Ignition in Kazan

Peter and I had the privilege of visiting a new startup incubator in Kazan while we were visiting our office in Russia this week. They invited us to do a presentation and we did a talk called “How to compete with Silicon Valley from Russia” with a focus on early stage startups and perspective from the incubator/accelerator ecosystem in the US. We started by answering the red herring title of the talk… don’t try to be Silicon Valley, build a great startup culture in Kazan. And we drew a lot of parallels to what we’ve been focused on building in New Orleans. Here’s my favorite “quote” from the talk:

«Мы любим стартапы! У вас, в России, есть прекрасные инженеры, прекрасные программисты, и мы рады тренировать начинающих бизнесменов, рады им помогать», — считает Крис Шульц.

“ We love startups! Do you, in Russia, there are excellent engineers, excellent programmers, and we are happy to train novice businessmen are happy to help them ”- says Chris Schultz.

It has been fascinating to watch the startup ecosystem emerge in Kazan. The IT Park is a beautiful facility that has opened with a lot of government support. Of course, the energy is in the grass roots, and the collaboration thats emerging on the ground between Flatstack and the many spinoffs created by former employees is really exciting.

Slides and video of our talk below. We borrowed a lot of ideas from Dave McClure, Paul Graham, and Brad Feld, so thanks to them.
http://yatv.ru/files/swf/container.swf?cid=29214&autoplay=0&layout=1full&apps=record&id=277135

How to compete with Silicon Valley from Russia [slideshare id=9657501&w=425&h=355&fb=0&mw=0&mh=0&sc=no]

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