David Lai and Someday Startups are hosting an event in Santa Monica to help people get their ideas off the ground. Erik Huberman, CEO of Hawke Media, talks to Lai about startups, Silicon Beach and Santa Monica.
Erik Huberman: Tell me about Someday Startups.
David Lai: Someday Startups is a community project to help people get their ideas started. I know for myself and others who are working at their day jobs, many of us have these ideas in the back of our minds that we never get the chance to start for whatever reason. The idea of this event is to have the most productive weekend to start your year. The event will have mentors to help you get started, a networking activity to help you meet other people who are doing something similar to you and also an educational track where people can listen to presentations on topics from how to scale up their app or make a beautiful UI design. At the end of the day, our goal is to help people make their ideas better and create something in the now so they can take that home with them and build a business on top of it.
EH: Why Santa Monica?
DL: Los Angeles, and especially Santa Monica, is a great place for startups. There are lot of accelerators coming up and the tech environment is growing. With recent successes in the area like Snapchat, Whisper and Dollar Shave Club, I think Santa Monica could be the next Silicon Valley. We have all the elements and support they have up there. It's up to the community to help foster that to grow farther. We need more of the community to help people start or learn about the different tech opportunities there are.
EH: Do you have one piece of advice for an entrepreneur trying to get started?
DL: Don't do it alone. There are resources out there to help. People need to share more and collaborate more and stop worrying about the competition. Think about how to grow the bigger community. Grow the pie and create more visibility to the overall industry.
EH: Is there anything you'd like to share with the Santa Monica community?
DL: The event is Saturday, Feb. 28, and Sunday, March 1, at Blankspaces, 1450 2nd St., in Santa Monica. Bring your ideas and be open to collaboration. If there are any volunteers that want to mentor or talk about starting a business, I'd love for them to reach out to me.
