Well the folks over at TechDrawl are sure stirring things up these days. An article about the golden age of consumer focused startups morphing into a conversation about a constitutional amendment on the ballot in the fall concerning non-competes. Oh my!

But somewhere buried in those comments is this little gem by Wayt King:

I wrote checks totaling almost $1M to fund ATL startups. But the
quality of startup deals that I ran across was disappointing. So I
basically "gave up" at the end of 2009. Where are (were) the fundable
ATL-based web services startups, and why couldn't they figure out that I
was writing checks? IMHO, there is angel money available in Atlanta for
consumer web deals (though not via ATA); it's the scrappy entrepreneurs
who are in short supply. Stop complaining, quit your day job, burn the
ships, and "make something people want." Fail quickly, and do it again.
And again. Just Do It.

Wayt is making two points here that deserve more than just a passing comment. 

The first, which I have been advocating, is that there are not many fundable seed stage deals in Atlanta at the moment.  This is also supported by the recent change, and the stated reason for the change, in Shotput Ventures model.

The second, which is a little more disturbing, is that it is not just the overall quality of the startups but the scrappiness of the entrepreneurs.  Here is a guy that dropped a $1 million over the course of two years on seed stage startups, many of them in a very public manner, and he is not seeing deal flow. I am sure there will be some thoughts that he should be more public or easier to find or have a web page. I ain't buying it. An entrepreneur has to be smart enough and aggressive enough to find the person with the check.  Some points that back Wayt's assertion.

FoG is pretty well read by the Atlanta entrepreneurial community. You know how many people took me up on my open offer to help them work a deal to get funding? Zero.

I have written many times about Profounder, a seed-stage investment company where I am a special partner. You know how many entrepreneurs have asked me about the firm this year? Zero.

There are two conclusions I draw from this. The first, which I hope is true, is that entrepreneurs are becoming better educated about what a fundable company needs to look and feel like. The second, is that entrepreneurs need to get more creative and aggressive in uncovering the funding they need to grow their business.

Stop complaining.  Just do it.