Alex Moore: How We Can Improve the Startup Ecosystem: Stop the Secrecy

At the Angel Bootcamp last week, Boston investors, aspiring investors, and entrepreneurs had a great opportunity to discuss how to improve the ecosystem for early-stage companies in Boston. One of the most powerful suggestions came from Jean Hammond, who said that we need to do a better job of mixing together investors and entrepreneurs.

We saw last week that there is no shortage of angel investors in Boston, and there definitely are plenty of entrepreneurs looking to connect with them. How can we make it so that more of these connections get made in Boston? Essentially, as Jean said, we need more startup parties. 

She’s right, but even more important, we need to make sure that the startup parties that we already have are helping the ecosystem. To do that, we need to work together to overcome the culture of secrecy that divides us, keeps us from meeting each other, and makes our startup culture weaker.

Thanks to Twitter and Scott Kirsner's regular "Who I Saw at Secret Exclusive Event X" posts, it's easier than ever to see just how many secretive, in-crowd-only parties are going on in Boston.

As you might expect, the old guard on Mount Money leads the charge. Most notable is 12x12, a new initiative to pair “young” entrepreneurs with CEOs of highly successful companies, with lots of one-on-one mentorship as they launch a startup. Naturally, the program was developed completely in secret, with only already highly-networked entrepreneurs involved. It was announced at the Nantucket conference, where there was only a single person under the age of 30. The first company chosen to participate? LighterLiving.com, a portfolio company from one of the VCs backing the initiative. And more importantly, there's no information on the entrepreneur selection process on the 12x12 site.

The culture of secrecy permeates Mount Money - how many young entrepreneurs were hanging around at General Catalyst's startup party in early May? 

But surely that's a problem limited to the outdated VC firms out in Waltham and 128, whose like are disappearing as more agile VC firms move into the city? Think again. Even the parties tailored toward young entrepreneurs are often secret in Boston. Did you know about Popsignal Mix6 last week? How about BYTE Night8 two weeks ago? Did you hear about the first 5 Popsignal Mixes or the first 7 BYTE Nights?

We have plenty of startup parties. We are just, collectively, not invited to many of them.

Of course, there are plenty of people in Boston who are doing it right -- like the Lean Startup Party, Yaddapalooza, and DART Boston’s one year anniversary party that all happened May 27th and were open to all. Laura and the oneforty gang do a great job of mixing investors and ramen-level entrepreneurs whenever they throw a party, because if you see it on Twitter, you can pretty much find your way there. 

And there’s even plenty of room for invitation-only events and parts of events, like Jon put together for the pitch session component of Angel Bootcamp.  What makes the other kind of events destructive is that they’re kept hush-hush, making sure all the ideas come from people who were in the room the last time.

Instead of getting together with the same group of people to pat each other on the back and/or bitch about Valley Envy, let's open up our doors, have more fun, and get some fresh ideas and new blood in the room.  As David Cancel put it at Angel Bootcamp, the next generation of entrepreneurship can’t be found on 128, and it's not at your lake house in Maine. It's also not at secret, invite-only startup events.

Alex Moore is a TechStars alum working on his startup Baydin, which is changing the way you email.