Christian Renaud's Blog

In Praise of Tej Dhawan

Photo Credit to Anna Jones.  Of course.  Who else?

I know it's Martin Luther King Jr's observed b'day and all, but It's actually Tej Dhawan's real birthday today.  Feel free to smack me around for not being mono-topical.

I first met Tej thanks to Mike Colwell at the BIZ, shortly after I left Palisade and was considering building an incubator.  Tej had just self-emancipated from his last venture and was also considering something similar.  From these three-way conversations between Tej, Mike and I, StartupCity Des Moines was born.

Tej is the main driving force behind StartupCity. 

I have some vision and execution skills, but Tej makes the magic happen.  If this were a superhero team, Tej would be the hero and I would be the sidekick.  No question.  Unfortunately, I have an annoying habit of spewing bon mots and other soundbites that put me in the press more frequently than he, so Tej is often overlooked for the credit for SCDSM and his role as a driver of the local entrepreneurial zeitgeist.  Ditto on the Iowa Startup Alliance.  Ditto on StartupIowa.  Ditto on 'Silicon Sixth'. Ditto on the Iowa Startup Fair.

He makes it rain.

Des Moines, and all of Iowa and the Silicon Prairie owe Tej a big 'Thank You' for his reasoned, educated, insightful and hilarious guidance.  I am honored to be his colleague, friend and sidekick.

My Very First-est Editorial Submission

Tej and I submitted this to the Register just now re: SOPA/PIPA.  What a horribly misguided piece of proposed legislation.....

"Our elected leaders are always promising to put Americans back to work and create jobs.  However, Congress is now considering legislation that would stifle innovation and impede expansion of the economy. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate promise to have irreversible effects on the ability of tech startups to grow and expand.
 
In addition to giving the government unprecedented new powers, this legislation would create a new “private right of action,” allowing trial lawyers to file baseless suits against web-based companies.  Because of the lack of due process under this legislation, a website can be effectively removed from the internet, allowing online trolls or unscrupulous competitors to make a site go dark without even being notified.

Imagine a tiny startup company, chasing a great idea and operating with two people in a garage (or a shared workspace like ours). That company can’t afford a lawyer to defend against even one of those lawsuits.  In fact, in the regulatory environment created under this legislation, that company probably wouldn’t even exist in the first place. Who would invest, knowing most of the money would go to legal fees rather than improving the product?

Each one of the big tech companies like Google and Facebook started small, and needed that crucial seed capital.  Will the next Twitter never exist under SOPA and PIPA? Could the next Groupon have been based on Des Moines’ “Silicon Sixth?”

We cannot afford to have Iowa-based tech companies stopped in their tracks by Washington politicians. Please join me in calling on Senator Grassley, Congressman King, and Congressman Latham to vote no on this harmful legislation."

Dialing Back

For the last two years, I've spent about 2-3 hours a day meeting with entrepreneurs (or wantrepreneurs) pursuing their dreams.  This has been deeply fulfilling for me on many levels, as I get a big buzz out of helping startups make their dreams come true.

As Tej and I scale up StartupCity and the inagural class there, I've been dialing back my engagement with external startups outside of SCDSM, more due to bandwidth than anything else.  I will continue to honor my consulting agreements, as all startups inevitably need to pay their bills somehow (myself included), but if I seem less than responsive on social media or email, rest assured that I will get back to you but I can't promise that it will be 'promptly'.