Ben wrote a post about reviving MontrealTechWatch and how the Montreal startup community needs MontrealTechWatch now more than ever.
Heri started MTW about the same time that we started writing StartupNorth. He has become a good friend of mine over the years and is someone who always has the best intentions of the community at heart in everything he does.
The main complaint is that there just aren’t any posts on MontrealTechWatch anymore. The blog which was once the center of the Montreal startup community is now more or less dead. The simple reason? Heri just doesn’t have the time to blog anymore. I think there is more to it than just that however.
StartupNorth might have met the same fate as MontrealTechWatch this year if David Crow hadn’t joined in to bear the brunt of the burden. Since the sale of my company last year I, like Heri, have had practically no time to devote to the blog, and Jonas was similarly stretched for time. In the case of MontrealTechWatch, Heri didn’t have a Dave or Jonas to put their shoulders to the wheel. The community that was once so loving lost its leader and didn’t even realize it.
So, what’s going on here? Do we need startup communities? Do you want a community? Are people really willing to pitch in and spread around the work? Do communities need community, or do they really need leaders? How do we create more MontrealTechWatch’s and keep them around?
There is a push in Montreal to make some plans and to get a group together to revive what was MontrealTechWatch. Montreal does not need some coordinate effort, it needs someone to open their email client and send Heri a message “Hey, can I get an account on MTW as a writer? I would like to make some posts, perhaps profile some of the amazing startups we have here in town and cover some events.”. Then, when you have the account: just start posting. Just do it.
Find what it is about startups, community and your city that you love and then do something about it. Share it. That is what Heri did and that is what we need more of. Nobody else is going to step up. As soon as you start writing about what is happening in the community, you will quickly learn what else the community needs in terms of events and content.
The problem, as Heri found out, is that this is hard and very unrewarding work. People rarely say thanks, and even less often step up to actually help.
Heri put his heart in to that blog and he didn’t ask for anything in return. This is your chance to show him that you understood what he was doing and that it meant something to you. Pick up the torch, but please don’t kill MTW by committee.
Jevon – I don't think it's as simple as getting an account on MTW and starting to write posts. You need quality and objectivity to start, for a site like MTW to be valuable. Heri brought both.
More importantly, you need $$$. Michael Arrington doesn't write TC out of the goodness of his heart. It's not a charity or a community project. It's a for-profit business. MTW doesn't have to be for-profit, but without funds ANYONE that steps up will burn out eventually. And one post here and there by the occasional guest writer doesn't accomplish anything.
I do agree that “the community” can't just sit around and “talk about what the community needs”. It does need leaders. Leaders willing to sacrifice their time and energy, but who are also, in some way, compensated financially so they can simply afford to do it. My post (which was written after speaking to Heri already) was to gage interest … REAL interest … in “putting up or shutting up.” And what I found is that plenty of people want to put up – time, money, energy, effort.
What I am saying is that efforts to coordinate the community to provide ongoing $ or other incentives are rarely successful.
I deleted a big part of this post, mostly because it was getting too long, but I think it is relevant to your comments.:
Startups are not a market
This is the most basic thing to understand about startup communities. People who convene them must be able to create in-direct economic incentives for themselves in order to justify the ongoing costs of supporting the community. Anyone who intends to extract money from the community is at odds with the community and will eventually be rejected. There is not business model here, just media, and startups have no money of their own to contribute.
Few funders step up
For whatever reason, few funders (institutional or angel) are aggressive in supporting community efforts. These are the people who could (and do) benefit directly from the deal opportunities that the startup community generates. There are some who have stepped up over the years and that has been important. We have always worked hard to make it as rewarding as possible for them. It doesn’t happen often enough however, and I think part of the reason is that, from the outside, these communities seem a little chaotic and perhaps fraternal.
The community is fickle
Oy, if there ever was a free market, this is it. Have you noticed how often we come out with one ticket price for an event and then, after going back begging to our sponsors, we come back with something ½ the price or less? Yeah- you folks are one cranky bunch. If it isn’t free then half of you won’t come at all. If we charge $10, then you better damn well get some ramen noodles or a slice of pizza with that event.
It’s fine, really. We still make the events happen and I don’t think we lose too much quality, but it does mean our hands are tied when there are opportunities to do other interesting things that could help the community more.
Hey, it keeps us on our toes.
Government ignores the community
This is a big one. Governments, federal, provincial and municipal, spend massive amounts of money on developing “an entrepreneurial culture”, “commercializing” research and generally trying to take credit for the hard work you startups have been doing. Sometimes I wonder if I need to do a ~s/community/cluster/ in order to get their attention.
The fact is that a startup community is a fundamentally un-sexy thing for a lot of these folks. I can safely say that in 3+ years of hosting 500+ person events and writing on a Canada-focused startup blog that has 10k+ people reading it, the only government person I can name is John MacRitchie. John comes to events, hustles around looking for great entrepreneurs and then proceeds to break his back helping them out. He has been faithful and hardworking and we need more Johns. The problem is that there is only one John right now, possibly in the entire country (feel free to correct me in the comments if someone stands out in your mind).
Calling the various governments to the plate is a dangerous thing because they are single handedly capable of either catapulting startup activity in Canada in to the stratosphere, or completely destroying it. I both fear and hope for the day the dragon wakes up.
Jevon – I don't disagree with the bulk of your points, but I see enough activity in Montreal on the financial side in terms of sponsoring events and things like MTW that I believe it is possible to “subsidize” something like MTW effectively enough that it can be sustainable — because ultimately that's the biggest challenge with anything community-driven or startup-support drive … it's not sustainable.
I believe there's a way to build things like MTW that's sustainable, by securing funding (even if it means twisting some arms) and then putting the right leadership in place to make sure there's longer term success.
Would communitech be a good example? http://www.communitech.ca/en/
They seem to do good work, but in adopting that model you also tread dangerously close to the “industry association” model that becomes bogged down and ineffective due to differing incentives of all of those involved.
Isn't part of the beauty of MTW that it was just one guy who really didn't care what others thought? Heri didn't answer to anyone, especially not sponsors or a committee.
Oh, and to be clear: I wish we all had our shit together as well as Communitech. ;)
Heri did an awesome job. But (and I won't put words into his mouth…well sort of…) it wasn't sustainable to work as hard as he did without any financial compensation. We all have to eat. We all have bills. No amount of guest writers was going to really alleviate the workload.
So it would be great if you could find people like Heri that can keep pushing things like MTW without ever having to make a dime, but I don't think that's reasonable.
As for whether you can make $$ and remain objective (i.e. “didn't answer to anyone”) I think it's possible. Might not be easy, but I don't think it's easy without the $$ too. You don't think Heri got asked to write kind reviews, or say nice things about certain people and companies? Of course he did. He may have chosen to ignore those people, but those problems already exist. $$$ might add to it, but without $$$ you can't have MTW. Simple as that.
Jevon – I don’t think it’s as simple as getting an account on MTW and starting to write posts. You need quality and objectivity to start, for a site like MTW to be valuable. Heri brought both.
More importantly, you need $$$. Michael Arrington doesn’t write TC out of the goodness of his heart. It’s not a charity or a community project. It’s a for-profit business. MTW doesn’t have to be for-profit, but without funds ANYONE that steps up will burn out eventually. And one post here and there by the occasional guest writer doesn’t accomplish anything.
I do agree that “the community” can’t just sit around and “talk about what the community needs”. It does need leaders. Leaders willing to sacrifice their time and energy, but who are also, in some way, compensated financially so they can simply afford to do it. My post (which was written after speaking to Heri already) was to gage interest … REAL interest … in “putting up or shutting up.” And what I found is that plenty of people want to put up – time, money, energy, effort.
What I am saying is that efforts to coordinate the community to provide ongoing $ or other incentives are rarely successful, and I think it is sometimes as simple as letting the leaders shake out. Putting money on the table too early introduces a whole new set of incentives and characters that you never would have seen coming. They come out of the woodwork.
I deleted a big part of this post, mostly because it was getting too long, but I think it is relevant to your comments.:
Startups are not a market
This is the most basic thing to understand about startup communities. People who convene them must be able to create in-direct economic incentives for themselves in order to justify the ongoing costs of supporting the community. Anyone who intends to extract money from the community is at odds with the community and will eventually be rejected. There is not business model here, just media, and startups have no money of their own to contribute.
Few funders step up
For whatever reason, few funders (institutional or angel) are aggressive in supporting community efforts. These are the people who could (and do) benefit directly from the deal opportunities that the startup community generates. There are some who have stepped up over the years and that has been important. We have always worked hard to make it as rewarding as possible for them. It doesn’t happen often enough however, and I think part of the reason is that, from the outside, these communities seem a little chaotic and perhaps fraternal.
The community is fickle
Oy, if there ever was a free market, this is it. Have you noticed how often we come out with one ticket price for an event and then, after going back begging to our sponsors, we come back with something ½ the price or less? Yeah- you folks are one cranky bunch. If it isn’t free then half of you won’t come at all. If we charge $10, then you better damn well get some ramen noodles or a slice of pizza with that event.
It’s fine, really. We still make the events happen and I don’t think we lose too much quality, but it does mean our hands are tied when there are opportunities to do other interesting things that could help the community more.
Hey, it keeps us on our toes.
Government ignores the community
This is a big one. Governments, federal, provincial and municipal, spend massive amounts of money on developing “an entrepreneurial culture”, “commercializing” research and generally trying to take credit for the hard work you startups have been doing. Sometimes I wonder if I need to do a ~s/community/cluster/ in order to get their attention.
The fact is that a startup community is a fundamentally un-sexy thing for a lot of these folks. I can safely say that in 3+ years of hosting 500+ person events and writing on a Canada-focused startup blog that has 10k+ people reading it, the only government person I can name is John MacRitchie. John comes to events, hustles around looking for great entrepreneurs and then proceeds to break his back helping them out. He has been faithful and hardworking and we need more Johns. The problem is that there is only one John right now, possibly in the entire country (feel free to correct me in the comments if someone stands out in your mind).
Calling the various governments to the plate is a dangerous thing because they are single handedly capable of either catapulting startup activity in Canada in to the stratosphere, or completely destroying it. I both fear and hope for the day the dragon wakes up.
Jevon – I don’t disagree with the bulk of your points, but I see enough activity in Montreal on the financial side in terms of sponsoring events and things like MTW that I believe it is possible to “subsidize” something like MTW effectively enough that it can be sustainable — because ultimately that’s the biggest challenge with anything community-driven or startup-support drive … it’s not sustainable.
I believe there’s a way to build things like MTW that’s sustainable, by securing funding (even if it means twisting some arms) and then putting the right leadership in place to make sure there’s longer term success.
Would communitech be a good example? http://www.communitech.ca/en/
They seem to do good work, but in adopting that model you also tread dangerously close to the “industry association” model that becomes bogged down and ineffective due to differing incentives of all of those involved.
Isn’t part of the beauty of MTW that it was just one guy who really didn’t care what others thought? Heri didn’t answer to anyone, especially not sponsors or a committee.
Oh, and to be clear: I wish we all had our shit together as well as Communitech. ;)
Heri did an awesome job. But (and I won’t put words into his mouth…well sort of…) it wasn’t sustainable to work as hard as he did without any financial compensation. We all have to eat. We all have bills. No amount of guest writers was going to really alleviate the workload.
So it would be great if you could find people like Heri that can keep pushing things like MTW without ever having to make a dime, but I don’t think that’s reasonable.
As for whether you can make $$ and remain objective (i.e. “didn’t answer to anyone”) I think it’s possible. Might not be easy, but I don’t think it’s easy without the $$ too. You don’t think Heri got asked to write kind reviews, or say nice things about certain people and companies? Of course he did. He may have chosen to ignore those people, but those problems already exist. $$$ might add to it, but without $$$ you can’t have MTW. Simple as that.
I'd love to see something like this for Prince Edward Island or even the maritimes.
I’d love to see something like this for Prince Edward Island or even the maritimes.
I’d love to see something like this for Prince Edward Island or even the maritimes.