Last year looked a bit like this in Chicago. This year it’s a little colder, so I was definitely looking forward to escaping to San Francisco for the weekend of The Crunchies.
There’s a great quote from last year at some point during the Microsoft/Yahoo takeover activity – “For $44B you could acquire every startup from 2005-2008, including Facebook at its $14b inflated valuation.” It’s a very thin layer of the economy. I’ve joked about it a little but I’ve been insulated from it here in the midwest – the mood is grim in Silicon Valley; the financial issues from late August have trickled down to angel and VC activity. And never had I really felt that as much as at The Crunchies.
The usual suspects, the Facebooks of the sector, won the awards – no real surprises. There was a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the first 3/4 of the show – although maybe that was b/c there weren’t drinks available at the event until the afterparty? The reception in the capitol rotunda was beautiful and grand – almost too much for the current climate.
But it’s all good – this is when it gets real again. This is where it gets exciting. The flood of web2.0 business models will trend toward quality and the sustainable after the last few years of dot-com-like enthusiasm because they’ll have to. Or they’ll end up in the deadpool.
StartupSchwag has been a cheerleader for this; a fun surprise means of connecting with the startups we know and have grown to love. I brought the service back for that connection and that connection is going to get stronger as we start to be able to determine which startups are going to make it on their own, which will go the way of Pownce and which will simply, quietly fade away.
And the next big thing? Semantic? Mobile? It’s started. The services that survive an prosper in this climate are the fighters. We’re excited to do everything we can to help promote any and all, to reach out and raise the signal wherever our subscribers wear tshirts or their laptops sport stickers (which are back in the bags, btw =) ). We’re in this for the long haul =)
Let me know who you want to wear and support. I’ll see what we can do.
A belated Happy New Year.
We’ll be shipping tomorrow.
Best,
-Roddy
