{"id":1523,"date":"2012-09-22T17:00:26","date_gmt":"2012-09-23T00:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/?p=1523"},"modified":"2021-06-22T18:44:11","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T22:44:11","slug":"mission-st-accepted-startups-benefit-from-san-francisco-location","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/2012\/09\/22\/mission-st-accepted-startups-benefit-from-san-francisco-location\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission (St.) Accepted: Startups Benefit from San Francisco Location"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Misha Leybovich, founder of Meograph, dons his starup's T-shirt at the 2012 Online Journalism Awards Ceremony in San Francisco, Calif. (Photo by Brandon Weight\/ONA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For Mat Mullen and the startup community, San Francisco is a culture of T-shirts.<\/p>\n

“The shirt is the cheapest form of advertising,\u201d said Mullen, who works in business development for Disqus. \u201cBut it’s also a sign of\u00a0identity and what you’re proud of.”<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a form of connection, the real-life equivalent of a hashtag, a visual note to startup employees\u00a0 in San Francisco who share similar interests.<\/p>\n

“There are like-minded people that do what I do, that if I went to a different city, it wouldn’t exist,” said Mullen.<\/p>\n

Disqus<\/a>, a cross-website comment platform, formed in 2007 and currently operates in an office at Beale and Howard streets in San Francisco. In their office alone, Mullen said, there are at least 40 other startups. In other offices, San Francisco hosts no fewer than 640 startups, according to the Mayor\u2019s Office of Civic Innovation. With such a large concentration of these companies, the city is arguably the tech startup capitol of the world.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee dedicated October<\/a> as Innovation Month<\/a> as part of a rollout of policies designed to help tech companies. Besides an interactive map<\/a> that identifies startups and investors in San Francisco, the city\u2019s November ballot initiative Proposition E replaces a payroll tax with a gross receipts tax, an idea loved by many<\/a>, including startups.<\/p>\n

Culturally and economically San Francisco is the ideal breeding ground for tech companies.<\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s efforts impress Burt Herman, a co-founder and chief strategist for Storify. It\u2019s smart of the mayor, he said, because these startups can boost the local economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese companies are bringing jobs to the city and going into neighborhoods, hopefully helping improve life in the city,\u201d said Herman<\/p>\n

These new employees bring with them a high level of energy, said Patrick Randolph, vice president of business development for Talkwheel. San Francisco retains a unique vibe, where every engineer wants to work on what they\u2019re passionate about, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not \u2018It can\u2019t be done\u2019 when somebody says something, it\u2019s \u2018how do we do it,\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Randolph said. \u201cThere may be a million obstacles, but you know what, let\u2019s do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Randolph has done it. He and friends developed Talkwheel<\/a>, a framework that organizes conversations visually in a circle, while attending Hamilton College in 2009. There was no other option but starting in San Francisco for Randolph.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone can come here in their twenties, even teenagers, with an idea,\u201d said Randolph. \u201cIf you work hard, you have the chance to be a millionaire, billionaire or make a real impact on the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cybil Wallace, editorial director for UStream, suggests that these local startups are looking towards the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing this, but what\u2019s the next thing we can do to improve our model?\u201d said Wallace.<\/p>\n

Ustream<\/a> launched in March 2007, and settled to San Francisco under former CEO John Ham in 2010. Wallace notes that the energized crowd in this location seeps into the surrounding area.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll be on a hike in the Marin Headlands, pass a couple of people and they\u2019ll be talking about some new technology,\u201d said Wallace. \u201cYou\u2019re in the wilderness, and you\u2019ll think \u2018Where are we?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the uniform of San Francisco techies, she agrees that T-shirts are standard protocol, but her colleague Terry Parris, Jr., a community editor, is already planning ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext step? Neck tattoos,\u201d said Parris<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Mat Mullen and the startup community, San Francisco is a culture of T-shirts. “The shirt is the cheapest form of advertising,\u201d said Mullen, who works in business development for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10607,"featured_media":1524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[108],"powerkit_post_featured":[],"coauthors":[31],"class_list":["post-1523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized","tag-ona12"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5Q1c-oz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2012\/09\/misha.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1523"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1539,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523\/revisions\/1539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1523"},{"taxonomy":"powerkit_post_featured","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/powerkit_post_featured?post=1523"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}