Overview
I have always found technology and watched Apple’s WWDCs since the i-phone was released. This interest in technology and startups have lead me to been interested in what the actual layout of famous startups were in San Francisco. I also wanted to see what the funding size of different startups were so that I could see what startups were interesting to work at. Lastly, I wanted to see how close famous angel groups and venture capital firms were to the successful startups of Silicon Valley. To answer these questions I used R and the Shiny Package to make a map of startups and VC firms in Silicon Valley.
Process
Create the UI, Server and Global elements of the Shiny app Create the UI framework for the functions including the buttons, data sharing locations, and map location Loaded in the data from the map of Silicon Valley This base map can be interchanged for future analysis Loaded in the data for VC firms, Angel Investment Firms, and Startups (some of which have become public since the data was released) Connected functions to show or hide organizations based on the category the fit into Added in visual elements for the size of the startups funding and the type of organization being shown Added in a filtering element based on the size of the startup to identify highest funded startups
Iterations
The first iteration was just to present all of the startups on the map The second interaction was adding in filtering, coloring, and identifying elements A third and future Iteration could include Adding in other locations such as all of America or Asian startups Adding in a function for showing the relationship between VC distance and Startup size
Results
This map analysis resulted in interesting visuals around the clumping of the best startups all close to each other. There is a stark and clear visual of sand hill road and the VC firms located there. This is a useful application for job searching and similar companies