

Ask HN: Chicago-Area Startups - mrerrormessage

I live in Chicago and thought it would be interesting to get some perspective on startups in the area. What is your company? When did you start? Where in the Chicago area are you located?
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carbon8
If you are on the north side, north shore, at NU or anywhere near Evanston,
come check out <http://coworkingevanston.com/> It got started because there
have been a bunch of startups and indie devs/designers working out of
coffeeshops and home offices in the area and there wasn't any central point to
get together and collaborate anywhere north of lakeview.

We started hosting the Monday Jelly Chicago meetups this week and had a packed
house. Next monday following Jelly some of the people here are starting a
Startup Evanston meetup <http://www.meetup.com/Startup-Evanston/> One of the
members here also hosts the well-attended monthly Chicago Web Pros meetup in
Evanston <http://www.meetup.com/chicago-web-pros/>

The startup I'm with is technically based in San Francisco, but I'm actively
looking to find another developer in Chicago. If you are a Chicago-area Ruby
developer, my email is in my profile.

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paulsmith
Groupon (grew out of ThePoint.com, 2008-ish?, in the old Monty Ward building),
GrubHub, EveryBlock (we started in 2007 in the Loop, now in Ravenswood),
Threadless (now in the West Loop), to name a few ...

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kadavy
Kadavy, Inc., it's just me, and started as a UI consultancy in 2008. Now it's
a media company.

I'm writing a book on design <http://designforhackers.com>

Based on blog posts at <http://kadavy.net>

I live in Lincoln Park at Clark & Fullerton, which I think is a perfect place
for a one man startup. Very walkable.

I meet with other entrepreneurs every wednesday to cowork at a cafe
<http://jellychicago.com>

I moved here _from_ SF, entirely by my own volition. Yes, for real.

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esausti
<http://giveforward.com> We're in the Loop now but moving to Wicker Park next
month. We launched in 2008. Raised a round in 2011. Things are bueno.

~~~
timjahn
Woot! Love Wicker Park. And GiveForward. :)

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esausti
thanks Tim! We're going to be in the same building as Putchfork. Should be
fun. You're going to have to check out the new digs.

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timjahn
Launched <http://www.BeyondThePedway.com> 2 years ago to cover the creative
companies in Chicago, and later pivoted to focus on creative entrepreneurs
here in Chicago as well as all over.

Launching a community for parent entrepreneurs called
<http://www.NaptimeEntrepreneurs.com> at the beginning of May.

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danielzarick
It's not a startup, but there is a fantastic monthly meetup in Chicago for
people who like to build stuff for the web (mainly developers/designers).
Basically, a lot of awesome people go to a bar, hang out, and talk about
things that we all enjoy. Check it out: <http://chicago-concat.gathers.us>

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tptacek
Matasano. 2005. South loop.

~~~
revorad
Do you still consider yourselves a startup?

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tptacek
I refuse to dignify the distinction between startups and small businesses. In
my head, we're all of us "indies", from the YC'W11 companies to Fog Creek.

People, including 'pg, like to point out that "startups" scale and small
businesses are structured to take steady income. But those lifestyle "small
businesses" can flip a switch at any time and plow investments into any
product idea to shoot for the hockey stick curve. They can even do it more
than once.

To answer your question more objectively: we are ~4 years older and
_substantially_ larger than most of the companies discussed on HN as
"startups". But our product team is roughly the same size as (I think) most of
the YC'W11's.

~~~
revorad
Maybe I came across the wrong way. I just meant to say I thought you were a
real business with real income, not a startup which might still be looking for
a business model. I have no doubt you can scale to the moon, if and when you
choose to.

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baberuth
Why is there no General Assembly/Hacker Dojo in Chicago? Is there a demand for
it at all?

The culture in Chicago seems totally different, would there even be a demand
for that sort of thing?

~~~
baberuth
to be clear, i mean a space that is heavily geared towards web based
startup/technology hackers.

noble tree is a coffee shop and chicago jelly meets there, but it is not a
space where you can expect to go meet random hackers

pumpingstationone is nice but last i checked it didn't appear to have a strong
technology startup type vibe.

i understand that curating the "vibe" of a "hackerspace" (whatever that means)
isn't an easy thing to do, but i've been INCREDIBLY IMPRESSED by general
assembly and hacker dojo. pumping station one is a great space, its just not
quite the same. I'd consider:

nycresistor:generalassembly::pumpingstationone:"what i'm asking for" --
basically "general hacker types" (macguyver, picking locks and being generally
crafty) vs "programmer hacker mindset" (hey, i wrote a really cool thing in
node.js which i learned over the last 48 redbull fueled hours).

Chicago is an amazing town and there are tons of great people for it:
birthplace of RoR, cofoudners of django live there, plenty of YC startups,
groupon, beyond the pedway (woot, @timjahn, calling you out -- attended your
"Entrepreneurs Unpluggd" event in Feb and I think that may be the best event
I've attended in Chi), grubwhub, grubwithus, i think restaurant.com, etc.

However, the tech community isn't quite as unified and its a lot harder to get
in touch with likeminded folk. At hacker dojo, you could turn to almost anyone
to get feedback on a web app or ask for javascript advice, which I am not
aware exists in Chicago.

~~~
timjahn
Thanks for the kind words. I completely agree with you on the notion that the
Chicago tech community isn't as unified as it needs to be. And the ironic part
is I think many other people feel the same way. So we're all doing our parts
to try and tighten it up around town.

That being said, in my eyes, things have come a long way in the past 2 years.
Excited to see what the next 2 years bring.

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kuthydan
<http://www.pvpower.com>. PVPower's flagship product, SolarBear is a
marketplace that brings together the products, process, customers and capital
needed for widespread adoption of residential solar power.

Founded in 2009, raised a seed round in 2009, raising an A round right now,
closing in May.

CEO - Dan Kuthy COO - Nick Yecke

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Muchi
For those of you that have startups in Chicago, where do you normally hang
out? Is there a HN meetup or something along those lines?

~~~
gersh
Lightbank and Sandbox have their own enclaves. The ITA (Illinois Technology
Association) has offices, and some stuff. There is the lean startup circle.
You can also out built in Chicago. Midventures also events. Entrepreneurs
unpluggd seems to putting on more stuff, lately.

~~~
timjahn
I'm one of the co-organizers of Entrepreneurs Unpluggd
(<http://www.entrepreneursunpluggd.com>) and we plan on putting together
events quarterly currently, if not more frequently.

Our inaugural event was Feb 8, next even is April 26, then late July after
that. We really hope to create an evening for entrepreneurs to network, learn,
and strengthen the ecosystem.

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cpher
Spatial Bytes (<http://spatialbytes.com>) -- my lame old blog. As of Dec. 2010
I'm an official business in Chicago. Some ideas but no prototypes. For now,
it's just consulting side gigs. I have another business in planning as an LLC
with a prototype complete. I'm in the Hyde Park neighborhood.

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uzish
Future Simple - <http://www.futuresimple.com> Disrupting small business
software. Just raised $1.1M from great investors in Chicago. Building some
crazy things now... Spending our time around Lincoln Park. About to get a cozy
place downtown soon.

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WillyF
I started <http://www.onedayonejob.com/> in Connecticut in 2007, but moved to
Chicago in 2008. I'm in River North, but work out of a home office since it's
only me for now (but the business is profitable!).

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heyjonboy
<http://www.parkwhiz.com> \- We started in 2006, when it seemed like
TechCocktail was the only startup community in town. Ended up bootstrapping
the company, and we recently opened an office in Roscoe Village.

~~~
timjahn
Recently discovered your site, freaking genius. You guys profitable these
days?

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gersh
<http://www.raydash.com> \- We provide live-video on your website.

BTW, who is going to the hackathon, todady, <http://www.nuhackathon.com/>

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BrianAnderson
Going to throw my company, CrowdSavvy into this, though we are early, early
stage. Been working on it since mid-2010. Launched to public beta in 2011.

<http://www.crowdsavvy.com>

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ryanburke
I am working on Emulsion in Chicago, which will allow photographers to create
beautiful, simple portfolios in about 15 minutes. <http://emulsion.me>

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tbgvi
<http://www.cashierlive.com> \- We provide SaaS point-of-sale to retailers. We
launched last February, and we're working in River North.

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anthonycerra
We started <http://www.joystickers.com> in 2010. We're based in Logan Square.

Would love to get a meetup together soon.

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seanMeverett
<http://evolyte.com> in the loop on Wabash/Lake. We've been autotuning the
internet since 1994. The G Funk Era.

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TapMeJosh
Tap.Me - in game advertising and engagement for game developers by game
developers. Funded and about to announce some killer traction. Http://tap.me/

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eduardo_f
I started <http://www.MigrationBox.com> in Chicago, now about to graduate
TechStars in NYC.

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suek
<http://www.edulender.com> 2010 Chicago & Franklin

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wushupork
Http://www.shelfluv.com started as a hackathon project last year in September
located downtown.

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tony584
<http://www.domu.com> Streeterville 2010

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baberuth
grubwithus (current YC class)

inkling markets (first YC class i believe)

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there
superblock. 2006. wicker park now.

though i don't consider my company a startup, just a plain old small business.

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pitdesi
Also - check out this list: <http://www.quora.com/What-tech-startups-are-
there-in-Chicago>

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pitdesi
<http://feefighters.com> We're in the West Loop, at
<http://sandboxindustries.com/>. Been around for a couple of years. Raised a
note a year ago and a seed round a couple of months ago. Things are going
great.

~~~
maukdaddy
Interesting...one of the few startups I've seen with quite a few MBAs on
staff!

