Rob Go: 

In search of things new and useful.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Boston Tech Community, Sept 2011

Rob Go
September 7, 2011 · 4  min.


Boston is a great place to start and build a company.  There is a wealth of resources that are unique to this town and a vibrant community of hackers, business people, and investors at various stages in their career.

However, Boston is a transient town, especially for the student population that refreshes a large population each year.  It’s also surprisingly difficult for students to get plugged-in to everything that is happening in the local tech ecosystem.  This guide is designed to help you hit the ground running and is a starting point for your entrepreneurial journey in Boston.  It can be found online at www.robgo.org (where the links actually work) and feedback is greatly appreciated!

Large Tech Meetups:

  • Web Innovators Group: Quarterly Demo-Style meetup in Cambridge draws over 1000 members of the startup community each time.  The Grand-daddy. Alumni have been funded by Sequoia, First Round Capital, Accel, Trinity Ventures, and others.
  • Mobile Mondays: Boston chapter of the world’s largest Mobile professional community.
  • Founder Dialogues: Eric Paley plays talk show host on this recurring fireside chat style event with Boston area founders.
  • RubyRiot/TechProm/Playtime: Not recurring events, but seems like there is a few big parties every year organized by a small group of folks who are very active in the tech community.  The next one is TechProm, organized by Dave Balter, the founder of BzzAgent.

Online Resources and Newsletters:

  • Greenhorn Connect: Excellent hub of BOS tech events and resources. Currently, this seems to be the most popular and most comprehensive event calendar.
  • DartBoston: A vibrant community of young entrepreneurs.  Join their online community and attend their excellent events.
  • Bostinnovation: Great coverage of local startup happenings with a growing network of local writers.
  • OnStartups: One of the largest online startup communities founded by HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah.
  • VentureFizz: Good newsletter with funding announcements, best local blog posts, and other local tech happenings.

University Resources

Smaller and High Quality Meetups

  • PopSignal – My favorite regular tech gathering.  Invite only.
  • Capitalize – Regular pitch events where early stage companies get direct feedback from local VC’s.
  • Open Coffee – Weekly meetup started by Bijan Sabet and Nabeel Hyatt.  No agenda, just come by and talk tech at Voltage
  • http://foundermentors.com– Not a meetup, but a great mentorship program started by serial CTO Sean Lindsay

Coworking Spaces and Accelerators

  • TechStars Boston – Boston chapter of TechStars.  Applications due Nov 20th!
  • Dog Patch Labs – Free workspace run by Polaris Ventures.  No cost, not formal strings attached.
  • Startup Leadership Program – International mentorship program with over 100 startups participating
  • CIC – High quality, flexible office space.  Higher cost, but great facility
  • WorkBar Boston – Flexible co-working space near South Station.
  • MassChallenge – Startup competition and accelerator.  Beautiful space in the South Boston Innovation District.

Entrepreneurial Development Firms

Places to Hang

  • Crema Cafe – Great coffee in Harvard Square.  Favorite spot for Eric Paley, Antonio Rodriguez, and Rich Miner
  • Andala Cafe  – Central Square hangout.  Free wifi.
  • Henrietta’s Table – In the Charles Hotel.  General Catalyst is right upstairs.
  • Paramount – Favorite breakfast spot for the Beacon Hill VC crowd.
  • VentureCafe – Networking venue within the CIC
  • Voltage – New coffee shop in Kendall.  Home of OpenCoffee Cambridge

Journalists and News

Scaling Companies To Watch (ie: probably hiring)

  • Gemvara – Online retailer for customized jewelry.  Founded by recent Babson Alum
  • Wayfair – $350M + revenue, 300 employees. Recently raised their very first VC round from Battery and Spark earlier this year.  Amazing company, and one of the biggest private online retailers.
  • HubSpot – Inbound marketing pioneer.  The current talent magnet of Boston tech companies. Recently raised money from Sequoia Capital
  • Dataxu – Demand Side Platform for Real Time Ad Buying.  Led by serial entrepreneur Mike Baker.

20 To Follow (Being edited on the fly, so not exactly 20 anymore)

Investors:

Entrepreneurs and Thought Leaders:

  • Andrew Mcafee – MIT Professor (blog@amcafee)
  • Andy Payne – OpenMarket, Fansnap, angel investor (blog@payne92)
  • Bill Warner – Avid, Techstars, Angel investor (blog@billwarner)
  • Brian Balfour – Co-founder of Boundless Learning, Viximo (blog@bbalfour)
  • Brian Shin -Founder and CEO, Visible Measures (blog@brianshin)
  • David Cancel – Founder of Performable and Compete (blog , @Dcancel)
  • David Hauser – Co-founder of Grasshopper (blog@dh)
  • John Gallaugher – BC Professor (blog, @gallaugher)
  • Dharmesh Shah – Co-founder and CTO, HubSpot (blog@dharmesh)
  • Jennifer Lum – Apple, Quattro, MCube (@jenniferlum)
  • Katie Rae – TechStars, Microsoft, Eons (blog@ktrae)
  • Nabeel Hyatt – Head of Zynga Boston studio (blog@nabeel)
  • Roy Rodenstien – Hacker Angels, Going.com (blog@royrod)
  • Sim Simeonov – FastIgnite, Polaris, Allaire (blog@simeons)
  • Tom Eisenmann – HBS Professor (@teisenmann)
  • Wayne Chang – Crashlytics, Dropbox (blog, @wayne)

Rob Go
Partner
Rob is a co-founder and Partner at NextView. He tries to spend as much time as possible working with entrepreneurs to develop products that solve important problems for everyday people.