Boston offers plenty to love: MassChallenge Boston’s four month accelerator program gives global entrepreneurs the resources they need with no equity taken and helps them compete for the chance to win a share of a $1M prize. MIT Sloan CIO Symposium, on May 24 this year, offers the Innovation Showcase which features 10 outstanding early stage companies with cutting edge solutions that combine both value and innovation to Enterprise IT. The city is also home to Kendall Square, known to some as the most innovative mile on the planet due to the caliber of business it’s attracted over the last decade. The Bay area might have the name recognition, but Boston’s clearly no slouch. I reached out to Arnof-Fenn, along with 14 additional Bostonian founders and CEOs, to find out the benefits and disadvantages to basing a startup out of The Hub. Here are their reasons for loving the city:
Plenty of Brainpower
Boston-based entrepreneur Ted Chan, founder and CEO of the online healthcare portal CareDash.com, runs the startup out of Kendall Square:
Expect Plenty of VC Funds
Here’s Ted Chan again: There’s less competition that you could expect at Silicon Valley, according to Vienne Brown, founder of VienneMilano:
…But Boston Investors Are Less Likely to Take a Chance
From Jonathan Kay, co-founder and COO of Apptopia:
And Some Find Resources Scarce
GSX Solutions started their business in Boston about two years ago. Jean-Francois Piot, VP of Product Management has been in charge of jump-starting the company in Boston, and offering some refreshing feedback on the challenge:
There’s a Focus on Health and Medicine
From Dan Beeler, CTO of SyncThink: Janet Kosloff, CEO and co-founder of InCrowd, agrees that it’s a popular niche:
…Which Means Others Can Stand Out
Hannah Raudsepp, founder and CEO of Honest Beef Company, launched in Boston last April.
International Travel Is Pretty Easy
Also from Vienne Brown:
Boston Culture Is a Good Fit for Europeans
Adrien Nussenbaum, U.S. CEO and co-founder of Mirakl, backs up the point about international travel, but goes even farther, saying the Boston culture is welcoming:
Boston Values Endurance
This comes from Alessandro Babini, CEO and co-founder of Humon, an endurance wearable that tracks real-time oxygen levels within the human body in order to measure lactic acid buildup. In a city that hosts a popular marathon and triathlon, Humon found the right environment, Babini says: In Boston, we find smart candidates that appreciate the history of our French culture and are more than willing to help translate that to the North American market. We can have team meetings in historical spots that have relevance to both French and American culture, which helps us to bond and create a shared understanding that is critical to a good corporate culture.”
And Loyalty
Even the unicorns have something to love about Boston: Ash Ashutosh is founder and CEO of Actifio, the market leader in copy data virtualization and a billion-dollar unicorn headquartered and founded in Boston.
The City Cares About Startups
Brian Geisel, the CEO of IoT startup Geisel Software, had this to say on the city infrastructure:
The Boston Ecosystem Is Worth Its Long Winters
Here’s what Paige Arnof-Fenn had to say about the city overall, based on her experience in a handful of the top startup cities:
Everyone Agrees: The City’s Wicked Smart
Whenever I write these roundups of founders on a particular startup city, one or two elements always rise to the top, repeated in different ways by practically everyone. For Seattle, it was the lack of VCs. For Boston? The massive, collaborative talent pool. Here’s a slice of what founders had to say about Boston’s talent. Paige Arnof-Fenn: Jamie Tedford is the founder and CEO of Brand Networks, a social media advertising software company. Jamie also grew up on the North Shore, so the professional attachments are also personal: Seth Lieberman, CEO and founder of SnapApp: Alessandro Babini: Founders agree: It might not always be easy, but running a startup out of Boston will definitely immerse any entrepreneur in a culture of innovation and collaboration that covers the whole area. Image: Wikimedia
