Comment by lukeskurman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lukeskurman | Hacker News Reader

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I can assure you that this fund will be an awesome opportunity for recent grads.

Over the past three years, I've served on the University's Board of Trustees as its first ever Young Alumni Trustee. I spoke to Jonathan Kaplan and Rick McCullough (vp of research for cmu). I will personally be very involved in making sure it's maximizing it's potential. Everybody has a clear vision on this initiative.

I was born in nyc and grew up in sf and never left Pittsburgh since attending CMU as a freshman in 1998. I started running my company, College Prowler, full-time, the day after graduating with my bachelors in 2002.

Pittsburgh is HOT right now. And, I can assure you that Carnegie Mellon has more momentum than ever before.

Feel free to reach out to me with ideas, thoughts, questions - Luke @ collegeprowler.com.

Appreciate the response Luke (and you creating an HN account just to reply). Having seen investment terms for early-stage startups in CA, Boston, and Pittsburgh, I can say anecdotally that the valley is far ahead in terms of simplicity and founder-friendliness.

I'm confident that Pittsburgh can become a good place for startups, but first you need to change the student mentality. Once students are more willing and likely to go work at/start startups, Pittsburgh will implicitly become a better place to found one. Until then CMU is a great source of talent, but it will be an uphill battle to convince recent grads to work for a startup and stay in Pittsburgh, especially when the valley beasts are making very enticing 6-figure offers.

I think the change in mentality will take a series of successful Pittsburgh companies. There's no lack of resources for a student (or anyone) who wants to start a company in Pittsburgh. If you've got a skilled team and an intriguing market and problem you're addressing, you can absolutely get the resources you need here.

Local companies like The Resumator, ShoeFitr, ShowClix and others are making national headlines. As these companies bring in or continue to bring in revenue and investment dollars to town, and become a cool or interesting place to work, it'll be easier for students to stick around and put down roots. Some of them might even think about starting their own project after awhile.

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