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Comment by subelsky | Hacker News Reader

I know there are a lot of incubators starting up now, but there aren't so many on the east coast. I wrote in more detail about the vision of this project and why we're doing it in this Google Doc, if anyone is interested in starting something in their own city:

https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AdPdQktVsPezZGp0bW1jNF8xN...

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The article says July 1 to Aug 30 but later mentions 12 weeks and your doc says Sept 30 -- which is right?

If you allow students who would have to go back to school in Sept. you might get a bigger response.

I know, I thought about that too. We're constrained by the availability of the space and the time needed to arrange all the financing. We're going to be doing this at least once a year though and next year I definitely want to do it that way.

Thanks so much for sharing this.

Baltimore's a good target. You generally would expect something like this to happen in the (nearby) DC area, but between Fort Meade and other Maryland-area institutions, there is some AMAZING talent in or around Baltimore, and it's much more pleasant getting into and out of.

Mike, if you need any help with anything technical, please feel free to let me know -- contact info is in my profile.

thank you, I definitely will reach out. The main thing we're gonna need is people to help advise these companies (not too time-consuming, just answer some questions here and there). I agree with your assessment. There are a lot of under-the-radar companies and people hanging out in this area.

Could you drop me a line, contact information in my profile? I'm in need of advice and support in some areas, may be able to offer it in others.

will do! I'm mike@subelsky.com in case something gets lost in translation

I don't see contact info in your profile, but email me and we'll talk!

I would agree with all of this. I'm still amazed that I can get from my house outside of Laurel to downtown Baltimore in 15-20 minutes even during the morning commute. There's also such easy and cheap access to DC, Philly, NYC and Boston via Amtrak.

We have a crop of good schools around here too. There's Hopkins and UMBC in the city plus UMD College Park has a top notch CS program.

Well, in my limited experience, Reston VA is a center for a lot of smaller tech companies. But they have a different environment. While they are entrepreneurial, they are not oriented around angel investing / venture capital to the same extent than places like San Francisco. This is because they have government funding and government contracts in lieu of private funding.

Now, obviously there is still a significant amount of VC funding in Reston, but government money plays the role that initial incubator money might in other regions. I, for instance, worked briefly at a startup that was developing technology spun off from a DARPA initiative. My uncle, a VC, was a Vice President there.

Like most things in and around Washington DC, the presence of the federal government changes the political/economic/social/cultural environment in ways that you won't see in other parts of the country.

Baltimore makes more sense, because there's a greater need for startup cash and startup cash will have a greater effect here, since it's not going to be crowded out by government money.

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