Yesterday, I covered Part I of the results of a survey I put out last week to ask students and young entrepreneurs the tough questions:  "What are the challenges to engaging more young people?" and "What are your ideas for improving the ecosytem?" and a lot more. (You can see the survey here).  In total, 21 students from 9 different universities responded to the survey.  I am blown away with the amount of detail and thoughtfulness they put into their answers. I'd like to now share the 2nd half of the results with all of you here:

 Last week, I put out a call for students and young entrepreneurs to take a survey to help answer the questions of "What are the challenges to engaging more young people?" and "What are your ideas for improving the ecosytem?" and a lot more. (You can see the survey here).  In total, 21 students from 9 different universities responded to the survey.  I am blown away with the amount of detail and thoughtfulness they put into their answers. I'd like to now share the results with all of you here:

 This morning, I awoke to a tweet from Blank Label's Fan Bi that said, "Boston actually getting better for first-timers or still more noise than signal?" which was addressed to many of the young entrepreneurs.  It got me thinking, and so I'd like to highlight why I think Boston IS getting better for first timers (but perhaps still has much work to do).

If you’re someone with ideas, here’s one of the first lessons you will need to learn:  the world does not care at all about your ideas.  In fact, you should go ahead and assume the world hates you and your ideas.

Consequently, by signing up to be a startup founder, you’ve agreed to work in sales for your company.  But you have to be more than that, you have to be an absolute champion for your company.  You have to sell team members, investors, suppliers, customers, even your parents on the idea and make them believe that this is a real opportunity.  You have to change the way they think about what you’re doing.

There are many challenges facing the startup community, especially for young entrepreneurs. It would be easy to sit around and complain about the status quo, but many of us are working towards solutions.  I'd like to highlight some of those problems and those finding solutions for them: