The first-ever Boston Startup Week just concluded, and I was fortunate to attend five events (I had hoped to make it six, but registered too late for one of them and never got off the wait list for it). It was well-run, and for an area brimming with this kind of activity, it was great to see it emerge.
Friday closed out with two events back-to-back in downtown Boston. We first got a talk about using open source for a startup, then had a nearly full house for Becoming an Entrepreneur: Tips to Get Started. I’ll have more to add on a theme of the latter in a later post, but let’s just say that I think it was a hit with many attendees.
The planned speaker could not make it, but the fill-in – Mariah Ramos, a colleague of the planned speaker at MIT Launch – may as well have been the planned speaker. She had great energy and delivery, was on top of the material and then very ably spoke with many people, myself included, after it was over.
As I expected, the week had great opportunities not only for insights, which was obvious, but also to connect with people, both speakers and attendees. Most of the events I went to were well-attended, it was in all a well-run series, and I’m sure there’s excitement and anticipation about future years with this.
It’s interesting that in a city with a lot of startup activity, which you can glean from reading the Boston Business Journal and many other local business publications, there was not an event like this previously, although there are probably some similar ones. The BBJ has made much of how much venture money has continued to flow in and around the city in recent years, so there is plenty of activity in that respect.
After all of this, there is much for me to do – follow up with those I met and connect further with them. Next week begins the work of turning this week’s activities into something more.