It’s aliiiive!
Our Midwest startup community has grown from a handful of initial members to nearly 1,300 active contributors. In the past year alone, our regular get-togethers have gone from around 50 people to over 200 at every meetup, with spots consistently selling out—sometimes in less than 5 hours!
But the growth story isn’t really about Verge. It’s about the startups and people who have brought our vibrant community to life.
It’s all thanks to you—the founders who have pitched your startups, the engaged community that gives their attention and valuable feedback (both business and technical), the members who have stepped up to help lead the Verge team, and the founders of fast-growing businesses who support and sponsor our events.
Thank you so so much.
It’s true—we have some of the most brilliant entrepreneurs, gifted software developers, and technology-hip startup investors in America’s heartland.
And, yet, we have much to learn.
There will always be more to learn. There will always be more to do. We learn from our own tests and mistakes. We learn from others. And, as we share and collaborate, others learn from us.
I don’t mean to get all touchy-feely, mushy-gushy with you. What I’m getting at is that this sharing and collaboration is exactly why we launched the beta version of the Verge blog. It’s another way for us to stay connected—between and during events.
I’m not gonna lie. When this whole Verge thing started to take off, we had no clue what we were doing.
Did we set out to build a 1,300-member startup community? Hell no!
It may have appeared to be pure magic, but there were a lot of people who helped shape what Verge has evolved into today. We just listened to feedback from our community and learned from others.
And we’re still figuring things out. So, we need your help.
As we plan out the next release of this site, let us know what you’d like to see on the final Verge web presence. What are some of your biggest pain points as you scale your startup? What would be cool, fun, and useful?
Please share on the Quipol and in the comments below:
12 Comments
Matt Hunckler
Looking forward to your feedback!
Keyla
The honesty of your posting shines thorguh
Thomas Bass
Great looking site Matt Hunckler! Excited to watch the Verge community grow! Keep up the great work!
David J. Tittle
Nice site! Great job, Matt. The lineups are always interesting. Looking forward to the next event!
Lorraine Ball
Site looks great. Hope it will become a true gathering place for the community.
John P. Hunckler
Love it!
Matt Zentz
Nice work Matt! Keep the energy going and thanks for founding this great organization!
Justin Holden
hahahahaha Matt thiisss website isss giving outttt FREEEE ipaadd 2sss, I just got myneee!! go here http://www.facebook.com/groups/325876724095940/?9059cipt9512
Matt Deboard
What % of the Verge community is developers versus sales/marketing/social media/etc. people?
Matt Hunckler
That's a good question! Verge is a community for software developers, entrepreneurs, investors, and those working at startups. We're planning on doing some segmentation analysis in Q1, but if I were to guess, I'd say that at events we have 10% investors, 20% developers, 40% entrepreneurs, 20% idea guy/girl, 10% other… ?
Matt Hunckler
Thanks for all the positive feedback guys! What else would you like to see here on the site?
Nathan J Altman
Nicely done Matt! I would love to see a a quick writeup of the companies that pitched at Verge and a few updates on their status as they move forward. Kind of like TechStars does: http://www.techstars.com/companies/results/.