# Rinse and repeat

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2016-07-16

berlin, entrepreneurship, floored, matt-turck, new-york, new-york-city, nyc, paris, startups, tech, uncategorized, vc, venture-capital

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Venture capitalist [Matt Turck](https://twitter.com/mattturck) has a post up on his blog that is packed full of information about the New York City tech ecosystem. (He has also written similar posts about [Berlin](http://mattturck.com/2013/01/30/a-guide-to-the-berlin-tech-ecosystem/) and [Paris](http://mattturck.com/2014/06/25/the-french-startup-ecosystem-at-a-tipping-point/).)

His overall thesis is that New York – as a startup/tech hub – is only now starting to catch up to the hype of 4 or 5 years ago. He now refers to NYC as the de facto Number 2 after the Bay Area.

If you’re interested in all of this, you can [go read his full post](http://mattturck.com/2016/07/13/the-nyc-tech-ecosystem-catching-up-to-the-hype/). But I would like to pull out 2 points. The first is about the “rinse and repeat” cycle that happens over time that allows cities to become substantive startup hubs:

> _As any student of emerging tech ecosystems knows, the key dynamic to success is the “rinse and repeat” cycle. You need several waves of successful tech companies to go through the whole cycle of founding, financing, scaling and significant exit.   Post-exit, the hope is that successful founders, employees and investors then contribute back both money and expertise to the next generation of tech startups, a few of which eventually become highly successful themselves and then provide money and expertise to the following generation._
> 
> _The trouble is, each successive cycle takes years, because the average successful startup takes 5 to 10 years to get to a large exit._
> 
> _One key reason the Silicon Valley has become such a powerful network is that this “rinse and repeat” cycle has been happening there for decades, at least since the 1940s and 1950s (Hewlett Packard), with a real acceleration in the 1970s and 1980s (Apple IPO, founding of Kleiner Perkins, etc)._

I’ve written about this idea before, but didn’t refer to it as “rinse and repeat.” I’m thinking about adopting that terminology going forward.

The second is a list of New York-based startups. Matt uses it as an example of how entrepreneurial activity in New York is operating across a broad cross-section of different industries. That’s an important characteristic to identify.

However, I also thought you might find it valuable to see what startups are out there, particularly if you happen to work in one of the below verticals/horizontals. I certainly went right to the real estate line.

> _Fintech: Betterment, IEX, Fundera, Bond, Orchard, Bread  
> Health: Oscar, Flatiron Health, ZocDoc, Hometeam, Recombine, Celmatix, BioDigital, ZipDrug  
> Education: General Assembly, Schoology, Knewton, Skillshare, Flatiron School, Codecademy  
> Real estate: WeWork, HighTower, VTS, Compass, Common, Reonomy  
> Enterprise SaaS: InVision, NewsCred, Sprinklr, Namely, JustWorks, Greenhouse, Percolate, Mark43, Movable Ink  
> Commerce infrastructure: Bluecore, Custora, Welcome Commerce  
> Marketplaces: Kickstarter, Vroom, 1stdibs  
> On Demand: Handy, Via, Managed by Q, Hello Alfred  
> Food: Blue Apron, Plated, Maple  
> IoT/Hardware: littleBits, Canary, Peloton, Shapeways, SOLS, Estimote, Dash, GoTenna, Raden, Ringly, Augury, Drone Racing League  
> AR/VR/3D: Sketchfab, Floored_

I was happy to see my friends at Floored in the above list. They are under AR/VR/3D, but they service the real estate industry.

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/rinse-and-repeat)*