robgo.org: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Boston Tech Community 2011

robgo:

BBoston 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.

It occurred to me however that Boston is a transient town.  Especially for the student population that refreshes a large population each year.  So I’ve decided to create an annual guidebook (more like a 1-pager) to the Boston Startup Community. A year ago, I wrote a “To-Do List for New Entrepreneurs Arriving in Boston”.  So I guess this makes this the second installment of what will now be the annual:

HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE BOSTON TECH SCENE 2011

This is obviously released before 2011 in order to allow folks who are planning to arrive in Boston to get a head start.  If you have comments of suggestions, please include them below.  I’ll be handing out hard copies of this at various venues in Jan/Feb 2011.  So without further delay:

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. 

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. 
• VentureFizz: Good newsletter with funding announcements, best local blog posts, and other local tech happenings.
• 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. 

University Resources

• MIT 100K
• HBS Startup Tribe
• Babson Entrepreneur Resource Center
• Northeastern IDEA Venture Accelerator
• Olin College Foundry Program - New, but I’m optimistic about good things from one of the top 10 engineering programs in the country. 

Smaller and High Quality Meetups

• PopSignal - My favorite regular tech gathering.  Invite only. 
• Hackers and Founders - New, but promising meetup.  More hacker focused. 
• 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.  

Coworking Spaces

• Dog Patch Labs - Free workspace run by Polaris Ventures.  No cost, not formal strings attached. 
• 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

• Bocoup - JavaScript, HTML5, CSS3.
• Thoughtbot - Web application development and design. Ruby specialists. 

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.  Home of Open Coffee Cambridge
• Henrietta’s Table - In the Charles Hotel.  General Catalyst is right upstairs. 
• Paramount - Favorite breakfast spot for the Beacon Hill crowd.
• VentureCafe - Networking venue within the CIC
• Voltage - New coffee shop in Kendall.  Jim Koch (Boston Beer Company) is an investor.  My new favorite.

Journalists and News

• Scott Kirsner - Tech journalist of the Boston Globe.  See his innovation economy blog and follow him on Twitter. 
• Dan Primack - Formerly of PE Hub, recently poached by Fortune.  Not Boston focused, but definitely follow his reports of PE and VC financings and the state of the venture market. Newsletter here.  @danprimack. 
• Gregory Huang - Xconomy
• Galen Moore - Mass High Tech

5 Scaling Companies To Watch (ie: probably hiring)

• Gemvara - Online retailer for customized jewelry.  Founded by recent Babson Alum
• CSN Stores - $350M + revenue, 300 employees, $0 venture funding.  Amazing company, and one of the biggest private online retailers. 
• SCVNGR - Location based challenges.  Backed by Highland and Google.
• HubSpot - Inbound marketing pioneer.  The current talent magnet of Boston tech companies. 
• Dataxu - Demand Side Platform for Real Time Ad Buying.  Led by serial entrepreneur Mike Baker. 

20 To Follow

Investors:

• Antonio Rodriguez - Matrix Partners, HP (blog, @antrod)
• Bijan Sabet - Spark Capital (blog, @bijan)
• David Beisel - NextView Ventures, Venrock (blog, @davidbeisel)
• David Skok - Matrix Partners (blog, @bostonvc)
• Eric Paley - Founder Collective, Brontes (blog, @epaley)
• Jeff Bussgang - Flybridge, UPromize (blog, @bussgang)
• Joe Medved - Softbank Capital (blog, @joevc)
• Lee Hower - NextView Ventures, LinkedIn (blog, @leehower)
• Rich Miner - Google Ventures, Android (@richminer)

Entrepreneurs and Thought Leaders:

• Andrew Mcafee - MIT Professor (blog, @amcafee)
• Andy Payne - OpenMarket, Fansnap, angel investor (blog, @payne92)
• Brian Balfour - Founder of 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)
• Dharmesh Shah - Co-founder and CTO, HubSpot (blog, @dharmesh)
• Furqan Nazeeri - Seriel entrepreneur and blogger (blog, @altgate)
• Nabeel Hyatt - Head of Zynga Boston studio (blog, @nabeel)
• Roy Rodenstien - Hacker Angels, Going.com (blog, @royrod)
• Tom Eisenmann - HBS Professor (@teisenmann)

This is just a starting point.  Enjoy the journey!

Great Post - Way to go Rob!!!