ecently I had discussion with the team of Startup Weekend Kyoto and the discussion was toward when and where we should do next event.
While there are lots of similar startup related activities happening in this region, I had feeling for long time that none of these individual activities were really connected. The information is scattered around various websites and places, and there isn’t a central place where we can get the most up-to-date info. I’m talking something like http://www.startupcolorado.com/
At Startup Colorado they provide the following information.
- Local startup events
- Blog posts from local entrepreneurs and investors
- Map of local startups and supporting businesses
- Information about community fund
- Links to useful resources like talent recruitment
For people outside region these info are super valuable and important such that any first time visitor can reach out to any company or person and make an appointment BEFORE actually arriving to Colorado. Also, the website makes it easy to get a grasp of activities happening in the region. I don’t have any worry if I were to visit Boulder city for the first time.
Unfortunately we don’t have such a central place where we can distribute all those info. Kyoto is still a city that is considered far away to foreigners and being difficult to just get an overview of what’s going on there. So I proposed the SW Kyoto team to build a similar website like Startup Colorado and make SW related activities as contents of that website. Of course, we will need to create the rest of other contents like startup maps and blog posts from local founders. We will do that.
What I’m saying is that we need to make started related information in this region far more accessible to anyone who’s interested in startup and the city. Hence, the information must be available both in English and Japanese.
Lastly, what’s even missing is something like community fund that we can use it to fund started related activities in the region. As for SW Kyoto team, one of the biggest time consuming tasks is to find appropriate sponsors for each event to cover the fees for venue, beers and pizzas. If we could eliminate those tasks, I think it will be much easier for entrepreneurs and volunteers to holds events more frequently since they don’t have to go through mini-fundraising every time.
Disclosure: I’m hugely being inspired and biased by Brad Feld’s recent book Startup Communities right now so please excuse me for being very specific about this.