TechDay New York is upon us. If you're a startup, or interested in Silicon Alley, you'll want to stop by. Why enter a sea of 500 exhibitors and some 30,000 attendees?
Because New York is standing out as a startup town.
NYC is still second to San Francisco when it comes to money raised. But NYC has seen an increase in capital invested over the period of 2009 to 2013, according to Taylor Majewski of Built in NYC. With that increased deal flow has come a 33% increase in tech jobs in NY from 2009 to 2013. San Francisco has seen a 7.4% increase in tech jobs during the same period. New York's tech workforce is also more diverse: It's made of up about 40% women and 21% minorities. In San Francisco, the corresponding numbers are about 30% women and 6% minorities. Women account for only 26 percent of all American coders, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so New York is ahead of the game.
When you look at the stats on female startup founders, the numbers can be discouraging, about 18%, according to CrunchBase stats. However small now, the number of female founders is growing, and Jenny Park Adam is one of them.
Adam's startup is called ARTDEX, and she is an exhibitor at TechDay NY. ARTDEX, a client of my agency, is an art world startup, so probably a little different from many of the other startups exhibiting, but it faces the same issues all startups do at first - solving a problem and then connecting with an audience who wants it solved.
There are hundreds of online art sites, Adam wrote to me in an email, but "no effective platform where art professionals and art lovers can network, showcase and bring awareness of their work to a global audience. Currently, the art world is a completely fragmented industry."
She believes that the art world needs a robust professional social networking platform to share art, information, and validation.
As she works to achieve product-market fit, Adams sees ARTDEX as a beneficial tool for emerging artists and art students who would need a free platform and digital archive of their portfolios. "Like Instagram for the art world," she wrote. As her base grows on the ARTDEX platform, she sees art collectors and art professionals becoming involved, including educators and curators. "Like LinkedIn and Facebook for the art world," as she put it.
At TechDay NY she'd like to exchange information and learn from other app founders and data-management tech startups. It's a good place to network, and also get mentoring and even funding.
This year, TechDay will be introducing something new to its New York event: Accelerator Alley, with accelerators attending like 500 Startups, Startup Bootcamp and Mass Challenge. Reps will be ready to speak with founders about getting their startup to the next level. For the brave, there will also be open auditions for Shark Tank.
Admission to NY TechDay is free. Just sign up here and head over Pier 94.