Entrepreneurs are about Solving Problems: 8 Problems the Community Still Needs to Solve

Over the past 2 weeks, I’ve highlighted initiatives underway by members of the Boston entrepreneur community trying to make this a better place to start a company. These solution are coming from people both young and old and everything in between.  I’m excited for these efforts and believe they will all contribute to an improved ecosystem, but there is more to be done. I’d like to highlight some issues that still need work: (see Kevin Vogelsang’s post yesterday for another issue I won’t rehash here).

1) Problem: Lack of organizational communication:

If you’ve looked at the Greenhorn Connect calendar over the past few weeks, you’ve noticed an incredible overload of events on Wednesday and Thursday nights. You’ll also notice that there are a lot of organizations operating in the same industries and I’m not certain they’re communicating. (Credit to Scott Kirsner & Microsoft/Gus Weber for being part* of the solution)

• Solution A: Communicate with similar organizations to you
• This is something individual organizations have to do for themselves. I’d recommend browsing the resource section on Greenhorn Connect and seeing if there’s any organizations like yours that you should talk to and then just reaching out to them.  Big credit goes to Mass Mobile, Drinks on Tap and Mobile Monday who are definitely collaborating. We need more of that.
• Solution B: Utilize the Greenhorn Connect calendar
• Scheduling a big event? Check the calendar. If it’s open, add your event. If there’s already 6 events, consider another date.  I feel bad when I see 3 events at the same time I want to be at that are all rare, like recently Tech Tuesday, a Vilna Shul Panel on Angel Investing and IdeaStorm 9 all happened at the same time on the same night.

2) Problem: Lack of Financing Education

Whether you want to slap people for talking about investment money questions or not, I think a glaring weakness is a lack of understanding of professional investment. Many young entrepreneurs do not fully understand the financing process (myself included) and certainly could use more education on how to build your business longer before pursuing funding. 

• Solution A: More Dave McClure like visitors
• Dave McClure’s visit really shook things up for a bit in Boston and he’s a great example of a way to shake up our mindset.  More speakers like him would help.  Jason Fried’s new book ReWork is a great example of some of that re-education to consider how you can organically build a great business. I’m also hopeful that the new Founder’s Dialogues will help as well.

3) Problem: Boston isn’t Loud Enough

This was one of the issues discussed at the Cultural Revolutionaries dinner in January. There are a lot of great companies in the ecosystem and numerous excellent events, but we’re not promoting them as well as much of what happens elsewhere seems to.

• Solution A: TC50 Event?
• One of the signature events in Silicon Valley is the Tech Crunch 50.  Perhaps an event or two in that vein would help us be louder.  The PAX East event showed Boston can do it big, so hopefully we see more events that will put us on the map.

4) Problem: The unsettled non-compete issue

There’s been plenty of talk about the non-compete issue and some legislation kicked around, but it doesn’t seem like much has changed since it was a key conversation topic at the unConference.

• Solution A: Legislature passes something
• Whatever side of the coin you fall on, some certainty on what’s going to happen in Massachusetts would obviously help people better plan their company’s future. 
• Solution B: Companies take the issue into their own hands
• At the unConference it was suggested that companies that don’t like non-competes start using a badge to show support for the issue. I haven’t seen it yet, but it would be a worthwhile citizens movement to show where they stand.

5) Problem: Lack of sufficient Angel/Seed funding

This is one of Bill Warner’s biggest issues he’s in favor of fighting for.  Not every company needs millions in venture capital, but a few thousand in seed investment can have a major impact as a company fights to get off the ground. 

• Solution A: Promise to be an Angel when you’re successful
• Have a successful exit? Promise to reinvest a bit in the community that helped you get where you are.  This is sort of a long tail solution, but it’s a way that people can help make the ecosystem better than when they found it. 

6) Problem: Disconnect between university students and the entrepreneur ecosystem

Believe it or not, there are over 30 universities in Boston and over 65 in the region. Many of those schools produce great talent that could contribute to the startup ecosystem; I think Harvard and MIT often cast a long shadow that leads to missed opportunities.  There are many initiatives working on this from StayInMA to the NCIIA to the Career Combine, but we need to continue to work on a grassroots level.

• Solution A: Grassroots approach
• The more we can do to engage the student population the better we’ll be.  There’s a lot of great new university entrepreneurship programs locally and a number of business plan competitions, all of which help, but on a base level, we need to continue to do more to inspire them.  I always go back to how a seminar my freshman year hooked me into entrepreneurship.  Everyone should take opportunities to speak to students when they have the chance. 

7) Problem: Lack of Opportunities for Greenhorns

This was actually one of the major takeaways from the unConference in October, but I’m not sure I’m seeing much progress there.  There’s a lot of talk about getting more young people involved (see 6), but I cannot emphasize enough my concern about what we’re going to do with them.  Not every person is going to be ready to start their own company, so they’ll be looking for a job.

• Solution A: Understand a few career paths and create infrastructure for them
• This involves recognizing there are a few options: 1) Immediately start your own company, 2) Have a reasonable amount of experience but want to work for someone else or 3) Have limited experience but want to still contribute at a start up.  I think we do a pretty good job of supporting most young people in category 1 thanks to TechStars, the general helpfulness of community members and the many collegiate programs like the NCIIA.  Unfortunately, 2 and 3 are big question marks. I hope the Career Combine will help with this, but it’s a larger issue than even on big event can fix. More on this in a separate post.

8) Problem: YOUR Engagement. What’s the most important issue for YOU?

I’ve listed a lot of issues I see above, but I want to hear from you what you think are the most pressing issues and how you might see there being solutions.  Be a part of the solution for the issue that matters most to you. Everyone has to contribute to the solutions for this to work.

How can you help solve one of these problems?

Are there other problems we need to solve?

If we all do what we can, many of our problems can be solved.
 
Together, we can revitalize the Boston entrepreneur community.