Mowser Meltdown: WHAT Silicon Valley Startup Heaven!
By DONNA BOGATIN • Apr 14th, 2008 • Category: BIG PICTURE
There he goes again! Russell Beattie telling it like it really is in the trenches.
Beattie’s news of “the end of Mowser” is at first blush disheartening–and certainly is discouraging and unfortunate for Beattie himself–but the insightful reflections on the hows and whys of his business model decisions and the ups and downs of the nascent mobile consumer market provide a refreshing, down-to-earth recounting of the one-year lifecycle of a well intentioned Silicon Valley startup.
New York, New York, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, is one of my favorite Silicon Alley cheerleads. But what about Silicon Valley, the reigning technology startup king, we hear, over and over again?
Mowser development has ceased, Beattie reports straight from Menlo Park, California. Beattie “hasn’t been able to raise funding,“ despite his domain expertise, Yahoo pedigree, and apparently intelligently conceived development strategy.
“I just wasn’t able to sell the opportunity or vision to investors,” he shares, “which would have given Mowser time to grow and adjust its model to develop those cool cloud services.”
Beattie does a good job in laying out the pros and cons of a mobile future now, though.
Beattie’s Silicon Valley startup letdown resonated in particular with me this evening, as I read it upon returning from an event in NewYork City with an all too familiar Silicon Alley is NOT Silicon Valley refrain.
“It’s hard to start a business in New York…Other areas of the country like Boston and Silicon Valley have had success in creating cycles of entrepreneurs, angels, and even services firms that offer help in exchange for equity or at a discount for startups,” was the preview for the April meeting of a New York Software Industry Association (NYSIA) in the midst of major restructuring following a loss of funding and cutbacks in services.
Panelist Hank Williams set a negative tone for the evening by declaring solemly that “things haven’t changed in New York since 1992,” re-citing his own discouraging assessment:
I don’t think we can become a big company here, because there aren’t a lot of resources to draw on in New York for computer firms. It’s shocking to me how many talented people in the field flood out of New York City, even salesman refuse to come.
Are salesman really that naive? Williams offered a ”solution” later in the evening: “Set up a development office in New Jersey,” and day trip into Manhattan!
With friends like these? The host organization of the evening is chartered with “strengthening and supporting the development of the software industry in our New York City metropolitan region,” generally defined as New York City, Long Island, and the lower Hudson Valley, New York.
I am a card carrying member of NYSIA and have been for many, many years. I shared with the group my best wishes for a resurgence on the horizon: The 2007 annual “Christmas” party WILL take place, in June!
I also invited the dozens of hopeful Silicon Alley entrepreneurs in the audience to post their elevator pitches, for free, at my new, online Startup Alpha Pitch Network, one, Big Apple step in a bootstrapping for success entrepreneurial strategy in New York, New York.
PLUS WIN the startup lottery May 13, at the free StartupAlpha.com launch party in Silicon Alley!
Pitch your startup, for free, at the Startup Alpha Pitch Community.
DONNA BOGATIN is the Founder & CEO of STARTUP ALPHA
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