dc tech beat

I ran into Eric Litman at the nclud Halloween party and we chatted a bit about his plans for WashingtonVC (WVC). As of November 1st, Litman joins WashingtonVC as their new managing director.

About WVC:

WVC intends to establish itself and promote its parts in 6 major US cities, DC, NY, BOS, SEA, SF, LA, and eventually expand accordingly.

Within each of those cities, we will partner with local business leaders to permanently infect their communities with our charitable works and business offerings.

The WVC model stands out in my mind for one simple reason - they already own a large portfolio of brandable domain names, and they’re seeking talent to build against those assets. Typically, startups are born from an idea, the strategy is refined, and the brand identity is wrapped around those initial steps - in this case…it’s brand (or at least ‘name’) first, idea second, execution third.

For a guy like me who grew up in the ad agency/brand space this is very interesting. It validates what I’ve been promoting within the tech community for a while now - that BRAND MATTERS. When you have a brand that “hits folks between the eyes” it makes getting traction that much easier.

I’m interested to see how WVC will engage the community here to source ideas for their portfolio of domain names.  Perhaps there’s a elevator-pitch-a-thon on the horizon?  Interested entrepreneurs could pick a domain name, and give their :30 second pitch on what they’d do with the domain.  WVC would judge the pitches with perhaps a couple other non-WVC panelists who have specific areas of expertise (i.e. for the non-profit domain names, maybe someone from Greater DC Cares or the ASAE would co-judge).

-By Peter Corbett