Cool Story -- Where the Startups Are, By Zip Code

Cool story in ReadWriteWeb this week about looking at where startups have the greatest density.


Where the Startups Are, By Zip Code

As part of our "Never Mind the Valley" series here, we often feature communities outside the Silicon Valley that have become thriving centers for entrepreneurship. We've profiled cities like Boston, Montreal, and Austin.

Sometimes we notice there's a flurry of startup activity in a particular location that warrants coverage, and sometimes we're pitched stories about these locations. (And you should feel free to pitch us as to why your city should be featured, particularly if you're outside the U.S.) But as great as these sources for stories are, neither offer any sort of scientific method for pointing to the cities that are the best locations for startups.

In a blog post yesterday, VC Brad Feld wrote about the "entrepreneurial density" of Boulder, a city often noted as being a startup hotbed. He writes,

"Entrepreneurial density isn't just the "number of entrepreneurs per capita", but it's the "number of people that work at entrepreneurial companies per capita." It gets even bigger when you include students and calculate the "(number of people that work at entrepreneurial companies + the number of students) per capita. As ED = ((entrepreneurial_emps + students) / adults) approaches 1, you get complete entrepreneurial saturation. I'm going to guess that Boulder's Entrepreneurial Density using this equation is somewhere between 0.50 and 0.75, but this is just a guess. I'm curious if anyone out there has a real way to calculate this."

Responding to the challenge is Pete Warden, who has used Crunchbase and US Census data to provide an answer.

According to Warden's figures, the top zip codes for money raised per person are:

CA 94104 - $629m total - $1,681,925 per person
CA 94304 - $2,822m total - $1,656,031 per person
CA 94105 - $972m total - $472,540 per person
MA 02142 - $1,013m total - $448,833 per person
IL 60606 - $739m total - $439,744 per person

And the top zip codes for company per person are:

CA 94104 - 87 companies - 0.233 per person
CA 94105 - 173 companies - 0.084 per person
CA 95113 - 24 companies - 0.044 per person
MA 02142 - 73 companies - 0.032 per person
MA 02210 - 19 companies - 0.032 per person

Using his OpenHeatMap tool, there are, of course, maps of the information. And Warden has open-sourced the code and the data so that others can work with it.

Warden admits that it's a "crude approach," but nevertheless, it's interesting to see how the numbers may or may not patch our perceptions of entrepreneurial hot spots.

Foursquare for the Real World? ShopAlerts Debuts Geo-Fenced Mobile Promotions

Foursquare for the Real World? ShopAlerts Debuts Geo-Fenced Mobile Promotions

Excellent story today on ReadWriteWeb about mobile coupons and promotions. Obviously, this is where the market is going even if consumers aren't there yet. It will take some real consumer benefit to jump start adoption. Retailers need to figure out how much is worth to them to have customers opted-in to a mobile promotion service and then offer them the best possible offer out of the gate. That may help speed adoption.

As a marketer, it gives you the chance we have all talk about....putting your best offer in front of the consumer at the moment of consideration.

Is Four square too complicated or are text based coupons not sexy enough? My guess is that customers will self select and they will be meaningfully different customers....

I am surprised it has taken the providers this long to get to this point, but here we are.

News Flash: Friends are the most trusted source of info

So the beauty of social marketing from a marketers perspective is this:

"Real-world friends most trusted online source"

If someone endorses your product on Facebook, in an authentic (read as not planted by the company) way, friends notice. It may not be enough to get them to buy your product without additional research, but you have suddenly entered the consideration set.

Most companies and institutions are not really sure how to handle this aspect of their marketing mix because, well, it isn't THEIRS, really. But we should start to think of it as part of the mix we need to influence, encourage, nurture, and reward.

There have been plenty of reports of companies monitoring Twitter to try and understand what people are saying about their company or product. It has mostly been as a defensive measure from what I have seen -- marketers hoping that influencers on Twitter don't poison the well.

Friends have always been the most trusted source for products and services. Social media just makes those voices louder and the ripples larger. So the srategy for companies? Keep wowing your customers and they will keep telling their friends....some on facebook, some at the salon or the little league game.

A Useful Map of the Social Media World

If you are looking for good resources, CMO.com is fairly good. They aggregate content so it is an efficient place to get marketing articles and news.

I found this map of the social media landscape there. I thought it was helpful. Share me