Boston startup events and resources

Boston loves startups. The Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council is doing a great job setting up events. Watch the MTLC site for future dates. MITX, The Capital Network, the Angel Capital Assoc, and others are also putting on events. Here are just a few of the upcoming events this week and next.

Tech Tuesday - is a regular monthly meet-up organized by Dan Bricklin, of Visi-Calc spreadsheet fame. Tech Tuesday is for geeks, tech savvy professionals, DIY-ers, press, and other industry luminaries for an informal gathering. Bring your laptops, robots, OLPC XO's, Amazon Kindles, new cell phones, gadgets, and other new-fangled devices. Tech Tuesday meets the second Tuesday of every month. Microsoft is a sponsor this month.

New England Angel Capital Conference - The Angel Investor groups of greater Boston meet once a quarter to review their best companies. Each group nominates companies to present. They are all looking for a round of funding that is bigger than any one Angel Group can handle. This meeting lets all the groups get a look at promising companies and pool their investment dollars.

Entrepreneurial Team Building - a panel of entrepreneurs that have built companies from the ground up and know the ins and outs of building great teams. What really makes a team come together? How can you be sure that you are bringing in the right folks? Who should be hired first, second, next? We'll talk about teams at the senior management level and at the BOD level.

Entrepreneurial Series - Plain English Term Sheets - This is a webinar for startup entrepreneurs who want to understand the details of financing term sheets. What to ask for...and what to avoid.

MITX - Mass Innovation & Technology Exchange have lots of great events for technology based startups. The next session is "Building Social Applications and Widgets".

The Capital Network - TCN's network consists of entrepreneurs on their way, entrepreneurs who have lessons and talents to offer and investors who may have themselves drifted across the entrepreneurial line. TCN has 3 or 4 events a month. The next one is on Founders Equity Issues.

The 128 Innovation Capital Group -  The regular meetings are held on the second Thursday of every month at the Best Western Hotel on Totten Pond Road in Waltham. Every month an investor provides our formal program. After Q&A, our speaker generally remains to speak with audience members, one on one. After the meeting, a roster with the contact information of all attendees is made available to those who came to the meeting.

Web Innovators Group - WebInno was founded by David Beisel of Venrock Capital. Scott Kirsner is also deeply involved. WebInno has regular meetings. The usual format; early stage start-ups and individual innovators will briefly demo their product/service in two different forums. First, there will be a couple center-stage presenters giving five minute demos for the entire crowd (aka “main dishes”) at 7pm. In addition, there will be a number of tables set up at the periphery of the room for live informal demonstrations to smaller groups during the schmoozing sessions (aka “side dishes”). Each will help provide the community a glimpse of current local endeavors in the space and offer the basis for further conversation.

Nantucket Conference - The 2008 Nantucket Conference audience will consist of approximately 150 of New England's top entrepreneurs, investors, and tech executives. Rather than sitting through a series of speeches and PowerPoint presentations, the audience will be engaged in a dialogue - and sometimes a heated debate - with Conference presenters.

Boston based bloggers

Scott Kirsner, a writer for the Boston Globe, and a blogger at Innovation Economy is always organizing and promoting startup events. Watch Scott's blog for announcements of upcoming events.

Jeff Bussgang - VC partner at Flybridge Capital Partners (formerly IDG Ventures Boston). Jeff is a former entrepreneur and now a VC. His blog is appropriately called Seeing Both Sides.

Xconomy - Bob Buderi, Rebecca Zacks, and Wade Roush cover Boston based startups, technology trends, and VC investments.

Mike Hirshland - VC partner at Polaris Venture Partners in Boston.

Nicholas Carr - Nicholas is a former Harvard Business Review editor and author of several books.

Boston based entrepreneur bloggers - Ben Saren (founder & CEO of CitySquares Online), Matt Douglas (founder & CEO of Punchbowl Software), Pito Salas (former CTO of eRoom).

BlogString has an extensive list of Boston events. Thanks to Nathan Burke for the link.

Come on out to these events. I try to attend all of them, and would love to say hello. However, for the next two weeks I am working in Silicon Valley...my second home.

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Comments

[Nathan Burke]

Great post, Don. I was trying to put together a list of this month's web, tech, social media, and startup events taking place in Boston, then I saw this post this morning. Great resource, thanks!

[DAR]

Re: Boston-based entrepreneur bloggers:

I recommend http://onstartups.com/ too. I've been following it for quite a while now, and Dharmesh posts some good stuff.

[tom summit]

I think your readers would also find these resources useful.
http://www.93south.net/

Directory of Boston VC's and their investments.
http://blog.bos.genotrope.com/boston-vc-directory/

[Don Dodge]

Thanks for the comments. Yes Dharmesh Shah at OnStartups.com is great. I know Dharmesh personally and have the greatest respect for him. He and Brian Halligan have a cool new company called HubSpot.

Tom, you are right. I like the 93South blog too.

[Apolinaras]

I am a member of Boston Entrepreneur Group (http://entrepreneur.meetup.com/674/) and we have bi-weekly meetings plus numerous other meetings with focus on such issues as VC, angels, legal issues, and etc. This is a very active group, so you have to be quick about RSVPing to the meetings. Events get booked up in 24 hours.
In 3 months I have been a member I have gained not only good insight in areas I was not familiar with, but I also met some great people.

[James McDisi]

Don't forget the Boston edition of OpenCoffee. I've been to two and they are very informal but wonderful events. Every Thursday at 10am at Andala Coffee in Cambridge. They tend to be the younger web entrepreneur set who come by.

It was started by two folks who should be on your list of bloggers, Bijan Sabet (www.bijansabet.com) and Nabeel Hyatt (http://nabeel.typepad.com)