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Jason Evanish on Why There’s Never Been a Better Time to be a Young Entrepreneur in Boston
As a young entrepreneur in the Boston community for the past half year, I have witnessed first hand a transformation; there is an incredible build up of momentum behind many initiatives and a growing buzz in the community. New organizations are forming, old ones are evolving and there has been a dramatic increase in collaboration across the ecosystem. Innovative ideas, better ways of doing things and many new opportunities are the product of these efforts and it’s why John Harthorne is bullish about the community and I share his sentiments.
In my opinion, the most underrated aspect of the revitalization of the community is the renaissance for young entrepreneurs. I’d like to highlight some of the reasons I think…there’s never been a better time to be a young entrepreneur in Boston.
1) Many Great Organizations
In just the short time we’ve been managing an entrepreneur calendar at Greenhorn Connect, we’ve watched as the events have gone from about 20 per week to over 40. Having attended many of them, I have found them all to be of very high quality and filled with hard working, passionate people very open to new connections.
In the last year, I’ve seen the emergence of quite a few new organizations with some of the best events in the community: Mass Innovation Nights, DartBoston, IdeaStorm, and UltraLightStartups. When you combine this with established events like WebInno, Open Coffee, Mobile Mondays and Tech Tuesdays, you have a robust networking environment and many great avenues for getting connected to the community.
2) Renewed academic commitments to entrepreneurship
It’s easy to look at Boston and think it’s a two horse race (Harvard and MIT), but in recent years, many of the other schools in the region have refocused their efforts on promoting entrepreneurship. From Northeastern’s IDEA program to Babson’s E Tower, to UMass Boston’s Venture Development Center, there are programs emerging everywhere to make students have more entrepreneurial opportunities.
3) Office Hours
Starting in November, local members of the community started hosting office hours to break down barriers to meeting investors and influential members of the community. Since then, the movement has exploded with many organizations having weekly hours. You can see all of them on our calendar; just search “office hours” to filter the other events. Because of these office hours, it has never been easier for a young entrepreneur to get connected to key members in the community.
4) Workspace options
In the past, you may have been left with either paying an exorbitant amount of money for an office or working out of your bedroom or a coffee shop. Today, companies are sharing their workspace, new coworking options are emerging and hybrid incubator-office space programs are opening. There has never been an easier time to find a place to work.
5) State Government that’s in it for the Long Term.
The commitment level of our local elected officials and government staff is very impressive. While there are obviously budget constraints due to the recession, they’re making the most of the resources they can provide; whether it’s the Mass It’s All Here program, helping support MassChallenge or Governor Deval Patrick coming to recognize the significance of the expansion of the Cambridge Innovation Center, their commitment is unquestionable.
On Monday I saw Secretary Bialecki’s presentation at the Rappaport Institute and was amazed at the depth of his understanding of the challenges the state faces in trying to improve the entrepreneur ecosystem from health care questions, to property issues to improving collaboration amongst companies and organizations in the community. Most encouraging was his strong assertion that they’re thinking long term; they have a vision for 10 years out; not an election in less than 4 years. With a strong understanding of the immediate challenges and the patience to avoid quick fixes, Massachusetts is poised to be an even better environment for entrepreneurs in the years to come.
6) The Career Combine
One of the biggest challenges facing the community is keeping the locally educated talent in the region. Currently, only 26% of Massachusetts college graduates who go on to start companies actually start them in Massachusetts. Silicon Valley’s retention rate is more than two and half times better than ours at 69%. Obviously, there is great room for improvement here and as Secretary Bialecki said on Monday, “if even 5 or 10% more graduates stay here, it would do wonders.”
I’m proud to announce that Greenhorn Connect is teaming up with MITX to address this issue with our event, the Career Combine. The Career Combine was created as a collaborative effort with the goal of connecting job seekers with open positions in the Internet marketing, technology and entrepreneur community. The Combine will also educate students, recent grads and entry-level talent on the innovative companies in New England and on the skills needed to find their next job. We hope this event will help infuse the community with new talent and provide aspiring entrepreneurs with opportunities to join and learn from our local companies.
As a young entrepreneur I see so many amazing opportunities and hope you’ll join me in taking full advantage of all there is available to us in this great community. I’m very excited for the future of Massachusetts entrepreneurship and hope you are too.
Jason Evanish is co-founder of GreenhornConnect.com, which connects Boston startups and enthusiasts with the many resources and events in the region as well as educational and informational content. The MITX-Greenhorn Connect Career Combine is April 13th 2010 at the Back Bay Events Center.
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