, Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies, Information Technology Industry Council, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and Tech Policy Central. I support their goals of making entrepreneurship accessible to those who have the ingredients to become a successful self-starter. Like virtually the entire tech industry, I am particularly in favor of Startup Visa, which has the goal of stimulating our domestic startup community through acts to keep our foreign-born entrepreneurs in the United States.

Following is a list of some of the ideas I’ve working on (to various extents).  If you see something that piques your interest and want to get involved, please contact me.  I have ranked this list in ascending order of cost (defined as combined time and money).

-       Educating the VC/angel community on the city/state resources available to them to build companies. I’ll likely organize a Harvard Business School Angels of NY event on this topic in 2012.

-       Studying best practices of VCs in supporting portfolio company operational improvement. I am now leading a Columbia MBA team (ex-Mckinsey and BCG) on a study regarding best practices of VCs in supporting portfolio company operational improvement.  This is effectively a sequel to my study of best practices in deal origination, published in the Journal of Private Equity, Harvard Business Review, Institutional Investor, and Business Insider. You can see preliminary results of this value creation study here.

-       Encouraging non-US companies to set up operations in the US. As the former CEO of an Israeli startup with a (modest) US and UK presence, this is an obvious way to create more jobs here.

-       Creating angel groups with other alumni organizations, using HBS Angels as a model, e.g., alumni of major NY schools (Columbia, NYU) and institutions (McKinsey, Goldman Sachs).  I’ve talked informally with some universities about doing exactly this.

-       Creating a for-profit business with the goal of helping students conduct research projects for businesses, so that they’re more connected with potential employers.  I wrote a blog post on this.

-       Organizing events for local mid- to large-company CIOs / CEOs to meet technology startups, in order to help startups get traction and keep their momentum going.  HBS Angels will likely execute this in 2012.

-       Publishing notes on local tech events. New York has an extremely active Meet-up culture; almost every night there are 3-10 tech-focused events.  However, no one systematically provides notes/videos of these events.  Here’s a win-win way to address this: recruit a team of students who would attend these events and publish their transcripts/videos, so that everyone learns more and faster and can network more easily.  I’m already doing this on an experimental basis on my blog.

-       Publishing joint research. See ffvc.com/topics for a full list of topics we want to research.  Part of our strategy as a VC is to do in-depth research on the questions that interest us, in order to make us smarter and to help improve industry best practices.  We typically do this by partnering with graduate student teams.  In particular, we think it would be helpful to the ecosystem if someone were to publish research on who are the most active and most successful New York-area angels, superangels, and early-stage VCs, in order to identify the leaders with whom entrepreneurs should most want to work.  (it is likely that ‘active’ and ‘successful’ are not synonymous.)

-       Creating a master operating checklist for New York entrepreneurs. Visualize a grid, with the standard entrepreneurial steps down the y-axis (ideation, market research, incorporation, etc.), and the major New York industries across the X-axis (internet, food, retail, fashion, etc.).  It would be valuable to have checklists for all of the intersections in this grid.  We’ve created some but not all of these checklists for the tech industry; see our presentation notes and links on our resources page.  Other useful checklists we’ve identified include Biztree, Wickedstart, Goodwin Founders Workbench, American Express Open Forum Crash Courses, StartupToDo , Entrepreneurcountry, and StartupPlays.

-            Organizing angel pitch nights focused on special-interest communities, including industries (healthcare, retail, fashion) and affinity groups (Women, Asian-American, Latino, LGBT, African-American).  I am now talking with some affinity groups in these domains about co-organizing such pitch nights  under the umbrella of HBS Angels.  Our goal is to source and fund great entrepreneurs, regardless of personal or industry background. We are planning a healthcare-focused evening on February 29, and are working on an evening focused on African-American entrepreneurs and on the mobility sector. Details to come.

Here are some much more ambitious and expensive ideas:

-       Setting up a ‘virtual seastead’, perhaps on UN headquarters territory, for high-quality entrepreneurs who do not have US visas. A team in California is already creating a offshore seastead for non-US citizens who want to build companies in the US.  The UN headquarters in New York is technically located on ‘international territory’.  I’m sure there are already some for-profit businesses there, e.g., restaurants.  I wonder if it is possible to set up an apartment building near UN HQ as a virtual seastead?  I’m unclear whether this legal arbitrage is possible. Is anyone else looking into this?

-       Launching a seastead accelerator offshore from New York.

What other policy initiatives should the local tech community, be working on?

(Image by Getty Images via @daylife)

The New York Fundingpost VC and Angel Showcase will be next Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012. ff Venture Capital will be there.

37 VC Funds & Angel Groups will be exhibiting their firms during a cocktail party setting from 6:00PM to 9:00PM. The event is sponsored by Credit Suisse, WeiserMazars, Morgan Lewis and SocialRadius. More information, a list of the Funds and Registration are here: RSVP

Pizza/soda provided for all attendees.  Pitching includes Gust (formerly Angelsoft) application and pitch coaching from Mac Lipscomb

Panelists (alphabetic order)

• Steve Brotman (@stevebrotman) Managing Partner and Founder at Silicon Alley Venture Partners
• Charlie Kemper (@ckemper) Partner at Revel Partners and Managing Director at ER Accelerator
• Charlie O'Donnell (@ceonyc) Partner at Brooklyn Bridge Ventures
• David Teten (@dteten) Partner at ff Venture Capital

Startup Pitches

1. Farhan Memon - WikiOrgCharts
2. Nihal Parthasarathi - CourseHorse
3. Jason Nadaf - SureDone
4. Jonathan Rosen - Give.bz
5. Julian Barnes - Body Local
6. Frank Harrison - MedCASH
7. Rob Caucci - SpaceSplitter
8. David Baker - Spins.FM

Agenda

• 6:30pm – Pizza, networking and introductions
• 6:45pm – Investor Feedback Forum – 10 startups pitch to an investor panel; the panel provides actionable advice for each pitch
• 8:15pm – Pitch Showdown - audience voting via Twitter; winners announced and prizes awarded
• 8:30pm – Drinks at nearby location

Format

The Investor Feedback Forum and Pitch Showdown is designed to:

• Help early stage startups refine their investor pitch
• Provide helpful, actionable advice on each startups business model from active, early-stage tech startup investors
• Demonstrate to the audience how investors evaluate startup pitches
• Award prizes to the most viable startups, based on audience and panel voting.

The three winning startups are automatically invited to pitch to the NY Angels.

RSVP.

One of our portfolio companies asked me this week, “Do you all have a list of job boards your portfolio companies have had great success with in recruiting high quality engineers?”

The unemployment rate for quality computer scientists/engineers in the major cities right now is zero; everyone who’s not pursuing his/her own startup can easily get a good job.  Therefore, the best candidates are rarely perusing job boards.  Part of the genius and success of LinkedIn is it’s by far the best tool for soliciting passive jobseekers, i.e., those who are currently employed.

I’m a firm believer that the best way to recruit great talent is to make yourself a magnet for people to come to you, instead of the other way around.  In a Dreamit talk I gave on recruiting star engineers, embedded below, I discuss a host of ways to do this.  In a HBS Angels panel I spoke at last week, Chris Fralic of First Round Capital quoted Chad Dickerson of Etsy on this topic. Speaking at a First Round-organized event, Chad said Etsy requires 100% of their engineers to be active in the technical community: give talks, blog, etc.  As a result, they’ve had no problem attracting great talent to Brooklyn.

That said, while largely cumbersome and cluttered with spam, job boards still accounted for nearly 25% of hiring in 2010.  Nathan Hurst made a useful comparison of tech job boards based on cost/post, headhunter/confidential posts, company size, and word frequency.  Accolo uses its database of thousands of placements to identify the most effective job boards for its clients (Disclosure: I'm an Advisor). Social Recruiting Report ranks the top tech job boards by Google Page Rank.  Smashing magazine and Sociable Blog have lists of IT/Tech job boards, but don't do a detailed comparison .    Engineering Recruiting promises to put you in touch with the appropriate engineer recruiter, but I'm a bit skeptical of how effective or worthwhile a service like that is, given the conflicts of interest.

What do you find are the most effective recruiting job boards?

Thanks to Joan Xie for research help.

The Founder Institute recently posted a video from a talk I gave a little while ago on Startup Fundraising Hacks. Although my focus in this talk is raising capital, the ideas and technologies I discuss will also help you in recruiting star developers, sales, and even dating. The talk is dated in one respect: at the time I gave it, AngelList hadn't yet hit the level of visibility that it does today, so I didn't discuss it at all.

How to Raise Capital for Your Startup with Social Media

ff Venture Capital and HBS Angels of New York are happy to be co-sponsors of Flashpoint's upcoming New York Demo Day, Wednesday, January 18, 2012, 2:30 PM to 6:00 PM, held at Union Square Ventures.  Flashpoint is a startup accelerator program at Georgia Tech. Some of their portfolio companies look very promising. The current crop includes:

I hope to see you there! RSVP

I'm one of the judges for an MIT Enterprise Forum of NYC Pitch event on January 31 focused on Digital Commerce companies:

Panel Speakers:
- Eric Nordlander, Engineering Partner @ Google Ventures
- David Teten, Partner @ ff Venture Capital
- Albert Wenger, Partner @ Union Square Ventures
- Sim Blaustein, Venture Investor

Participating Companies:
- Agnik - data analytics company for distributed, mobile, and embedded environments
- Echoer - finalist at the Le Web competition
- Moviecom.tv - Red Herring Global 2011 Winner
- Megawatt Hour - decision-making platform for energy purchasing
- WishMash - The social wishlist platform

Panel Moderator:
- Lori Hoberman, Partner, Chadbourne & Parke LLP

DATE: Tuesday, January 31, 2012

AGENDA:
5:30pm - 6:00pm: Reception
6:00pm - 7:30pm: Business Plan Presentations
7:30pm - 8:30pm: Networking

PLACE:
Chadbourne & Parke LLP - Directions
30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY, 10112

REGISTRATION:

Free to members of MIT Enterprise Forum
$50 non-members, $10 extra at door
All members and guests are welcome.

REGISTER HERE.

New York, Herrick Feinstein, 2 Park Ave.

Power Pitch™ Workshop 3:30 - 6:00 pm

Entrepreneur Pitching 6:00 - 8:00

Submit your business plan.

SPEAKERS:
- Heather Gilchrist, RAK Tech Fund
- Allan Grafman, Mercury Capital
- John Ason, Angel Investor
- David Teten, ff Venture Capital

REGISTER TO ATTEND!

We're looking to spend money with a startup business: a marketplace for businesses which want consulting research and students who want jobs, internships and experience.

Specifically, we want a website where we can advertise the research topics that are important to us (e.g., best practices of operational improvement among VCs), along with the qualifications (e.g., consulting experience) required to execute each of them.  As a live example of the outcome we’re seeking, I'm now sponsoring a team of three Columbia MBAs (ex-McKinsey & BCG) on a research study on “Best Practices of Venture Capitalists in Adding Operational Value to Portfolio Companies”.  I’m  providing research materials, guidance, and introductions to interviewees and other experts.  When we’re done, I’ll work with the team to publicize and potentially publish the final research paper.  This is effectively a sequel to my research study on “Best Practices in Deal Origination by Venture Capital and Private Equity Funds”.

In this marketplace, clients benefit by getting high quality work from smart, ambitious students.  Students benefit by addressing real life business challenges, the opportunity to get published, as well as access to a large network of potential employers who gets to see the students in action.  This business model is particularly pertinent to business students, but I could see students in many different disciplines participating in this marketplace, e.g., English students could write a marketing brochure.

Students would review these research topics by topic, industry of the posted topic, and/or by company that posted the topic.  The students pick the ones they like, and execute them as independent for-credit studies and/or as part of a class.  They’ll inevitably produce a better quality product and learn more if the goal is producing something for a potential employer… as opposed to producing something for a professor who gives a grade and then is (typically) no longer involved in the student’s life.

I would be surprised if this were to become a scaleable business of the sort that ff Venture Capital would invest in.  However, I certainly think that this could be a lucrative business, and would be highly beneficial to the universities and students that choose to participate.

To learn more about the process and the research topics for which we in particular are seeking student help, see our topics page.  If you’re working on a startup similar to this model, and/or you’re affiliated with a university which wants to execute this idea on its campus, please contact me.

Image credit: laverrue

The basic details are below - the event is invite-only, but the first five people to email vp.partnerships(@)insiteny.org with the subject line 'David Teten sent me' will get an invitation via email. I'll be serving as one of several judges.

Friday, Dec 2, 8:30am - 11:30am
Cooley LLP - The Grace Building
1114 Avenue of the Americas (b/w 42nd and 43rd St)

Companies:
Zeel
Geno.me
Bre.ad
BestVendor
RoundTable
RunThrough
Framey

AGENDA:
InSITE Presentations:
Special Project: BioTech
Research: Mobile Payments