Congratulations to Thing Labs, Brizzly

A big congratulations to Thing Labs, the makers of Brizzly, who were acquired by AOL today. Brizzly will continue to exist and be a part of AOL. (Thing Labs is a Polaris company and Dogpatch Labs graduate)

And equally importantly, the Thing Labs team will play a major role at AOL - which I could not be more excited about. Jason Shellen and Christopher Wetherell of Thing Labs, two terrificly talented leaders and product thinkers, will lead AOLs AIM and Lifestream products. From AOL's release:

"The Brizzly team will play a key role in helping AOL provide consumers with the best possible venues to discover and share content with each other. Over time, AOL expects to integrate aspects of the Brizzly service into its popular Lifestream product, its social aggregator and publisher, and AIM, AOL’s flagship messaging platform. The Brizzly team will join AOL’s Consumer Applications Group, where Thing Labs Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jason Shellen and Christopher Wetherell, Vice President of Product and Engineering, will lead the AIM product suite, including Lifestream."

A big congratulations and we are all excited to see what happens with AOL's social products... which now have a killer team at the helm.

More on TechCrunch and ThingLabs.

Robert Scoble & Building43 Visit Dogpatch Labs

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Robert Scoble of Building43.com and taking about Dogpatch Labs, entrepreneurship and Polaris Venture Partners. Scoble just posted the article, "Dogpatch Labs gives startups the room—and expertise—to thrive" and the video chat is included below.

I was first introduced to Robert at other Dogpatch Labs events - the most recently of which he gave a speech about the five companies and trends he is most excited about (if you are a Scoble follower on blog or Twitter, you know that Flipboard was absolutely in that list!). He enjoyed the space and the community of entrepreneurs, and we decided to do a piece on Dogpatch Labs:

Benefits of Working out of Dogpatch Labs (from an Entrepreneur)

Over the last couple weeks, I have selectively included excerpts form relevant Quora conversations - specifically about Dogpatch Labs, Polaris Ventures, etc. Here is an answer not written by myself - but rather by a Dogpatch Labs entrepeneur, Ming Yeow Ng. The topic is "What benefits can your startup get by joining Dogpatch Labs compared to just leasing an office space at Pier 38?". My response is here - Ming's is below (and in full on Quora here):

"Let me focus on the 2 most important benefits:

1) Without a doubt, here is the most important benefit of DP: http://imgur.com/X2F4a

2) The second most important benefit is really people. It is no exaggeration to say that Dogpatch has easily one of the highest concentration of amazing people anywhere in the bay area. Let me explain why:

- Pool of great entrepreneurs who are top of their game.

Over the last few months, I got onto really good terms with a whole range of excellent entrepreneurs, like etherpad, cardpool, learnboost (amongst many others whom you might not have heard of) For example, I am totally digging having access to the Learnboost team - they are doing cutting edge magic around javascript, and mongodb, and it is amazing discussing these technologies with them. Another example is Rob from EggHaus, who is definitely one of the top few designers in the valley.

- Peers who can take shit and give you shit

Honestly, startup is tough. Overnight successes are fascinating, but most require grinding through several iterations. The group at Dogpatch are not random entrepreneurs - most of us have had our fair share of great successes and major failures. You would get blunt feedback about where you are fucking up and you would get lots of encouragement - cause everyone here knows there is no magic bullet.

- Streaming pool of top investors.

This is really up to you to make the best of it, but lots of top angel investors drop by the lab. Being part of the lab gives you credibility, and it makes getting to know these guys far easier.

- Great events right beside you.

Free beer, fun people within a 20 foot radius, twice a week.

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I am actually really looking forward to doing a couple of fun things that hopefully improves the dynamics of the lab even more, like having a big whiteboard where I can pimp what i am good at, and ask for help for things i suck in. When those things gets embedded, i think the lab will be even more awesome. "

Polaris Ventures Expanding in New York... and Hiring

In January 2010 Polaris Venture Partners opened its third Dogpatch Labs in one of the greatest areas of New York City, Union Square. The response in the NY tech community was outstanding, and today there are 14 companies and 37 entrepreneurs who work in the space. In our continued mission to support and invest in the NY seed and early stage community, Polaris Venture Partners will be adding a NY based Senior Associate to its team.

This position may be one of the best jobs in New York! You get to work with a very successful Venture Capital Firm. You will work out of Dogpatch Labs NY, and collaborate with entrepreneurs from our San Francisco and Boston Dogpatch Labs. On a daily basis you will be meeting and working with smart and interesting entrepreneurs. You get to spend your day looking at new companies as potential investment opportunities. You will be collaborating with existing Polaris portfolio companies and all of the great companies and people in Dogpatch Labs NY.

We will consider candidates with many different professional skill sets and life experiences. We are looking for intellectually curious, motivated individuals who have good instincts, have achieved some level of success in their career, love to network and meet new people, are fun to work with and are all about working as a team.

If you have been working inside an early stage consumer internet or cloud services company and have product, business development or marketing backgrounds, you certainly would bring valuable practical experience to the job. Of course, we won't hold it against you if you've already taken a walk on the dark side, and will consider candidates from Venture Capital roles.

You are probably familiar with Polaris – a partnership of experienced venture capital investors and technology executives that invests in seed, first round, and early stage technology and life science businesses with exceptional promise and helps them grow into sustainable, market-leading companies. With over $3 billion under management, Polaris is headquartered in Boston and operates Dogpatch Labs in New York, San Francisco and Boston.

If you are interested in learning more about this position please email Peter Flint at pflint [at] polarisventures.com .   We look forward to hearing from you!

Dogpatch Labs & Polaris Ventures (from Quora)

I have been spending time on Quora answering questions around Dogpatch Labs, incubators, venture capital, etc. As I receive some questions frequently, I thought it would be worth while to re-purpose my answer for a couple selected topics. This is my second Quora answer post (see all here):

Are all companies in Pier 38 obligated to receive funding from Polaris Ventures if they become successful?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Dogpatch Labs is a 'no strings attached' workspace in that Polaris does not take equity in Dogpatch start ups, there is no right of first refusal, etc.

At Dogpatch, we put great effort into making sure that companies are exposed to a deep network of entrepreneurs, business partners, and angels / venture firms. We do this through ongoing networking events, demo / pitch days, etc.

Additionally, Dogpatch Labs entrepreneurs and companies represent a diverse mix of stage and focus. Some residents are mature, well-funded, revenue-producing companies. Others are concepts that have not-yet made it to market. ... and everything in between.

To put numbers to this:

In Dogpatch San Francisco alone, 30+ companies have received funding by a variety of investors (angels, 'super angels', venture firms, etc). Including Boston and NYC, it is a much larger number.

Across the three Dogpatch Labs collectively (SF, NYC and Boston), Polaris has participated in the funding of eight companies.

You can learn more about Dogpatch Labs here: http://dogpatchlabs.com/

Why Work At Dogpatch Labs? (from Quora)

I have been spending time on Quora answering questions around Dogpatch Labs, incubators, venture capital, etc. As I receive some questions frequently, I thought it would be worth while to re-purpose my answer for a couple selected topics. Over the next week, I will couple of the related topics specifically on Dogpatch Labs. I will only post my response - but can get other answers on Quora (I will provide the link). You can also follow me directly at Quora/Ryan-Spoon

Question: What benefits can your startup get by joining Dogpatch Labs compared to just leasing an office space at Pier 38?

There are terrific entrepreneurs and companies across both DogpatchLabs (you can see Dogpatch residents here: http://dogpatchlabs.com/dogpatch...) and Pier 38 (ie Social Media, Automattic, Cotweet, individuals, etc).

I will focus on the benefits of Dogpatch Labs - which accounts for ~65 of the entrepreneurs in the pier (making it the largest 'group'):

1. Direct Community

Your peers are fellow entrepreneurs who you will be working alongside during your six-month stay. You get to know a diverse group of individuals & companies who are all going through similar experiences. We have had residents with experience at Google, Yahoo, eBay, Microsoft, Zynga, Slide, Facebook, Imeem, and so forth. The companies are all at different stages - from concept to revenue producing - and the residents are roughly split between engineering and business.

2. Community Beyond San Francisco & Your "Class"

Related to the above bullet, Dogpatchers are connected with residents at each of our locations (SF, NYC and Boston) and with 'graduates'. In total, that is a community of ~300 entrepreneurs each year.

3. People Flow

One of the great benefits of being within Dogpatch is the flow of great people who come through the lab - whether it be for meetings, workspace, events, etc. Residents are encouraged to take meetings in the common areas, on the pier, in the meeting rooms, etc - opening everyone to new people and potential partners.

4. Events

We host approximately an event a week at Dogpatch Labs. Some are informal gatherings (social, catch ups, etc) and some are more formal / elaborate. For instance, we have done angel nights, demo days, themed dinners (such as mobile) and events with major partners and speakers - including: Facebook, TechCrunch, Venturebeat, Robert Scoble, Hiten Shah / KISSmetrics, etc. Some events are open to the Pier but most are focused specifically for Dogpatch Labs residents (both past and current).

5. Location

Tough to beat the views: http://www.facebook.com/dogpatchlabs