Hey, entrepreneurs: Help make this DMV Startup Census great

As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about the status and growth of the #dctech startup scene, it can be frustrating (really, really frustrating) to realize that I don’t have access to good data on that status or growth.
Sure, I can call on people who have been around longer than I, like how Tara Chantal Silver and I recently sat down to discuss the growth of #dctech in the past few years, or I can simply look around me at the entrepreneurs I meet and stories I hear every day. Still, as much as I love those stories, there’s no escaping their anecdotal nature. So yeah, it’d be cool to have some data.
This is where a new Fosterly initiative comes in — a first-of-its-kind DMV Startup Census.
“There’s a lot of over-generalization” when it comes to discussion of the regional startup scene, Fosterly founder Adam Zuckerman told Technical.ly. The census, a fairly simple questionnaire meant to be filled out by any company that self-identifies as a startup or as part of the creative economy, is a measure against that over-generalization. “We’re hoping to paint a picture of what the region is doing,” Zuckerman said.
Take the survey
The census, which is open for responses from now until Dec. 2, represents the first time the D.C. entrepreneurship scene has made this kind of attempt to catalog itself. “We’re hoping to get a data set that hasn’t been gathered before,” Zuckerman said. Color us excited.
Questions in the survey range from queries about your company’s office location, to staffing, to funding and beyond. There are even a few open-ended questions where you can record your overall thoughts on the region as a place to have a business. The census itself must be completed in one sitting — so block off a little time in your calendar — but you can preview questions ahead of time.
If you’re a D.C. entrepreneur, please go fill out the census. The more, the merrier the data — that’s a saying, right? And in case you need motivation beyond our heartfelt plea, well, you can win prizes by participating! Check it out here.