What 5 startup founders are looking for in Philly’s tech scene right now

It’s been about a year since in-person events in Philly’s tech scene have again been the norm, as Zoom happy hours, virtual pitch days, and a lot of time on Twitch or Discord have been replaced with conferences and live demo days.

For those looking to find a sense of camaraderie or community, cue the sigh of relief. As often as we heard that building a company virtually may open doors to new investors or allow a manager to hire from anywhere, there’s nothing like shooting the breeze with a fellow founder over a cocktail or spontaneously running into a contact in the office.

This in-between world is what Technical.ly’s exploring this month during our State of Local Tech Month. How do local tech economies operate at this stage of the pandemic? What types of connections are communities looking for nowadays?

This reporter heard a wide range of answers at Philly Startup Leaders’ (PSL) annual Entrepreneur Expo on Tuesday as part of the multi-day Diversitech conference. Just up the stairs from the flashing casino games and cocktail servers at Fishtown’s Rivers Casino, startup founders, investors and others in the community came looking to meet clients and each other.

Shifting focus

Donna Lisle, Manail Anis and Pauline Janta, cofounders of an AI-powered digital assistant for home and family management called iJuno, began building their startup after Janta participated in Founder Institute. Anis called Philly’s pre-pandemic tech scene a “really vibrant environment,” but she’s struggling with the visibility in the scene now. As a 45-year-old mom of two who lives on the Main Line, she said, she feels a seperation from those who are recent grads, or those who are building tech companies in Center City.

“It takes me a lot of effort to go and seek out those resources,” Anis said. The Philly tech scene could benefit from “maybe shifting that focus from very young, very green startup founders to experienced professionals with careers and families who can and want to add value, but are either there outside the conversation and their skills are maybe older, and so they’re not able to. It’s alienating.”

Lisle said she feels that gatherings like Entrepreneurship Expo brings them more into the fold. Only about an hour into the event, the cofounders saw a few people come up to learn about their venture and offer advice or connections where they could.

“To see all the things that people are doing, and all the startup ideas,” Lisle said, “it’s very encouraging. We’ve been excited to meet other people and learn from them.”

Seeking a scene

Naial Casanovas Mack, founder of package pickup service Dropupp, said Entrepreneurship Expo was his first-ever local tech event. He’s been working on the venture for a little more than a year from his home in Bryn Mawr, teaching himself how to build a tech venture after running a video production company, and just launched his MVP, a service that will schedule a pickup of your online returns for a one-off or subscription price.

The founder said he wasn’t sure “how much tech scene” Philly had yet. But he’s hopeful events like Tuesday’s will lead him to one.

What is he looking for? “Just to like, surround myself with like-minded people in the same situation as me,” Mack said. “Because it’s a very unique situation. It’s a very unique situation to be a founder and start up something and manage your finances.”

Mack said he doesn’t think about his business from a local lens: When it comes time to raise his seed round soon or expand his team, he won’t be focused on the Philly area.

Re-nurturing relationships

It’s a departure from the folks at Glitter, who run a block-cleaning service that employs neighbors as cleaners and is paid for by residents of a given city block. Founder Morgan Berman, who’s led other ventures including MilkCrate and has sat on PSL’s board, said local is essential to what they’re doing with the startup.

“Because of our work, we are only in Philly right now,” she told Technical.ly.

Berman said she’s felt less connected to the local tech scene for a few reasons, including that she moved just outside the city and had two kids during the pandemic. But through this event and others coming up, she’s hoping to strengthen her connection.

“It’s not that those relationships are gone,” she said. “It’s just they haven’t been nurtured as much.”

Community as draw

The reputation of Philly’s tech scene is what drew Will Schmahl to the region from New York four and a half years ago. He heard that it was a city where you could get more space for your dollar, get connected to great engineers, and find a welcoming community. Schmahl said he worked for various startups and for corporations and is currently building HousMthr (“house mother”), a mobile app for groups who are traveling together to manage their rental and assist with the trip along the way.

Though they have the option of hiring completely remote, Schmahl said within the next year, HousMthr will be looking to open a Philly office, and said it’s “definitely” a Philly company. The encouraging words he’d heard prior to moving here held up, he feels the scene is “85% back” to what it was pre-pandemic.

Schmahl gave the community accolades for when everything changed in 2020: When the pandemic hit the region, the Philly tech scene leaned on each other.

“My tech family became more of my family,” he said.