Local Startup Leaders Plan Philadelphia Invasion at SXSW

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City startups and musicians head to Austin to showcase—and sell—Philly

Mar. 02, 2016

2 years agone, during their first trip to Due south by Southwest (SXSW), Philly Startup Leaders' Yuval Yarden and music promoter Dave Silver realized there was something missing from the almanac Austin festival: Philadelphia. Sure, there were a couple of Philly bands playing, and a few local startups had booths at the tech off-white. But aside from a few scattered appearances, Philadelphia was basically a no-show.

That didn't set well with the 2 young entrepreneurs. "We want people to know how peachy information technology is to work in Philadelphia," Yarden says. "You take to become where people are to tell them the story. Only nosotros weren't doing that."

That was the impetus for this year'south Philadelphia invasion of SXSW, organized by Yarden and Silver to highlight the metropolis's music and startup tech scenes.

At the festival next week, Philly volition have a stage and a booth, open up to all Philadelphia makers and doers. On Tuesday dark, Silver—co-founder of RECPhilly, who staged the first SXSW Philly showcase concluding year—has booked nine local musicians for a Philadelphia bear witness, culminating with a set up by DJ Jazzy Jeff. (A few other local bands are also playing, as role of the full general festival.) During the day, Yarden and the metropolis'southward StartupPHL will take a ten x 20 human foot booth at the tech fair—complete with a life-size replica of the LOVE statue—to promote Philadelphia, sharing information technology with iv burgeoning tech companies: LoopIt, AnneeLondon, Roar for Skillful and Habitat. 8 other Philly companies volition have their own 10 x 10 foot booths nearby: RJMetrics, Cloudmine, Picwell, Eventuosity, Oz, Zivtech, Arcweb and Chariot Solutions.

Together, Yarden hopes to emit a story of Philadelphia that says one thing: "Nosotros aren't Nashville or San Francisco or New York. Philly'southward really a actually warm place to alive and work, a identify where the startup community is potent and people desire you to succeed."

Tomorrow, what Yarden is calling "Amplify Philly SXSW Edition" will celebrate this first big foray to Austin with a ship-off party at Coda in Center City. The upshot is free, and open to anyone, and is more than just a chapeau-tip to the folks headed to Texas next week. It is also, Yarden hopes, an early start to recruiting Philadelphians for next twelvemonth's festival. "We want to create excitement for leaving Philly to tell our story," she says.

The trip to Austin is part of a larger attempt to bring new attention to Philadelphia. Over the last couple months, Yarden and Silvery raised $100,000 from Comcast, Contained Bluish Cross and several other local companies to pay for the phase, the talent and the booths. They have besides worked with StartupPHL, the city office charged with spurring entrepreneurial activity and the home of an early phase investment fund underwritten by Offset Round Capital's Josh Kopelman.

With StartUpPHL, Yarden and Silver are launching Amplify Philly, a marketing campaign they hope to take across Austin to assistance promote the city'south startup scene. Yarden says she sees her role as introducing Philadelphia to exterior entrepreneurs and technologists; for help in setting up shop here, she passes them to StartupPHL, whose managing director Archna Sahay, of the urban center'south Commerce Department, will likewise be in Austin next week.

The partnership across sectors—public and private, arts and business—feels more Austin than Philadelphia. Simply that's the indicate. It's no longer enough to be former insular Philadelphia; to go along growing, the city needs to call back like the entrepreneurs it'south hoping to attract. Yarden notes that some of the companies exhibiting at SXSW are hiring—and hoping to recruit technologists from Austin to Philadelphia. And that they're doing Philly-way: "The way Philadelphia works best is coming together to brand an impact, not just one person making something happen. That's what we're doing."

Photo: Flickr/Nicole Yeary

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/philadelphia-startup-sxsw/

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