Google Fiber-Wired Hacker House Hits Airbnb

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/841162

by bogrollben • 14 years ago

54 37 14 years ago

This is a great place. I have stayed and will stay again the next time I come to KC. Google fiber is Amazing!

LALLI• 14 years ago

The hacker community being built in Kansas City is truly remarkable. It's a great place to ignite new ideas and reform old ones! Nothing compares to midwest community.

jmathai5• 14 years ago

I'm visiting Cincinnati for 2 months (I grew up here before moving to SV 5 years ago).

I am visiting some of the startups and related services and while visiting at one named the Brandery the person I was talking to said "you know how it is in Cincinnati, everyone wants to help".

And I thought to myself, really? Then I realized. In Cincinnati, and probably the midwest as a whole, people do generally have more a sense of community and are more forward about "helping".

But this doesn't apply to business or startup ventures. They'll help you pick up groceries that you dropped or hold doors open for you. But when it comes to providing support for someone that's doing an entrepreneurial venture it's almost non existent.

The support is there at first, but when things get really tough the fact of the matter is most people haven't gone through that and can't relate.

It's frustrating as I believe we'll eventually end up back here to be close to my wife's family.

I talk to a lot of people here who speak of it being a great place for technology entrepreneurship. I'm just not seeing it. I really wish I did though.

daveknox• 14 years ago

Hey - this is Dave Knox and I'm actually one of the co-founders of The Brandery.

First off, I'm glad you had a chance to stop by our program. Hopefully you saw the fact that we're trying to not just talk about it being great for technology entrepreneurship, but actually deliver against that as well.

Now, in terms of your point on support for business / startups, that is the very reason we started this program in 2010. We are at the beginning part of the journey but there is a real change happening in the town. If you ask any of the companies that have gone through our program, they will tell you that our support of them doesnt end when they graduate from the program. We can't help all of the companies in town, but we're there for the 26 that have gone through The Brandery and are making a real go of it.

Give me a shout (dave@brandery.org) and lets grab coffee. I'll share whats made me decide to make Cincinnati my home and a place where I really believe in the technology opportunities. We have a long ways to go but we've taken the first steps that I am confident will get us there.

polyfractal• 14 years ago

I grew up just outside of Cinci. I've lived in New York, and it's nice. Lived in Boston for a while, always a lot of fun activities and good food. Currently living in South Carolina, and the weather is great and people are pretty friendly.

But my heart will always be in the Midwest. Wide open spaces, friendly people, affordable <everything>, tolerable seasonal patterns.

I don't have any experience with the startup scene, I imagine it's not fantastic =/

johndavidback3• 14 years ago

Living in Cincinnati and working closely with some of the groups from the Brandery, I have to disagree. However, I will say that the experience you likely had 5 years ago would definitely be reflected in what you've said here. The fact is, though, that things have changed monumentally in the past couple of years, and the startup scene is almost unrecognizable.

While you're right, it's definitely not Silicon Valley in terms of the kind of network that exists, you're comparing apples and oranges. The startup scene is vibrant. There are tech meetups with hundreds of monthly attendees. There are active groups for all stages of business, from ideas over beers to celebrating series A to burning through buyouts on starting new ideas.

I think you should be less frustrated at your eventual return to the Cincy area to hopeful and even excited. There are great opportunities here for all types of startups, and it's still small-ish enough that you get that midwest, hometown, half your network has a startup in some stage, feeling that you will never get in a large market.

That is, until we become a large market.

Sean-Der• 14 years ago

I lived in Cincinnati for a while and I don't have any good things to say about its technology sector. Most of the companies there attempt to foster a 'faux startup' attitude, but fail at it marvelously. You will see people go on and on about being accepting and looking for 'hackers', but if your anything out of the usual mold your not going to have any luck.

One good example of a Cincinnati startup is http://gigaom.com/2012/05/30/from-cincinnati-to-silicon-vall... they seem to be really fostering that ol' Cinci spirit. They send you a codility test and thats it, you don't get much worse than that. I am a little bit biased here as me and my friends went through this experience, but that is just my two cents.

I love the city though, its in a perfect spot. You have great neighborhoods like OTR and Northside. Easy access to stuff across the river in Kentucky. And a lot of college kids coming out of UC and Xavier. If you ever looking for a place that is small enough to have a yard, but big enough to have things to do Cinci is a great place.

tyena• 14 years ago

Could you say a bit more about this? I currently live in Nashville, TN and thinking of making the 10ish~ hour drive up.

evandena• 14 years ago

I grew up in Michigan, and now live in Wisconsin. I've never considered Kansas City, or Missouri/Kansas as part of the Midwest.

Do most people in KC identify with the Midwest?

*Edit: Now that I think about it, I guess I've always kind of considered the Midwest to be the Great Lakes Region, and from the Dakotas on South to be the Plains (with Missouri being more in the South than anywhere else).

johndavidback3• 14 years ago

> G Fiber gigabit internet (AirBnb won't let me spell the word here - rhymes with oogle fiber)

Why is that?

himlion• 14 years ago

I guess they don't want you to mention external listings, like: "Search on Google for 'appartment name'";

sondh• 14 years ago

Last time I used AirBnb, their system (posting, messaging, etc.) censored all instance of Google (case insensitive). At first I thought they just block all links but after some trials, even the word itself is censored.

kamjam• 14 years ago

Does the correct spelling (googol) also get cencored? What about with combinations with number? e.g. g00gle or goog1e?

Buzaga• 14 years ago

I'll probably get a downvote for this but:

I loled.

kreeger• 14 years ago

As I'm not terribly familiar with AirBnb and its terms, why won't it let the poster spell out "Google"?

bogrollben4• 14 years ago

yeah no idea why not but it specifically won't let you use the word google or Google Fiber anywhere. It switches the text to (website hidden) in the description and completely removes it from the title. So a description like this: "One of the first houses with Google Fiber!" becomes "One of the first houses with (website hidden)!"

FAIL

darkarmani• 14 years ago

Time to buy the domain websitehidden.com.

agwa• 14 years ago

They should get some nice desks and chairs for the rooms - the desk and chair they show in the room photo look uncomfortable to use for serious amounts of work.

bogrollben4• 14 years ago

Yeah I posted the link. (shameless self plug) the desk in that room is admittedly pretty small, but we have better desk space for about 8 people to work at throughout the living room and side room (although the city will only let us have up to 5 ppl).

kbob• 14 years ago

And take a new photo with the toilet seat down, for God's sake.

marshray• 14 years ago

My company (PhoneFactor) was founded here in KC. We were recently acquired by Microsoft.

I'm excited about moving to Seattle, but Google is making me feel a little bit like it's the wrong time to be moving away from KC. :-)

illuminate• 14 years ago

http://seattle.gov/mayor/SeaFi/gigabit.htm

Good news for you!

doppenhe• 14 years ago

congrats on the move... give a shout if you need any recommendations about Seattle (MSFT myself)

PropellerHead• 14 years ago

You've gotta try this! It's cute, quaint and it's got oogle high speed internet...for free! WOW.

davegill_ku• 14 years ago

I live in KC and did a Startup Weekend about a month ago. One of the guys on my team crashed at the Hacker House for the weekend and swore by it.

I believe one of the other teams all stayed there as well, and spent the nights hacking at their startup @ the hacker house. Heard nothing but good things.

none_type• 14 years ago

I just saw a piece on the news about this, congrats! (btw, this is Sam B.)

cushman2002• 14 years ago

Has anyone mentioned the Ninja Turtle sheets that come with a rental? Nothing says Hacker like a night with Donatello!

Permit• 14 years ago

Wait, do you guys pay to live there as part of Homes for Hackers? Or is it free for you, and you're renting out the last room at a $1500/month profit?

bogrollben4• 14 years ago

The house is free for startups. We're putting the last room of the house on airbnb in an attempt to help pay the bills to let the everyone else stay there. We would need to rent out that room about 16 nights a month to break even. It's not realistic to expect anything as close as that, but every little bit helps.

If there's no demand on airbnb for the last room, we'll simply let another startup take it.

imrehg• 14 years ago

It's actually $1423/NIGHT, or $9963/Week, or $43162/month...

If that's not a typo on their part, then it sounds freakin' expensive to me.

themarcus• 14 years ago

The energy is electric here in KC right now. The KCSV has stirred up quite the buzz. Finally, the old school nicknames of "cowtown" and "flyover" are being put to rest. Welcome to the 21st century frontier, y'all. Saddle up! Errr, make that Fiber Up! :)

Google Fiber-Wired Hacker House Hits Airbnb

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