Houston City Council needs your input to support Innovation in Houston

Sorry for the last minute post, but I wanted to get this out there in the hopes that you (the community of Houston startups/techs/entrepreneurs/investors) will be able to provide some input.

I, along with several others, very recently received an invitation to attend a meeting with members of the Houston City Council, to talk about how they can best support Innovation amongst Houston’s Startups and Entrepreneurs. Now, I have my own ideas about what the City should be doing to help grow and foster Innovation in Houston (hint: it starts and ends with $$$), but I would really like to get thoughts from the entire community. After all, this discussion is meant to help grow the community (ie. you), therefore shouldn’t the ideas come from you as well?

The meeting is at 8:30 tomorrow morning (Tuesday), so please comment quickly!

Here is the invitation I received, so you can get the full gist of the meeting:

By most counts, Houston is the nation’s leader in innovation. But how do we make Houston itself an innovative city? Council Member Jarvis Johnson and the Houston Innovation Initiative would like to hear your thoughts on how our innovative industries can better our city, and how our city can spur economic growth for our industries. We’d like to hear your ideas on how to implement plans for collaboration, creative financing, education, and other programs.

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Update:  I wanted to go ahead and list what my ideas so that it could start the discussion.  I will also make sure to mention each and every one of your comments at the meeting, in addition to my own.

Here are my thoughts on what the City of Houston should consider doing to help foster Innovation in Houston

• Look to Replicate what other successful Startup Cities have done:  $$$
  I was pointed to a couple of great articles by Paul Graham (thanks to Brian Armstrong) on what ingredients are necessary to create an innovative city culture that leads to successful startups.
  • How to be silicon valley:  http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html
  • Can you buy silicon valley:  http://www.paulgraham.com/maybe.html
  • Most of my following comments stem from some of the points that Paul makes in his articles/posts.
• Promote a Geographical Area for Innovators and Startups to Concentrate/Congregate:  $
  Companies get started when there are a lot of like minded people in close proximity.  Houston is very spread out and so efforts must be made to define a small Geographic Area within the city for like-minded technology professionals to get together and discuss tech, and hopefully, starting new companies.  I took a stab at this a while back with my concept for the Houston Startup Corridor.
• More Industry Speakers:  $$
  Nothing helps to inspire innovation more than hearing from those who have gone out and achieved success.  Houston needs to bring in additional thought leaders and speakers from outside of Houston to come in and talk about how they became successful and, more specifically, how that success might be replicated in Houston.  This speaker could be mixed in with some other speakers from Houston.
• Establish a Home-Base for Tech Meetups: $$
  Some meet at different restaurants or pubs around town, but I have yet to see a place with the perfect setup.  I have seen one that has come close.  Maybe the City could partner with CoffeeGroundz to absorb some of the cost of leasing the space next door to them, which is perfect for events and has plenty of  coffee, food, and other beverages that can be purchased to help offset the cost.
• Establish a Seed-Fund for Houston Tech Startups:  $$$
  Organizations such as Y-Combinator and TechStars have proven that it does not take a lot of money to fund successful startups (relatively speaking).  The question is more one of focus.  If Houston wants to see more successful tech startups, then it needs to put its money where its mouth is (and I’m not just talking about the City, I’m talking about all organizations/investors with investment capital looking for a good home) and start a seed fund.  Oh, the things we could do with just $500k – $1m.
• Plug in the Colleges: $
  Get students and professors from the Computer Science schools at all of the Houston Universities to come together for a single event such as BarCamp and also help to attract major Tech speakers to come to the events (see above).
• Focus your Vision and then Throw Everything You’ve Got at it: $$$
  Whether its trying be the next iPhone App Startup Leader, the Cloud-Based Computing Startup Leader, or the Web 3.0 Startup Leader (whatever that is), Houston needs to set a focused and audacious goal of becoming the world leader at some new emerging IT/Web/Mobile technology and then throw every resource it has at accomplishing that goal. It is only this kind of focused, all-out, goal setting that will get us ahead of the curve and give us enough time to become established and noteworthy in that area before other cities have a shot at it.
• Leverage what is Cool and Unique about Houston: $$$
  Houston has a lot of things about it that are cool and innovative. I especially love Houston’s art scene. If Austin is known for their Tech and Live Music, then why can’t Houston be known for Tech and Art. Both Tech and Art involve innovation and creativity { just ask any programmer } and I would like to see more events sponsored that combine these things together into a street festival. (Think EOTribe/Information Superhighway/BarCamp Houston + Westheimer Block Party/Art Car Light Parade/ArtCrawl Houston)