Everyone has ideas to improve the local startup community, myself included. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many meetups there are, conferences, or co-working spaces. To the outside world, for better or worse, a startup community is defined by how much money is raised on an annual basis and the the dollar amounts of exits on an annual basis. Of course, the idea is that more activities, resources, and interactions will lead to more raising money and more exits.
Here are a few reasons why startup communities are defined by money raised and successful exits:
- Raising a $5M Series A or selling for $50M generates publicity, and publicity always affects perceptions (it’s too bad there isn’t more coverage of bootstrapped companies that clear $5M in revenue, but I don’t expect that to change)
- Organizations like PricewaterhouseCoopers publish the Money Tree Report regularly, making it easy to for regions to compare themselves to other regions, based on amount of venture investments, increasing awareness of money raised, and thus desire for the level of investment to increase
- Angel investors and venture capitalists pay significant attention to exits, resulting in startup communities with more exits to receive more interest and money from investors
Startup community evangelists, of which I’m one, need to remember that to the outside world, the quality of the community is defined simply by money. Money raised and the dollar value of exits drives national reputation.
What else? What are your thoughts on startup communities being defined by money raised and successful exits?
David Cummings on Startups 
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