Ask HN: Chicago-Area Startups
I live in Chicago and thought it would be interesting to get some perspective on startups in the area. What is your company? When did you start? Where in the Chicago area are you located? If you are on the north side, north shore, at NU or anywhere near Evanston, come check out http://coworkingevanston.com/ It got started because there have been a bunch of startups and indie devs/designers working out of coffeeshops and home offices in the area and there wasn't any central point to get together and collaborate anywhere north of lakeview. We started hosting the Monday Jelly Chicago meetups this week and had a packed house. Next monday following Jelly some of the people here are starting a Startup Evanston meetup http://www.meetup.com/Startup-Evanston/ One of the members here also hosts the well-attended monthly Chicago Web Pros meetup in Evanston http://www.meetup.com/chicago-web-pros/ The startup I'm with is technically based in San Francisco, but I'm actively looking to find another developer in Chicago. If you are a Chicago-area Ruby developer, my email is in my profile. Groupon (grew out of ThePoint.com, 2008-ish?, in the old Monty Ward building), GrubHub, EveryBlock (we started in 2007 in the Loop, now in Ravenswood), Threadless (now in the West Loop), to name a few ... Kadavy, Inc., it's just me, and started as a UI consultancy in 2008. Now it's a media company. I'm writing a book on design http://designforhackers.com Based on blog posts at http://kadavy.net I live in Lincoln Park at Clark & Fullerton, which I think is a perfect place for a one man startup. Very walkable. I meet with other entrepreneurs every wednesday to cowork at a cafe http://jellychicago.com I moved here from SF, entirely by my own volition. Yes, for real. http://giveforward.com We're in the Loop now but moving to Wicker Park next month. We launched in 2008. Raised a round in 2011. Things are bueno. Woot! Love Wicker Park. And GiveForward. :) thanks Tim! We're going to be in the same building as Putchfork. Should be fun. You're going to have to check out the new digs. Launched http://www.BeyondThePedway.com 2 years ago to cover the creative companies in Chicago, and later pivoted to focus on creative entrepreneurs here in Chicago as well as all over. Launching a community for parent entrepreneurs called http://www.NaptimeEntrepreneurs.com at the beginning of May. It's not a startup, but there is a fantastic monthly meetup in Chicago for people who like to build stuff for the web (mainly developers/designers). Basically, a lot of awesome people go to a bar, hang out, and talk about things that we all enjoy. Check it out: http://chicago-concat.gathers.us Matasano. 2005. South loop. Do you still consider yourselves a startup? I refuse to dignify the distinction between startups and small businesses. In my head, we're all of us "indies", from the YC'W11 companies to Fog Creek. People, including 'pg, like to point out that "startups" scale and small businesses are structured to take steady income. But those lifestyle "small businesses" can flip a switch at any time and plow investments into any product idea to shoot for the hockey stick curve. They can even do it more than once. To answer your question more objectively: we are ~4 years older and substantially larger than most of the companies discussed on HN as "startups". But our product team is roughly the same size as (I think) most of the YC'W11's. Maybe I came across the wrong way. I just meant to say I thought you were a real business with real income, not a startup which might still be looking for a business model. I have no doubt you can scale to the moon, if and when you choose to. Why is there no General Assembly/Hacker Dojo in Chicago? Is there a demand for it at all? The culture in Chicago seems totally different, would there even be a demand for that sort of thing? to be clear, i mean a space that is heavily geared towards web based startup/technology hackers. noble tree is a coffee shop and chicago jelly meets there, but it is not a space where you can expect to go meet random hackers pumpingstationone is nice but last i checked it didn't appear to have a strong technology startup type vibe. i understand that curating the "vibe" of a "hackerspace" (whatever that means) isn't an easy thing to do, but i've been INCREDIBLY IMPRESSED by general assembly and hacker dojo. pumping station one is a great space, its just not quite the same. I'd consider: nycresistor:generalassembly::pumpingstationone:"what i'm asking for" -- basically "general hacker types" (macguyver, picking locks and being generally crafty) vs "programmer hacker mindset" (hey, i wrote a really cool thing in node.js which i learned over the last 48 redbull fueled hours). Chicago is an amazing town and there are tons of great people for it: birthplace of RoR, cofoudners of django live there, plenty of YC startups, groupon, beyond the pedway (woot, @timjahn, calling you out -- attended your "Entrepreneurs Unpluggd" event in Feb and I think that may be the best event I've attended in Chi), grubwhub, grubwithus, i think restaurant.com, etc. However, the tech community isn't quite as unified and its a lot harder to get in touch with likeminded folk. At hacker dojo, you could turn to almost anyone to get feedback on a web app or ask for javascript advice, which I am not aware exists in Chicago. Thanks for the kind words. I completely agree with you on the notion that the Chicago tech community isn't as unified as it needs to be. And the ironic part is I think many other people feel the same way. So we're all doing our parts to try and tighten it up around town. That being said, in my eyes, things have come a long way in the past 2 years. Excited to see what the next 2 years bring. I've been wondering the same thing. It's hard to find/meet Hackers in Chicago unless you're already working at a startup. Perhaps we need a meetup in Chicago that is similar to 106 Miles... Hey I'm a director at the Dojo. Please ping Katy@ if you want to start something up in Chicago that is similar to the Dojo, we'd love to see the community grow. Try Noble Tree, ~2600ish N Clark Every Wednesday from 12-4 we're there. Usually on the 3rd floor it seems. I think there is. Entrepreneurs Unpluggd was great, Tim. As far as I'm concerned, you're leading the push to put Chicago on the map as a great startup city. http://www.pvpower.com. PVPower's flagship product, SolarBear is a marketplace that brings together the products, process, customers and capital needed for widespread adoption of residential solar power. Founded in 2009, raised a seed round in 2009, raising an A round right now, closing in May. CEO - Dan Kuthy
COO - Nick Yecke For those of you that have startups in Chicago, where do you normally hang out? Is there a HN meetup or something along those lines? There used to be a HN meetup, but it stopped happening after a few months. A friend and I started Chicago.concat() which has been going strong for a few months and has a great group of people that show up every month. I have since moved to SF, but they're kicking ass back in Chicago. RSVP page: http://chicago-concat.gathers.us We did a Chicago HN meetup around Christmas which was pretty well attended (filled about 1/4 of the Publican). I'd be game to do something like it again. Lightbank and Sandbox have their own enclaves. The ITA (Illinois Technology Association) has offices, and some stuff. There is the lean startup circle. You can also out built in Chicago. Midventures also events. Entrepreneurs unpluggd seems to putting on more stuff, lately. I'm one of the co-organizers of Entrepreneurs Unpluggd (http://www.entrepreneursunpluggd.com) and we plan on putting together events quarterly currently, if not more frequently. Our inaugural event was Feb 8, next even is April 26, then late July after that. We really hope to create an evening for entrepreneurs to network, learn, and strengthen the ecosystem. http://www.technori.com/ coordinates an informal gathering every Friday. Spatial Bytes (http://spatialbytes.com) -- my lame old blog. As of Dec. 2010 I'm an official business in Chicago. Some ideas but no prototypes. For now, it's just consulting side gigs. I have another business in planning as an LLC with a prototype complete. I'm in the Hyde Park neighborhood. Future Simple - http://www.futuresimple.com
Disrupting small business software. Just raised $1.1M from great investors in Chicago. Building some crazy things now...
Spending our time around Lincoln Park. About to get a cozy place downtown soon. I started http://www.onedayonejob.com/ in Connecticut in 2007, but moved to Chicago in 2008. I'm in River North, but work out of a home office since it's only me for now (but the business is profitable!). http://www.parkwhiz.com - We started in 2006, when it seemed like TechCocktail was the only startup community in town. Ended up bootstrapping the company, and we recently opened an office in Roscoe Village. Recently discovered your site, freaking genius. You guys profitable these days? http://www.raydash.com - We provide live-video on your website. BTW, who is going to the hackathon, todady, http://www.nuhackathon.com/ Going to throw my company, CrowdSavvy into this, though we are early, early stage. Been working on it since mid-2010. Launched to public beta in 2011. I am working on Emulsion in Chicago, which will allow photographers to create beautiful, simple portfolios in about 15 minutes. http://emulsion.me http://www.cashierlive.com - We provide SaaS point-of-sale to retailers. We launched last February, and we're working in River North. We started http://www.joystickers.com in 2010. We're based in Logan Square. Would love to get a meetup together soon. http://evolyte.com in the loop on Wabash/Lake. We've been autotuning the internet since 1994. The G Funk Era. Tap.Me - in game advertising and engagement for game developers by game developers. Funded and about to announce some killer traction. Http://tap.me/ I started http://www.MigrationBox.com in Chicago, now about to graduate TechStars in NYC. http://www.edulender.com 2010 Chicago & Franklin Http://www.shelfluv.com started as a hackathon project last year in September located downtown. http://www.domu.com Streeterville 2010 grubwithus (current YC class) inkling markets (first YC class i believe) superblock. 2006. wicker park now. though i don't consider my company a startup, just a plain old small business. Also - check out this list:
http://www.quora.com/What-tech-startups-are-there-in-Chicago http://feefighters.com
We're in the West Loop, at http://sandboxindustries.com/. Been around for a couple of years. Raised a note a year ago and a seed round a couple of months ago. Things are going great. Interesting...one of the few startups I've seen with quite a few MBAs on staff!