I been to the startup scenes in the Bay Area and several ones in China, but I still love my DMV Startup ecosystem. For those who aren't locals, DMV is not the Department of Motor Vehicles, but a nickname for the Washington, DC Metro Area, including Southern Maryland and Northern Virginia aka NOVA.

When I was out in my travels, I told people I’m from the DC area, and I would get responses like these:

Q: “Do all DC startups have something to do with politics?”

Answer in my Head (AimH): “Yes, every single startup is about politics because we don’t have any problems to solve.”

Q: “You visit the White House a lot?”

AimH: “How did you know I visit the busiest tourist location in DC? I purposely take the long route to work just so I stop by the White House for a selfie.”

Q: “The startup scene is not developed as [Insert City Pride].”

AimH: *Calmly talk about DC Startup*

Q: “You must see the president quite often.”

AimH: “I actually see his personal escorts, blocked streets and his online pictures more than the Prez himself. Although sometimes I try to look through his window to see if I catch him drawing dicks on secret documents like Bill Clinton.”

All jokes to the side, the startup scene is quite developed with lively entrepreneurs, helpful professionals, established startups, and great talent. Our scene is made up of people who are commuting from Maryland, Virginia and new DC locals. Hence the reason why we reformatted the name to DMV. It is just the stigma of Washington, DC that we are perceived as stuffy, tight-fisted, coffee-fuming-from-the-mouth suits, and only talk about politics and NGOs. To top off, we get overshadowed by other ecosystems like Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Austin, Boston, and a few others. Yet, DMV startups hold it down like the ones in alphabetical order:

• CoFounderslab
• Hinge
• iStrategyLabs
• Livingsocial
• Opower
• Socialtables
• Speek
• Spinnakr
• Weddingwire
• And a list of Proudly Made In DC ventures

Without further a do, these are my suggestions of getting plugged into the scene:

1. Discover Interests
Although the city may be small, there are a lot of meetups happening throughout the week, some good and some that needs work. Find what interest you, skills you lack (be honest, everyone lacks something), what you need to get your idea rolling, and desired results.

2. Fill Your Calendar
As stated before, there are tons of meetups and events happening in DC, with some overlapping one another. I normally turn to Google, Meetup and Eventbrite for all my interests, and plot key events in my calendar. From there, I select the ones most interesting, delete reoccurring events that conflicts another one and figure out how to attend two dope overlapping events if possible. Some of my favorite meetups are:

• DC Tech
• DC Nightowls
• Modev
• Tech in Motion
• DC Lean Startup Circle
• Startup Grind DC
• Internet of Things DC
• Action Design

3. Develop A Game Plan
Have a goal in mind when attending the events, a developed or developing elevator pitch, Twitter feed running on the phone, and a charger just in case. I love Twitter because it opens up conversations with key community leaders, agencies, companies, and attendees from the same event. Use Twitter for cold tweets, questions you may have, initiate new conversations and anything else to start a new network. Tag #DCTech in Twitter, and you will get responses and loads of interactions. You might even get something from me. Don’t forget your business cards!

Tweet if any of these worked for you, any other recommendations or to have your startup/meetup listed to @BrandonTLuong.