Ruby hacker and entrepreneur. Cofounder of Staq.com, OtherInbox.com, and IgniteBaltimore.com. [ my public key: https://keybase.io/subelsky; my proof: https://keybase.io/subelsky/sigs/BovqY-UW9E1dSmnDi3p0fpwHzcmI5v6zh56J4_Z7XJs ]
I know an awesome Node developer here in Baltimore with no prior experience, who had gone to a bootcamp for six months, and who was offered an intermediate-level position. Talking with her I felt like she was more of a colleague than a brand-new dev.
I had the same thought about somehow using AI to make this completely automatic and increase the quality of the story. Turk does have the ability to allow workers to upload files so producing binary data like images or videos is definitely possible.
As for the cost, I was following ProPublica's advice. Apparently workers assume that less expensive jobs can be done more quickly, and if you make them too expensive the process can actually take longer:
We haven't locked down the space yet but are hoping for a spot in Fells Point. I actually also live in Charles Village, let's meet up for coffee sometime! (mike@subelsky.com)
The ETC is great but does not provide funding, and you have to pay rent for the office space (though the leases are on startup-friendly terms, graduated rates, etc). The ETC will actually be providing their services (consulting, introductions, etc) to our portfolio
who's trying to rationalize it? There's not much I can do about it; it's still an awesome place to live. Good luck buying a house in a nice part of Boston or NYC as a working-class or middle-class person. Meanwhile I'm hacking code, running a startup, and I live in a super nice house in a walkable neighborhood that's very different than the one narrow slice you saw in that show.
you should definitely apply as a team. We would love to back a company targeting Russia! It's a global economy, right? Also there's a large Russian population in Baltimore FWIW
just a splash page for now, designed by Mark Armbruster. The site is http://thestartupcity.com (the guy who owns startupcity.com wants a lot of $$$ for it)
glad to hear it! But this is just one small facet of the tech scene in Baltimore...Please check out my response to kovar for a list of other resources you should check out.
I actually don't mind The Wire reputation, because I loved that show so much. Lest anyone think I don't have a sense of humor about it, here's a tour I wrote up for seeing all the sites from the show, for people coming to RailsConf:
I don't want us to be a city that tries to be something it's not. We shouldn't even try to replicate what you have out there, but, I think it's a very creative place where it is possible to do great things with technology, especially if you want to avoid any possible "echo chamber" effects, and especially if you want to bootstrap or do things your own way.
it's a fair critique and you aren't the first to mention it. But I will say it's vastly accelerated the exchange of ideas and feeling of community in Baltimore so overall it's a net win. There's also a network of twitter accounts to follow if that's more your taste (@startupbmore @ignitebaltimore @bmorehackathon @startupdigestmd @bootstrapmd @innovatebmore etc etc)
you guys don't even know how motivating it is to read stuff like this. I am forwarding these comments to folks I know in the economic development community. Perhaps we can get a bit more institutional backing for things like this so we can provide more resources to people in your exact spot!
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.
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.
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:
That is precisely what I was trying to say. Over time I found myself wanting and liking these replacements, but out of the box these machines work very well. CrashPlan is better because it integrates off-site and local backup and lets you manage backup for a bunch of machines (I'm responsible for backing up family computers).