About

I went to a tech meetup last night. I was invited to attend by a dear friend who is in the process of launching a tech startup, and was promised a pretty cool experience where I could see how much need exists for my communications expertise (ahem!) within the tech community.

My first reaction was that of absolute certainty. My friend is right; there is a huge need for some serious communications help in the tech startup space. You can have the best idea in the world, but if you don’t know how to tell people about it, there’s a high probability of failure. There are always exceptions to that rule (did you hear about Ship Your Enemies Glitter?  If you haven’t, you should take a peek out of the rock you’ve been living under. One article in Time, and they’re on their way to international stardom). But we don’t live by exception most of the time. Let’s face it – the chances of you getting an article in Time Magazine for your fledgling startup is 1 in 6 trillion (not an actual statistic, but I’m willing to bet it’s pretty close).

So I sat in the audience and listened. I listened to some great ideas, some ideas that have the potential for greatness, and some ideas that should be shelved or at least seriously rethought. And it made me think. It made me think about the people who are up there on stage, and the ones who aren’t.

I also thought about how cool the idea of a startup is in general, and how infatuated I am with people that have this much passion, dedication, and innovation. It’s the haves versus the have-nots, but instead of being based on money, it’s based on drive, vision, and pure heart and soul.

Their stories should be heard (cue the Law & Order theme song), talked about, and there should be a place where people can read about what’s going on, who’s doing it, and when it’s happening. And this shouldn’t only apply to the ones that have been lucky enough to pique the interest of a Time Magazine reporter.

We have restaurant critics, hotel critics, and movie critics. We rate, review, and comment our hearts out on every aspect of everything. Why not do the same for startups?  There should be a place where, when a startup has decided to face the world, they can check their own “Rotten Tomatoes” rating – only for startups rather than movies.

Hence, a healthy, bouncing baby blog was born named The Startup Review. We may throw some cool news at you once in a while about a new funding source, or trends in coding technology, but mostly we’re going to talk about new startups with new ideas, old startups launching new stuff or making changes, and who’s got it right and wrong. If you’re open to it, you can even learn from others’ successes, failures, mistakes, and achievements.

It’s a crowded startup world out there. Think of us like the red carpet commentators at the Grammy’s, coming to a Tech Meetup (or happy hour) near you. We’re lurking in the audience, scouring the Internet for new stuff, and talking the ears off of anyone who will tell us about what they’re doing. We can also take emails (boor-iing, but doable. We prefer the old-fashioned way of talking to people.)

Before we embark on this big adventure, we’d like to include one small disclaimer. We’re a brutally honest bunch.  These are our (well-educated and informed) opinions. Like anything in life, nothing fits into a tiny container that’s meant to work for one population of the world. We hope you are thoroughly entertained and informed, and if you’re one of the lucky startups to be featured on our blog, our words might help you grow as a company.