D.C.’s entrepreneurial community is strong and present in the region, but doesn’t always do a good job of showing itself.

“Basically, the community here has a lot of entrepreneurial talent… it’s not as big in term of its media exposure,” said Warren Getler, former Wall Street Journal reporter and serial entrepreneur.

“There are a number of reasons why Washington is a little bit low key… part of it is that some of it’s in the cyber world, it’s relatively secret, it’s top security. There’s not a culture of really beating your chest,” he said.

The Greater Washington region, said Getler, is more focused on efficient innovation and smaller, more realistic improvements, rather than pie-in-the-sky idealism.

“The bigger venture capital firms tend to like to be close to those types of startups if they’re investing a lot of money,” said Getler.

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“The culture here in D.C. is not a money culture or necessarily a venture capital culture. It is becoming an innovation culture,” he said.

Unlike Silicon Valley, D.C. startups “have to be more efficient with their terms, and they have to have a really clear path to profitability when they go out to raise money,” Getler said.

Over time, larger companies have started to move to the area not just for its connection to the government, but for talent in the field of technology, as well as a large community of lawyers and communications experts.

“There’s a great talent pool. Washington is understated when it comes to business, but the entire entire Maryland-Virginia-D.C. region is becoming a font of innovation and wealth creation,” said Getler.

Getler’s current project is a company called Breakup Network, a website service to help people recover from bad breakups. “It’s designed for people to get themselves back. There’s sort of a pendulum-swing away from online dating… and this is designed to make yourself feel good about yourself again, take a pause, and get ready to get back out there,” Getler said.

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