Paul Orlando is an entrepreneur, co-founder and director of AcceleratorHK, an accelerator mobile startup. He is the author of Sacrilege start for the Underdog contractor.
I co-founded and ran a startup accelerator in Hong Kong, a city that was recently named the number one technical capital to watch by Forbes.
New York, meet the tech world scene
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That said, Hong Kong is not what we would call a hub of technology. And neither are thousands of other places in the world that have emerging startup communities.
With a deeper look at the attention to stories that come out of technology centers and an assessment of your local forces, you can determine if your local startup community should do something a little different . In most cases, I bet you should.
Here are some examples of how not to copy and what to do instead.
copied qualities that are superficial
events Pas - with a selected group of startups pitching a panel of judges before a Community public start - are sold as passage rites start, how to raise money and ways to find customers ... but they are rarely things. They are much more often the distractions of the actual work.
Your customers are probably not more people start or judges, so why spend so much time with these groups? Winners field events are usually the organizers, not startups.
Another copied surface quality is the attention placed on the start up of the world's celebrities to local communities. Celebrities are people starting high-level startup world - founders, investors, mentors -. who have achieved national or international renown
I often see local startup communities trying to attract celebrities to local events, even flying out to participate and speak as if their presence would promote change and growth of the local community. As the above pitch events, this is also not a good use of limited resources. The sense of wonder that these celebrities can help ignite is the least of your concerns.
celebrities usually start not to invest in the success of the many places they visit, either financially or in terms mentoring. Looking to celebrity founders is a short-term distraction. What happens after the event is over?
Instead, develop your own local heroes. These can be people outside of tech circles, but that include typical conditions of the local community and that can make things happen. They understand local issues can present to clients or local investors.
local heroes are more relevant to you than starting celebrities. And your local hero will still be there tomorrow.
If you are a running event organizer and not bringing celebrities start to talk, I ask you to consider the long term impact that these activities about your community and what you could do instead. For example, you could make the low-profile but more impact connection work of your local startups with customers, investors and local talent.
This may be a less glamorous job but it has more impact on your community.
Play local forces and problems
The startup world may think alike - and that can lead to bad decisions.
For example, I am contacted by a young entrepreneur. His country is in a civil war. There are people in refugee camps and minimal access to computers or the Internet. There are huge fundamental problems in its civil war community, famine, disease, human rights and communication technology, of course limited.
Yet he wants to build a social network online.
I also heard a strong technical team in rural areas of the developing world, where many people work in the extraction of natural resources. Their families also work in these industries. It is low smartphone penetration and e-commerce.
They wanted to build a shopping application.
A doctor contacted me from a place with a shortage of doctors. He has years of experience in the medical field. When he contacted me, he had spent nearly a year and much of his savings on the development starts. When we spoke, he revealed that he was working.
There is a gift service online donations.
OK, so who am I to challenge these alleged to be the startup founders if they choose to avoid bigger problems and opportunities in their local markets? Who am I to challenge them if they want to work on issues outside their expertise if they are really passionate about their businesses?
But how can there be such a similarity between people who brutally different local environments and those technical centers in the United States? Being overly influenced by new technologies and you become a tourist in your own home, more aware and interested in the events in distant lands in the glaring problems in your own backyard and addressable by your own background.
What are the main strengths and your store industries? Finance, logistics, agriculture, manufacturing, fashion, tourism? Play local forces and you can actually make your more diversified local community technology centers.
The participation of forces such as large industries and areas of expertise present locally and you will find people who generally have not participated in the startup world.
What are your local problems? Transportation, water shortages, pollution, obesity, safety, income disparity? Building for local problems and have your first group of customers who can advise you on what you should do.
Avoid taking into account the problems and local forces means you limited diversity. This is why there are a lot of startups addressing problems if not crucial how to share photos and find dates, but few deal with difficult problems like those listed above.
If you develop a local accelerator, do not copy the model Y Combinator "traditional"
Consider whether the program three typical generalist month followed by a demonstration day is really good for your site. I doubt it. The well-connected elite accelerators may be able to work in this model (and even then the success of their start-up is far from assured). But just copy the generalist model will turn against.
Instead, why not work in your local realities? For example, places that are centers of fashion, finance, logistics and so on, as noted above, can play for local talent and investment in these areas and build accelerators targeted in these areas, while connecting startups to mentors with deep industry expertise.
Outside of technology centers, you may have no local investment community that focus on startups. This means that running just a demo day with the hope of finding your startups follow on investors or encourage them to build businesses that need capital prior to the substantial high is not a good use of time to unless they are ready to go and look for money elsewhere.
Develop your connections (not starting) community and local businesses. They can form the first customers of your startups.