For the sake of brevity, I’ll try to keep the intro short so I can get to the meat of the post.
I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of doors opened up to me over the past couple of years. I interviewed for an internship at Vocalocity to get a bit of experience under my belt. It went under. I google mapped “software development atlanta” and the now defunct AppForge popped up. I interviewed, they offered an internship and later a full-time position. It also went under. Such is life with startups but the experience was invaluable. I learned a lot and met a lot of great people in both instances.
The day AppForge shut down, I sent an IM to Jeff and I was at Hakano (now Appcelerator) a few days later. They literally offered to have me start the following day, which was very kind. I got my current position in a similar way — a tweet.
It’s my opinion that the best way for local entrepreneurs to recruit talent is simply through networking. You can often find great employe(es)(rs) through established recruiting services like RP (a firm that’s highly respected in Atlanta), but I think it’s best to just get out there and meet people
Get out of your shell — go to events like Startup Weekend and Barcamp, spend some time outside of work hanging out at Octane w/ the guys from atlhack or any other group of people trying to tinker with interesting things in the community. Perhaps it’s not as easy as commenting on Lance’s blog or putting Skribit on your site. It takes more effort and time than that. You have to take matters into your own hands if you want to be successful. You’ll fall flat on your face from time to time, but that’s how it goes. Use social networks like twitter to find people connected to people you already know. Get introduced and meet up to discuss possible business ventures. If nothing else, you’ve made a contact that may be able to answer a question for you later. A great idea like Sanjay’s GivingTi.me could be another great tool in helping simplify networking in the Atlanta area (and beyond), but I don’t think it’ll change the fundamentals — meet people, help them out and they’ll usually return the favor. It probably goes without saying but it helps work hard, too. What I mean is, we already have the best platform to find local talent to aid in building the best startup community in the country. Get to work Atlanta!