Technology Startups Receive Push From White House and Y Combinator. Will We Take Advantage?

Over the last week there have been some significant shifts in the wold of technology and entrepreneurship. First, the president pledged in his SOTU address to push us towards innovation, broadband access for everyone via next generation wireless networks and a renewed focus on startups and small businesses. Second, high profile start-up incubator Y Combinator partnered with DST investor Yuri Milner as an individual and SV Angel, offered each of the companies a $150,000 investment in the form of a convertible note with no cap and no discount.

This development means that each startup in the current class will receive a $150k loan without having to give up any equity and it does limit what kind of valuation you can get if you ever decide to out and raise money from VCs later. They have also said they will offer this to all future classes of startups in Y Combinator. Today, the White House launched it’s Startup America program with AOL co-founder Steve Case as it’s chairman. The goal of the partnership is to promote entrepreneurship, innovation and job creation here in the US.

I believe that all of these are indicators that technology entrepreneurship is becoming mainstream conversation and not just back room talk for hackers and tech geeks. The question is now what are we as minorities going to do about it? Our chief complaint about launching businesses have been access to capitol and programs like Y Combinator are evolving to deal with that and there is now government commitment to get us the access we need and make the support resources available.  If there has ever been time for us to increase our involvement in this space it is now. Let us know in the comments below if these announcements were enough to get you motivated to pursue your passion and turn that idea into a reality and if they are good luck!

About the Author
Navarrow Wright is the CTO of Interactive One, Interactive One is a digital and print media company focusing on the African-American and urban market. As CTO Wright is responsible for the technical strategy of all the Interactive One online properties which include Hellobeautiful, The UrbanDaily, NewsOne, Elev8 and BlackPlanet. He is also responsible for the technical management of the Radio One Network’s radio sites Navarrow was formerly the President of Maximum Leverage Solutions ( http://maxlevsolutions.com), An internet technology consulting firm. Wright is the Co-founder of Globalgrind.com with Russell Simmons and The former CTO of BET.com. Navarrow blogs about issues in technology that affect entrepreneurs, minorities and urban youth on his site at http://www.navarrowwright.com
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