issue two // the work issue

issue two // the work issue

June 2019

editors note

editors note

The response to issue one of the update was stronger than we anticipated.

More and more, we’re hearing listeners, readers, bus tours, and acquaintances turning their attention inwards from the coasts. Rise of the Rest (featured recently on 60 Minutes) and the network of city, state, and regional advocates across the country have given a megaphone to this movement.

We want to build on that momentum with issue two: the work issue.

In issue one, we generally showcased the trends that have happened and are happening across the country. In issue two, we want to focus on the future.

Inside issue two you’ll still find editorials, trends, and stories happening outside of Silicon Valley. But you’ll also notice a theme on the future of work.

Our contributors live in the world outside Silicon Valley, as do the companies we cover.

As companies compete for talent, we’re seeing big names like Stripe follow the likes of Buffer and adapt their workplace to work with the employees who work for them.

In this issue, you’ll hear about the macro cycles that push traditional work out of its comfort zone, discussions about facilitating talent and media, and the innovative ways ‘work’ is being changed by our contributors.

Welcome to issue two of the update. Thanks for reading.

Cheers,
Jay & Eric

 

from the upside team

from the upside team

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A lot of the best parts of Silicon Valley can be – and will be - exported elsewhere. If this is the case, the entire country and Silicon Valley will be better for it. History does not repeat, but it does rhyme. Silicon Valley, like every Innovation Hub before it, will follow the Innovation Hub Cycle. It is a natural progression.
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After a year of producing upside, we’ve found the description of tech ecosystems not named “Silicon Valley” across the United States is more or less consistent. “Our tech scene is growing, the cost of living is great, we just need more capital.” But as you dig in deeper to more maturing ecosystems, founders start to look beyond the insatiable thirst for capital and talk about talent.

read full story
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After a year of producing upside, we’ve found the description of tech ecosystems not named “Silicon Valley” across the United States is more or less consistent. “Our tech scene is growing, the cost of living is great, we just need more capital.” But as you dig in deeper to more maturing ecosystems, founders start to look beyond the insatiable thirst for capital and talk about talent.

read full story

guest editorials

guest editorials

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When I tell people I’m the CEO of a company with 80 team members in 14 time zones and no ‘real’ offices (no offense to WeWork), many look at me like I’m crazy. But even though it all feels totally normal to me and my team after four years, I have to recall that we are still very much in the minority of businesses. Because while remote work is a popular topic to talk about, the tech industry is lagging when it comes to adopting it.
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I want to tell you the story of how one of Silicon Valley’s biggest/high-flying startups started allowing remote employees. During my time at one of my previous Silicon Valley-based employers we had an amazing senior engineer who was crucial to our Ads product -- let’s call him Jeff. Jeff had moved to the Bay Area to work at this top tier social network and eventually settled in Rockridge, a gentrified neighborhood in Oakland, known for its College Ave restaurants and shops.

read full story

I want to tell you the story of how one of Silicon Valley’s biggest/high-flying startups started allowing remote employees. During my time at one of my previous Silicon Valley-based employers we had an amazing senior engineer who was crucial to our Ads product -- let’s call him Jeff. Jeff had moved to the Bay Area to work at this top tier social network and eventually settled in Rockridge, a gentrified neighborhood in Oakland, known for its College Ave restaurants and shops.

read full story
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AMY NELSON
CEO, VENTURE FOR AMERICA

why geography still matters

If you’re reading this, you may already know that last year 75% of US Venture Capital went to one of three states: California, New York, or Massachusetts. That left the remaining 47 states begging for sub-1% scraps. Of course, 75% of investor capital is not from those three regions: pension funds, endowments, HNWIs, and other LPs are much more broadly distributed. This means that most states are actually net-exporters of Venture Capital. This strikes me as a major problem.
read full story
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Have you made time to acquire customers? To talk to potential investors? How about to learn as much as you can about your industry and market, and demonstrate that you are an expert? Every founder should be constantly working on some, or all, of the above in the pursuit of building a company. And generating organic media — colloquially, “getting press” — has the effect of helping with every one of the tasks above.

read full story

Have you made time to acquire customers? To talk to potential investors? How about to learn as much as you can about your industry and market, and demonstrate that you are an expert? Every founder should be constantly working on some, or all, of the above in the pursuit of building a company. And generating organic media — colloquially, “getting press” — has the effect of helping with every one of the tasks above.

read full story
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finger on the pulse

finger on the pulse

Everyone is looking for the next emerging tech hub. Articles about trending regions, curated by the upside team.

 

Mapping Brain Drain-and Brain Gain-Across the U.S.

Perhaps the biggest problem afflicting America is its widening geographic divide between the winners and losers of the knowledge economy. A raft of studies has documented the growing divergence between places based on their ability to attract, retain, and cluster highly educated and skilled workers and to develop high-tech startup companies.

Why The Midwest Drives Top Venture Returns

Partnering with PitchBook, Silicon Valley Bank, & CBRE, my firm analyzed a broad spectrum of Midwest startup & VC data. This analysis revealed trends that tell a much more powerful story about the Midwest's success than the story we tend to tell ourselves from inside the Bay Area's shadow.

Southeast Capital Landscape 2019

A comprehensive directory of capital resources in the Southeast United States, categorized by industry, stage, and location.

You Don't Have to Move Your Startup To Silicon Valley, Here's Why

I rewatched The Social Network recently, and between the dramatic pauses and the brooding Andrew Garfield, one Justin Timberlake line really stuck out to me: "Mark, you have to come to California." (That's paraphrased, but if memory serves, it's basically what he said). Oh, how times have changed-and I'm not talking about Facebook's valuation.

Beyond the Silicon Valley app: Many of tech's new disruptive ideas have social missions

As the most-hyped Silicon Valley IPOs like Uber and Lyft stumble out of the gates, the app economy fueled by billions in venture capital is looking vulnerable. And many of the best new ideas in tech are not coming from California.

Why Should Entrepreneurs Care About New Senate Entrepreneurship Caucus?

Entrepreneurs have little time for government and public policy. They're busy working on their companies, hustling to find customers, financing, employees, and a million other things. Some entrepreneurs also see little utility in directly engaging with government. Policy can only hurt (fees, bureaucratic burdens) not help, so why bother?

podfolio news

podfolio news

A look at the success and coverage of our upside podfolio companies this quarter.

 

(UP001) Tilr named a Cincinnati BizJournals 2019 Innovation & Technology Award finalist (Biz Journals)

(UP002) Ohio State Football Player to Intern with RapChat this Summer (Fox 28)

(UP003) Brandon and Skye from LawnGuru talk on Fox 2 News (Twitter)

(UP004) ScriptDrop and PDX Partner to Implement Scalable (BioSpace)

(UP007) Kaleidoscope Helps Both Students And Brands (Forbes)

(UP009) BYBE Now Live in Wisconsin (Twitter)

(UP010) Upsie Gets $5 Million to Build New Service (TechCrunch)

(UP011) ParqEx is One of Few Startups Reinventing Rentals in Chicago (BuiltinChicago)

(UP012) FreshFry Selected for the Inaugural Endeavor Scale Up Program in the Region (Twitter)

(UP013) Local Crate Named One of Minne Inno’s 2019 ‘Inno on Fire’ Winners (American Inno)

(UP014) 10XTS Hires New Public Administration Expertise (10XTS)

(UP015) Mixtroz 2019 Momentum Leadership Breakfast (Bham Now)

(UP016) Mobius Featured in Hypepotamus (Hypepotamus)

(UP017) Set Scouter Acquires Wrapal (ShareGrid Blog)

(UP018) Cuddle Clones Gaining Popularity (it’sRosy)

(UP019) Wicked Sheets Honored at 2019 Inc.credible Awards (Lane Report)

(UP021) GenoPalate Forms Partnership with TESCHGlobal (PR Web)

(UP022) How’s Your Bacterial Balance? If It’s Off, Microbiome Protector Concur Has Some Skincare For You (Beauty Independent)

(UP023) Ben Hubbard Hired to Super Dispatch to Grow the Company (Startland News)

(UP024) Intrinio on VC List of Top 12 Fintechs (Business Insider)

(UP025) Vlipsy Included in New Fleksyapps (Testing Catalog)

(UP026) Bark - An Award Winning App (Dating News)

(UP027) ShearShare Cofounder Wins AdaAwards 2019 Tech Founder Award (Twitter)

(UP028) Summersalt Expands with More Funding (Forbes)

(UP030) Sense Arena Unveils VR Hockey Sense Training (Sense Arena)

(UP031) Woobo Announced as 2018 TiE50 Winner (Medium)

(UP032) Astral AR Helps to Make Traffic Stops Safer (CNN)

(UP033) New SOMAVAC 100 Sustained Vacuum System (Thailand Medical)

(UP034) Testcard Wins at Digital Health Rewired Conference and Expo (Digital Health)

(UP035) Exaeris Partners with Infusion Design (Twitter)

(UP036) Peridoic Edibles Nominated for Best of Portland (Twitter)

(UP037) Las Olas Venture Capital Invests in Preteckt (PR Newswire)

(UP039) Backtrack Raises $2.1 Million in Seed Round (LA Business Journal)

(UP040) Plus One Robotics in Warehouse Work (Houston Chronicle)

(UP041) HoloMe Collaborates with Singer/Songwriter Amir (ValueWalk)

(UP042) Threatcare Now Offers Incident Response Services for Recent Data Breaches (Twitter)

(UP043) InKind Featured on TRAMarketplace's Startup Showcase (Twitter)

(UP044) Semtive Awarded $100,00 at EarthX’s E-Capital Summit (Yahoo)

parting gift

parting gift

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JAY CLOUSE AND ERIC HORNUNG

second quarter podcast recommendations

A curated quarterly publication about trends, stories, and editorials outside of Silicon Valley. Jay and Eric listened to over 400 episodes in the last three months and are giving you:

  • a Consensus pick - the podcast episode Eric and Jay most agree on
  • a Classic pick - Jay and Eric’s individual picks that tackle a topic near the intersection of finance and entrepreneurship
  • a Contrary pick - Jay and Eric’s individual picks that aren’t immediately intuitive

And here’s where it gets fun. We brought on some friends to partake in the quarterly curation task. Scroll down to find recommendations from Justin Jackson (@mijustin), Natalie Sportelli (@N_Sportelli), and Colby Donovan (@colby__donovan).

see our picks

further study

further reading

Want to read even more great startup content? We recommend these roundups for more.

 

reading

Unlocking Pipeline: A playbook for entrepreneur support in Africa
by Village Capital

2018 Review of Funding for Female Founders
by Female Founders Fund

100 Latina Founders
by All Raise

Scoring Talent in North America 2018
by CBRE

Interactive Technology Hub Map
by Jump-Starting America

The Holloway Guide to Equity Compensation
by Holloway

listening

The Spearhead Podcast
by Spearhead

The Middle Tech Podcast
by Middle Tech

Middle Cities Podcast
by Jeff Slobotski and Shonna Dorsey

Differential Podcast
by Drive Capital

Give First Podcast
by Techstars

Collaboration Superpowers Podcast
by Collaboration Superpowers