How Startup Grind 2020 Changed My Views about Startups

Our founder Emma wants to create transparency about her journey as a startup founder and her adventures in building mindful tech. As part of that series, here is her commentary on a recently attended conference in Silicon Valley called Startup Grind Global 2020.

If Startup Grind is any indication of where the startup community is headed, then count me in--at least for the most part. I recently got to attend Startup Grind in Redwood City in “the Valley.” Santa Cruz Works sponsored a couple of us to check it out, and check it out we did. 

The conference is a gathering of all things startup. Do you remember the saying, “There’s an app for that!” It’s true. There seems to be an app for just about everything these days. 

As with most things, though, there has been an evolution. Now I can, with almost complete certainty, tell you that the more relevant saying is, “There’s a startup for that.” Startup Grind showed me that there are more startups than I could have ever imagined. Gone are the days of the small business, the software company, and the solopreneur; now, everyone has a startup and is a founder.

Reading between the lines, what I found interesting was how the experience of being at the conference mimicked the experience of working in the tech space and founding a startup. There were a lot of people, but when asked who had users or who had launched or who was actively funding, almost no one raised their hands. If you showed up to a session too early there was no one there, and if you showed up on time or slightly late there was no room for you – just like launching a company. The session descriptions were vague and provided few details as to what they were about and often didn’t stick to the theme advertised – kind of like the plethora of startups whose names are vague and are often not what you think they are. There was a sense as well that too much was going on and you couldn’t find enough time to get to everything and do everything you wanted to do. Finally, there was a lot of forced excitement and the impression that everyone is having a great time and not stressed at all.  

The agenda included the usual sessions about VC funding, scaling the business, AI/ML, and the marketing and design of products and companies. There were some big names and companies in attendance like Slack, Meetup, VSCO, Andressen Horowitz, Hulu, and of course the big companies with startup divisions – Oracle, Google, Amazon. 

One thing I found especially interesting was that there were 3 whole sessions on founder wellbeing and mental health. Even when it wasn’t specifically in the session title, mental health came up frequently in Q&A and in other presentations. It appears that the community has realized how much of a strain the hustle and grind puts on its people. In other words, everyone wants to be a startup founder, but it seems to be bad for your health. It’s clearly a hot topic, which of course bodes well for startups like mine that are in the mental health and wellbeing space and trying to fix problems like this, but it’s also nothing we should be proud of.     

However, what struck me the most at Startup Grind was the diversity. If you have met me or spoken to me at length you know I have a bee in my bonnet about diversity in the tech space--really diversity everywhere, but I digress. I honestly think we should all have a bee in our bonnet about the matter, but that is a different discussion. 

I want to give kudos to Startup Grind because they have a lot of diversity on their team and in their speaker lineup and clearly walk the walk. As for the attendees, Startup Grind had everyone: I saw couples with young babies in tow, baby boomers, gen z students, millennial and gen-x teams, and solo founders of all genders and nationalities. I probably heard 6 or 7 languages. Sitting in front of me at one point, as I listened to a panel of two women and one man speaking on the VC stage, was a mom flying solo with a baby attached to her chest in a carrier, a woman of color in a wheelchair, a group of guys speaking an eastern European language I couldn’t quite identify, and a young woman with pink hair and funky shoes. 

So if Startup Grind is any indication of what the future of startups looks like, I think it will look very different from what we’ve seen in the past: you can now be anywhere in the world, not just Silicon Valley; you can look like anything you want; and you can take care of your health and well-being instead of hustling and grinding yourself to death. Only time will tell I suppose, but if this is the future of tech startups, count me in.

Do you work in the startup space? How has your work-life balance been? Please share your experience in the comments!

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