Disqus - Latest Comments for jasonevanish

Re: The Networker’s Dilemma

Jason Evanish — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 16:14:56 -0000

Chris,

I think there's a lot of truth to what you suggest, but I wonder how you would address the key problems you'd create when following this:
1) Team
- If you don't network...how do you even get any leads on people to work on a startup with you?

2) Investors
- If you don't network...how do you even know who to talk to or how to get a warm intro to them?
- Most good angels seem to have overrun inboxes making it very difficult to get access to them by cold email. Some investors also suck and you should avoid them. You wouldn't know without fellow entrepreneurs in your network warning oyu.

3) Learning
- This isn't a part of your article, but I think one of the most important things for any entrepreneur is a strong peer group. It motivates you to keep up with their progress and goals and also helps you learn from more than your own mistakes.
- No startup can survive if it doesn't learn from others for good tactics, hacks and opportunities; there aren't enough hours in the day to grind and learn solely on your own.

I think the middle ground you allude to is what really matters; don't network like crazy. Instead, be focused and targeted. Only spend time at events if you:

1) ...Believe you'll learn something incredibly valuable (Ie- you find yourself emailing your team a bunch of ideas to implement because of it)
2) ...know you'll meet high quality people. There are plenty of events that are just service providers, wantrapreneurs and VC associates. Avoid those and focus on the opportunities to connect with peers and mentors. And focus on making sure you do meet the kinds of people you set out to.

Thanks,Jason

Re: Why I miss DartBoston and if you care about Student Retention, you should too.

Jason Evanish — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 01:42:18 -0000

David,

I couldn't have said it better myself. It's amazing to see how much entrepreneurship has changed since I graduated from undergrad in 2008 at Northeastern; there wasn't even an entrepreneurship club that year and now they have the HIC, IDEA and an e-club that gets 200 students a week.

The real gap I see is that there isn't enough connection between students and our ecosystem; it's amazing how we can have such a resurgence in our startup community and this explosion of interest at schools and yet there's a massive divide between these two groups.

I'm optimistic about this though both because of the energy and enthusiasm I see Paul bringing to our GHC team regarding this problem and because of the response we've seen for the Career Fair we're organizing in February (http://BostonTalent.eventbr...)

I hope we can all take to heart what these ingredients are and remember to work towards them; accept that offer to speak to a group of students if you can swing it and introduce yourself to someone that looks lost/alone at an event.

Thanks!
-Jason

Re: Why I miss DartBoston and if you care about Student Retention, you should too.

Jason Evanish — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:25:33 -0000

Cort,

The problem isn't that "Classic DartBoston" is gone; the problem is more events and community members don't do the key things you and Jake did. As you accurately stated in your post on your blog a year ago, some events can be unwelcoming with suits and Sam Adams. Even if Peter Boyce and Ryan Dawidjan drag people with them to events, it won't be the same experience and quality, welcoming event you and Jake produced.

The real shame of "Classic Dart" is that the model failed; you guys put tremendous time and effort every week to make those events happened and never found a way to bring in any revenue nor automate enough of the process that you could do it on the side. You guys were grossly under appreciated for the impact it had.

It's all about lowering barriers. Just like a user on app needs to have a great first experience to be likely to ever open the app again, newcomers to our ecosystem need to have a great first experience. DartBoston was that great first experience and there is nothing like it today.

We also need to more effectively have people discover the ecosystem exists, and I can't imagine putting the burden on Ryan and Peter or anyone else to physically bring enough people with them.

I am an entrepreneur today because Russ Wilcox took an hour out of his busy life as a CEO of E Ink in 2003 to speak to about 30 students at Northeastern University (by my math they were struggling with their series B or C and he had at least one small child at the time...cough*what's your excuse*cough). I didn't know I wanted to be an entrepreneur yet, but the ability to hear his story right on campus lowered the barrier enough to check him out and subsequently light a fire of passion for startups. I don't think a Ryan or Peter would have known me or been likely to convince me to leave campus.

As long as Boston has a "Come to Us" attitude, we will continue to lose major opportunities to turn a trickle of students into our ecosystem into a flood of young, hungry talent that could take Boston to another level.

Thanks,
Jason

Re: Can Boston Do Consumer and Does It Matter?

Jason Evanish — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:28:17 -0000

David,

You make some great points, although none greater than when you say That most aren't active in the community and are in the suburbs. Also the majority of companies you mentioned are physical products, not web based (which is the world I live in and the basis for the article).

How often do you hear about anyone from those consumer companies you mentioned go on to be serial entrepreneurs? I wonder if that's not something we are missing as well; we seem to be quite the loyal bunch here in Boston perhaps to a fault as mixing up the pot with a veterans from multiple companies could have amazing results (see PayPal mafia, etc)

Thanks for the great thoughts.

-Jason

Re: Can Boston Do Consumer and Does It Matter?

Jason Evanish — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:55:38 -0000

Dan,

I hope you're right. SCVNGR has taken a lot of flack and maybe Seth will mature in 2012 and his company can be the feel-good comeback story of the year with LevelUp.

Good call on ZipCar as well. Their app is very slick.

Thanks,
-Jason

Re: Can Boston Do Consumer and Does It Matter?

Jason Evanish — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:53:55 -0000

Mike,

Join.me seems kinda B2B to me, but maybe I'm crazy. I feel like some of what Boston does is the inverse of the valley - the businessification of consumer.

-Jason

Re: Can Boston Do Consumer and Does It Matter?

Jason Evanish — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:51:18 -0000

Brad,

You don't have to worry about that. Frankly Greenhorn Connect itself started that way. Plenty of people didn't think it was needed and that we'd never make any money, but we're doing fine now.

Thanks,
Jason

Re: Can Boston Do Consumer and Does It Matter?

Jason Evanish — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:40:14 -0000

Rob,

My main point is I think there are only certain kinds of consumer we seem to do well. We are a revenue driven city, so ecommerce fits well, as does a saas biz like zip car.

Historically, we havent shown a lot of patience on companies that haven't yet found their revenue stream, but are growing. I have a particular recent story I've heard second hand I'm trying to confirm the facts on that if true makes my both sick and angry.

You mentioned a number of outside tech business that are great consumer companies. Have you seen much collaboration or connection by them to any consumer plays? Partnerships or other deals with companies like reebok, gillette, etc could obviously give a startup a leg up. I am encouraged by what I've seen Matt do at Gemvara to hire outside tech leaders as well as the engagement of Robert Kraft investing; I can only assume that having the Kraft Group invest provides some connections beyond the check.

My main point with this article was to pose the question- are we better served to call ourselves a startup hub for everything (and thus be 2nd or 3rd best) or to select a few things we've been excellent at and position our ecosystem as *the best* at a few things (mainly SAAS and b2b)?

Thanks,
Jason

Re: Can Boston Do Consumer and Does It Matter?

Jason Evanish — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:30:48 -0000

Karen,

Great points. Thanks for commenting. In particular the support system of she e Os is certainly something Boston can be very proud of. I'm also encouraged to hear there's a kids club; we need more clustering like that to help all the startups in a sector succeed. Steven may not see the value, but I definitely believe in it.

Our problem with retention runs so much deeper than attractive consumer companies. The fact is very few companies seem to know how to recruit young talent. (sorry about to get up on the soap box). When I hear from local professors that it's easier to get a west coast CEO to come and speak to students than a local CEO, we have a real problem. I also notice how diligent west coast vc firms like Sequoia are in tryin to recruit I realize that Boston has embarrassing blind spots on how to recruit students. No amount of "build it and they will come" is going to solve it. You have to *go to them*. Coincidentally, this is why I'm working with a student from BU, Paul Hlatky, to put on a career fair for startup & tech --> http://BostonTalent.eventbr... we can help at least a few startups with that program

I agree that the agency world is a great place to find design talent for a lot of reasons and actually I've read a number of stories about NYC startups poaching talent from their agencies, but I don't hear that happening often here yet. It's certainly a great opportunity though.

My inspiration for this post was more based on what we've done to date as well as the personality and biases of Boston than things than hope for the future. You highlighted a number of great reasons to be optimistic that we can clear a new consumer path.

Thanks,
Jason

Re: Can Boston Do Consumer and Does It Matter?

Jason Evanish — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:28:47 -0000

Steven,

Thanks for the comments. I think it's healthy to question our assumptions from time to time; you can call it Devil's Advocate if you like.

It's definitely true that you can build a startup anywhere. There's great examples from Iowa (Dwolla) to Canada (Radian6) to Europe (Skype), but that's not the point. The point is that the reason startup clusters have always added value is in having a cluster of others to collaborate and learn from. I'm merely challenging Boston to identify which clusters we're raising the probability of success the most and being honest where we really are no better than Ohio for that startup type.

Thanks,
Jason

Re: Observations from Silicon Valley

Jason Evanish — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 18:02:51 -0000

Dan,

Sorry, but I have to strongly disagree with you. Living in Boston for 8 years, I know all the cheap vs. expensive places to live here. Comparing that with what my friends told me and showed me the market is like, it's dramatically more expensive. A studio in an ungentrified area of SF is going for over $1400 a month...in Boston it would be $900-$1000. A decent two bedroom in Boston is around $1,600-$2,000/mo depending on location, but in SF in similar areas it's $2,500-$3,000 (as attested by friends that moved to SF from Boston specifically).

When you talk about an entrepreneur's burn rate, a few hundred dollars mapped out over 6 months likely translates to a lost month of possibly living without pay. Add in the higher tax rate in SF vs. Boston and higher electricity costs, and it IS significantly more expensive.

Now all of this is not to say that Boston can't be called madness too; my family in Pennsylvania pays less on a mortgage for a massive house there than I do for a month's rent in Boston.

Of course, if you have any tips for finding good spots beyond Craigslist when you're in SF, please do share...I'm sure the community would appreciate it. :)

Thanks,
Jason

Re: Is Boston the New Silicon Valley? My Discussion with Boston Startups

Jason Evanish — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:18:22 -0000

Hiroki,

Great article. Boston certainly deserves to be in the top startup hub conversation. I think what it suffers from is a lack of identity; like a meta version of startup, we're not sure who we are and we try to say we're the best for everything. What we'd be better suited doing is recognizing our strengths and double down on them.

I do want to correct you on the incubators...there's a number of misconceptions in your list:
"This includes Boston’s slew of startup incubators, including TechStars Boston, MassChallenge,Y Combinator, Cambridge Co-working Center, Gen Y Capital Partners and the DartBoston Family Dinner."

TechStars Boston and MassChallenge provide space and mentorship for 3months. TechStars gives you $6,000 per founder (up to 3) for 6% of your company and a convertible note for another $100,000 (for additional future equity). MassChallenge takes no equity, but only a handful of winners (approximately 10-20) out of their 120 or so entrants receive prize money (again for no equity).

Y Combinator is no longer in Boston. They left 3+ years ago. It is only in the Valley, but Alexis Ohanian of Reddit is their chief scout on the East Coast for them, so he is based in NYC but occassionally comes to Boston.

The Cambridge Coworking Center (C3) is just that, coworking space. For $250 a month, you get a desk and access to the CIC (Cambridge Innovation Center) amenities including food, conference rooms, etc. There's no specific mentorship or investment.

DartBoston Family Dinners happen every other month or so and bring together about 5-10 mentors/angel investors to have dinner with 15-25 young entrepreneurs working on interesting startups. It's one of the best events in Boston if you get the chance to go (you have to apply...they have limited seats) but is definitely not an incubator.

I haven't heard of Gen Y Capital Partners, but they sound like an investment firm focused on young people, which is sorely needed (as you allude to at the end). One of Boston's greatest weaknesses is the lack of a developed angel community.

Thanks,
Jason

Re: Observations from Silicon Valley

Jason Evanish — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:20:24 -0000

Mori,

Sorry to hear that. I know Eric Ries wrote a post about that recently that got a lot of attention. Boston does a good job in helping female entrepreneurs in quite a few ways. Hopefully posts like Eric's then can help resolve some of your issues by making people more cognizant of it and work to change it.

Thanks,
Jason

Re: Observations from Silicon Valley

Jason Evanish — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:09:40 -0000

Ian,

Yeah...it was stunning to me how crystal clear Boston's identity is now that I have a counterpoint in the Valley to line it up against. Expect a post on that soon; I think Boston accepting and recognize who we are would be a big step in our ecosystem's evolution.

Thanks,
Jason

Re: Observations from Silicon Valley

Jason Evanish — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:07:18 -0000

Alain,

All I meant by bottling it up is hoping to bring some of the spirit and outlook back. I think there's value in that, but you're right, catalyzing is the most important thing. People like you organizing those fun runs with people like David Friend of Carbonite have a bigger impact than you may realize.

Don't count on me polishing those driving skills...I love cities and so living there I'm very happy to not have a car or drive...likely to the benefit of drivers everywhere.

Thanks,
Jason

Re: The Importance of Unblocking

Jason Evanish — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 00:18:27 -0000

Awesome concept, jonathan. It's so easy to get caught up in your own tasks and miss opportunities to improve your team's productivity.

Dharmesh,

Have you ever written about this on onstartups? If not sounds like something awesome.

Thanks
Jason

Re: The Boston Success Project - 10 Ways We're Winning

Jason Evanish — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 13:22:32 -0000

Honestly, I have no idea about most of them...if anyone wants to confirm them, happy to update the list with more techstars companies

Re: The Boston Success Project - 10 Ways We're Winning

Jason Evanish — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 23:32:49 -0000

Thanks for the comment. If you look at section 9, you'll see we do call them out ;)

Re: The Boston Success Project - 10 Ways We're Winning

Jason Evanish — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 23:32:08 -0000

James,

Thanks for the tip. Appreciate it.

Given that last I heard the She'E'Os has over 80 members, it's obvious that the Boston tech community is doing a lot of great things to promote female entrepreneurs. I don't want to single out anyone so instead I'm happy to list any race, gender, or group together based on the categories above rather than singling them out.

Thanks,
Jason

Re: The Boston Success Project - 10 Ways We're Winning

Jason Evanish — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:41:45 -0000

Greg,

Absolutely! I just tried to seed this with a few people, so happy to add you later tonight when I update this from the tons of rec's that came in from all over today.

I really hope this inspire some articles for Binno. These companies, these people, are at the heart of Boston and there's gotta be some great stories to be told.

Thanks,
Jason

Re: The Boston Success Project - 10 Ways We're Winning

Jason Evanish — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 10:18:45 -0000

Sravish,

Thanks for all the stuff you've already provided. If you and/or your compatriots can help me get at least 5 people I can list in that category, I'll happily add it!

The "Moved to Boston" list looks great thanks to you and Ryan!

Thanks,
Jason

Re: The Boston Success Project - 10 Ways We're Winning

Jason Evanish — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 10:17:42 -0000

Karyn,

Great point. The West Coast companies are throwing down the gauntlet; they're hopping on planes and coming for our young talent. You have to fight fire with fire which means our founders need to get into those schools and talk too. If it's worth it to them to take a whole day to fly out here, then we should be able to find enough value in the couple hours it would cost one of us.

Thanks,
Jason

Re: The Boston Success Project - 10 Ways We're Winning

Jason Evanish — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 22:36:02 -0000

Tim,

Boston isn't perfect. I think the challenge is balancing between calling out our weaknesses and being proud of how far we've come.

I've always hated the phrase, "2nd place is the first loser" but I think often that's how we feel here. It is definitely true that second place hurts the most because you're so close to the top, but you also have to realize that silver medal is still pretty sweet.

This list is just the beginning as it's really a benchmark. I have yet to hear any partnerships (a major weakness IMHO) and as Jeremy tweeted earlier, the angel list is too short.

Thanks,
Jason

Re: The Boston Success Project - 10 Ways We're Winning

Jason Evanish — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 22:08:31 -0000

Mike,

Good call on Endeca. Since Conduit was all equity and not disclosed...didn't make the exit cut (unless you've got a link with info that it was $50M+ :D )

...and yes...so glad we moved to disqus a few weeks back. Long overdue!

Thanks!
-Jason

Re: Caution for Startup Kids - graysky

Jason Evanish — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:19:05 -0000

Ryan- you might like this post I saw in Sean Lindsay's stream yesterday: http://www.markpeterdavis.c...

...maybe your experience doesn't have to be directly relevant to still be valuable to a startup :)