Meet Startup Communities: Silicon Beach

In recent years, Los Angeles has become a place where entrepreneurs and startup teams are growing their ideas and creating great companies.
“Los Angeles’ Silicon Beach (named after its proximity to the Pacific Ocean) is proving to be an attractive option for startups, forming a tech triumvirate in U.S. along with San Francisco’s Silicon Valley and New York City’s Silicon Alley,” wrote Ondi Timoner for Huffington Post in this article. “Greater Los Angeles now has 18 accelerators such as Launchpad, Amplify, and Start Engine, not to mention 30 incubators, tech studios, and hacker spaces – all committed to building out a web of disruption across the town.”
“The geographic region of Santa Monica, Venice and LA has become such a booming startup community in the last 4 or more years,” said Silicon Beach entrepreneur Christopher Brereton, Founder/Guru of a nonprofit app platform called PwrdBy. “It has been so much fun to watch this community explode from inside the epicenter. We are ferocious surfers, beach bunnies, rock and rollers that have too much time logged on a computer keyboard. We redefine what ‘nerd’ means for sure.”
Chris Brereton explains that Silicon Beach has not only a thriving ecosystem of ideas and a growing pool of talent, but also happen to live in one of the beautiful places in the world.
“We have the beach that is 17 blocks from my office. Or if you are SnapChat you were located right on the boardwalk,” he says. “We have the city life hustle in Downtown and we’re thriving in the heart of the entertainment capital of the world. It’s unique in that what makes up our community is that its really a bunch of smaller communities that bleed into each other.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N7I0Rv2nkQ
When PwrdBy (formerly Picture Healing), set up shop in Silicon Beach 4 years ago, Chris Brereton said there wasn’t much happening.
“You had some of the Mike Jones and MySpace mafia percolating and some community events coming together. Now you could literally be at multiple community events a day and never get any actual work done,” he says. “We’ve also seen an influx of investment dollars, had some big newsworthy wins and noteable startup (at least in the pop media) and have seen an infrastructure really root itself.”

Like all growing startup communities, Silicon Beach has it’s challenges and growing pains.
“I think we still lack enough talent. There aren’t enough game changing engineers here yet and with Hollywood in our backyard, we tend to have a lot of posers,” he said. “Well, I guess we can call them actors. Pretending to be or do things that can get in the way.”
When asked who the standout companies in the Silicon Beach ecosystem are, Chris Brereton is quick to say there are many to pick from. One that stands out to him is Silicon Beach LA because founder Robert Lambert has built his business by building the community here.
“I’d also note that it takes more than techies to grow and thrive,” he continues.  “We’ve got a bad ass PR shop in town called 30 Miles North that takes PR on from a way more creative approach.”
Lastly, Chris Brereton says Silicon Beach has amazing shops that aren’t “TechCrunch sexy” but do great work. He points to ServiceMesh happening 3 blocks from the sand.
You can see Entrepreneur.com’s favorite Silicon Beach startups here.
How can the tech community in Las Vegas get behind what’s happening in Silicon Beach?
“Lets build a Hyperloop from Vegas to LA so we can unite our communities more easily and share time, talent and resources across this arid stretch of land that separates us!” he says. “In all seriousness, staying connected to each other in any medium like this VegasTech.com write-up. I believe is the key to growing both communities and uniting the front.”
 
 
About PwrdBy: At PwrdBy.com we make technology for thought leaders, boundary pushers and icons of change. We love #nonprofit #SocEnt #NPtech #SiliconBeach #VegasTech Our mission is to empower nonprofits to expand their missions through technology and to give people of any means a chance to be inspired and get involved in supporting the cause they’re most passionate about. Our mobile app platforms empower the nonprofit community to expand their missions and connect with their supporters across the more than 90 million smart phones like iPhones and Androids at a ridiculously affordable rate!