Boston Startup School

By Dan MacLeod

[Dan is a Boston Startup School Alum]

Prior to completing the Boston Startup School program this summer, I was a senior at Tufts University. I majored in Psychology and minored in English, but knew I wanted to go in to marketing (Tufts doesn’t have a marketing major). My passions are alternative energy and green cars (check out Autoblog Green for great info!), so I figured I would work at a marketing firm for a few years to gain experience, and then transition over to the green automotive industry.

Watch Here: For resume advice, I’ve always found Dom Mazzetti to be spot on

Well, funny thing about wanting a job to gain experience: in order to get that job, you need experience too. Here I was, interviewing at marketing firms straight out of school, and I got passed over multiple times in favor of people with years of experience or people already in the company.

Before I start complaining too much, this didn’t come as a surprise to me; Most well-known marketing firms only hire college grads from their intern pools, and the marketing firm where I interned, 451 Marketing, wasn’t hiring. However, I did learn that I like the feel of small offices more than large, and I like fast-paced environments. Enter Boston Startup School.

Boston Startup School

Boston Startup School definitely snuck up on me. And I mean really snuck up; I applied on May 15^th, the last possible day to submit an application, in the middle of my college Senior Week. I can’t say I was in the best mental shape that day, but somehow Shaun, John, and Aaron decided to give me an interview, which eventually lead to my enrollment.

My class acted as the guinea pigs of BSS. Nothing made that fact clearer than the general mindset in the first week of class, when we were given instructions on how to draw an owl:

Image 2 : Complete instructions to draw an owl

While classes at Boston Startup School were well run and informative, the best part was networking with both the students in the program and the professionals who came in to teach the classes. Never in my life have I created so many strong connections so quickly, and following up with one of the professors from the Marketing Track is actually how I landed a job. Before I get too far ahead of myself, here are the most important things I came out of Startup School with:

1. A much greater understanding of marketing as a whole, and experience applying those marketing skills
2. Cofounding a collaborative marketing blog called GrowthNinja (positioning ourselves as the new, edgy thought leaders in the startup world)
3. A network of amazingly energetic and talented young entrepreneurs (yeah I’m shameless… our class was awesome!)
4. A network of professional contacts
5. A J.O.B.

I never would have landed my first job without connecting with Lora Kratchounova, principal of Scratch Marketing + Media, when she taught a branding and positioning class for the BSS Marketing Track.

The “real” world after Startup School

August 1^st marked our last official day of Startup School. August 2^nd marked the first official day of my job as a Marketing Associate at Scratch Marketing+Media. As the 9^th member of the team, my responsibilities started on day one. After a solid 30 second (ok, maybe one minute) orientation session, I dove right in to the work, and have been going full speed ever since. Over the past two weeks I’ve written:

• 7 blog posts for clients
• 1 white paper
• A combined total of 31 pages and 8000+ words

So yes, it’s been busy. And amazing. Only at such a small company would I enjoy real responsibility within my first official day, and only at a small company can I yell out a question from my office and get a response from anyone in the company.

Scratch shares many similarities with a startup, and I can’t wait to both improve my writing and continue to learn as I pick up other responsibilities. Startup School gave me the opportunity to meet Lora as well as the skills needed to have an immediate impact at the firm. I can’t wait to see what the future holds!

By Jingni Wei

Have you ever listened to a business pitch and thought, “That makes a lot of sense, I would use it”? That was the experience for me when I understood Boston Startup School’s goal: to help startups grow faster and to help entrepreneurs apply their passion and talent to the pursuit of a meaningful career. Being in charge of content creation, my goal is to capture as much of the essence of Startup School as I can so that others can have the moment of understand that I had which is Startup School is different, something very special, built by incredible founders and that “this makes a lot of sense”.

Perhaps you heard mention of Startup School on twitter, met an alum at a meet-up, read a blog post on InsideBSS, Growth Ninja, or our Bostinno Channel. While all these channels are all fantastic, the spirit and energy of the program is difficult to place into words. Editing many articles for our blog, one of the most common pieces of advice I give to our student writers is show the readers through supportive tangible examples. Borrowing from the words of our founders, I hoped to convey the excitement, spirit and uniqueness of Boston Startup School through video. Click Play.

By Dean Dieker

[Dean is a Boston Startup School Alum]

In the past 6 years I have been co-founder of a Y-Combinator startup, systems engineer working on intelligent landmines, heatshields, and lasers, a program director and instructor at a Karate school, a trapeze catcher, and a web developer at Boston Startup School.

Each of these experiences has served to validate one core concept; namely, that the best opportunities come from the unmeasured and unbridled application of passion.

It was the summer following my Junior year at Olin in 2006, and I found myself working in a startup that I had co-founded with some of my best friends from college. My friends were all studying computer science at Olin in some form, and they had told me about an opportunity to found a company using seed money from Y Combinator. I loved working with my friends and programming in Python (despite the fact that I had no CS background save a single software design class), so for a summer we all ate, drank, and dreamt about Python, Pylons, Amazon XML files, and e-commerce.

Eventually I had to graduate, and I ended up sitting next to someone on a plane who had a movie that I loved. I started talking with her about it, and she ended up being the VP for a defense contractor. Being interested in the defense industry, I jumped on the opportunity and secured an internship, and my first job. I learned that you could be okay doing what might be considered mundane work if the products were really cool, but also learned that a big corporation might not be the best place for me.

A passion I’ve had my whole life has been martial arts, so I found a local Karate school and started training after work, and engaged the owner in discussions about how he got his business started and was able to run it as a full-time profession. Two years later I foundmyself with a full-time job offer and spent the next three years wearing all the hats of a small business as well as changing the lives of our students through Karate, as a full-time Program Director and Instructor.

Recently, it was time for a career pivot, so I jumped back onto programming and started learning Ruby and Rails. At a Rails meetup at Thoughtbot I bumped into Evan Morikawa, also an Olin alum, who connected me with Aaron, one of the Boston Startup School founders. I met with Aaron and shared how excited I was to be able to use technology to have global impact and reach, and by the end of our meeting I was excited to have been invited to the inaugural class of Boston Startup School.

I’m not sure where I will end up in a few months, but I will get there by following my passion. I get passionate about what I’m doing and success finds me, and I’m confident that if you follow your passion and are open to possibilities, great things will happen!

By Kelly McDonald

Have you ever been reading great book and just when things are getting good, you arrive at your stop on the T? That’s a little bit how we’re feeling here at Boston Startup School. For the past six weeks we have been talking about the skills we need to be effective startup employees, what companies we should apply to, and our next steps in life. We feel like we finally have the hang of things and are in a good groove, but now the talking is over and it’s time to put #LearnToDo into actually doing.

My path to BSS was more of a winding country drive than a high speed freeway. Since graduating from Babson in 2009, I have worked at my family business, Broadstone Advisors, in marketing at a large bank, and inside sales at a software company. One boss actually told me in a performance review that my “sense of humor was not understood”. That’s when I knew I needed a change and would take my jokes and cupcakes elsewhere. By learning what I didn’t want in a career, I discovered what would make me happy and joined the marketing track here at Startup School.

Most of us came to Boston Startup School to find careers. For those who have just graduated, the procrastination of joining the “real world” is about to pass and for career changers, like myself, we will be unleashed on the workplace once again. We’ve been asking visiting companies, “What’s your company culture like?” or “What resources do you offer in terms of professional development?” and “What are your biggest challenges as you grow?”, but always we ask “What jobs are you hiring for??”

Like many of my classmates, I really want to find a company where people are passionate about what they are doing.

Boston Startup Schoolers are ambitious, smart, hard working, and FUN! When I first approached the class about making a parody music video to show to potential employers, some were a hard sell, but most were ready to go all American Idol on me. “Hire You” showcases who were are, what we’ve been doing, and why we’re ready to rock the Boston startup scene (in more ways than one).

Special thanks to Matt DiStefano for bringing my harebrained lyrics to life with his solo performance and sound editing, Dean Dieker for doing the video editing, Jing Wei for the amazing photographs, and all of my classmates who sang at the top of their lungs!

By Andrew Dunn

This post was first featured on Andrew’s blog on 7/2/2012

What happened to “real world” startups? It’s a question I’ve often asked myself since the tech and startup world first piqued my interest, c. December 2010, after taking an amazing course at Università Bocconi in Milan titled Management of the Music Business. It was then when I realized the extent to which technology had dramatically disrupted not only the music space but nearly every consumer-facing industry on the planet, and if I considered myself an entrepreneur by any means then it was in my best interest to dive head first into the world of tech and startups.

Fast forward a year and a half of learning my ass off + entrep community immersion and I’ve finally put my money where my mouth is by starting a business around an original idea for [brace yourselves]: a tangible product (coming soon!). Gasp! Some might call it a budding s̶m̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶u̶s̶i̶n̶e̶s̶s̶, but my startup team and I know that we are going to change the way people display and interact with memories. A few fellow Boston Startup School students have their own real world ventures too: Max Ade is making a splash with his philanthropic Maji Bottles, while Jeremy Carter has been building high quality guitars at Carter Custom Instruments for years, Amanda Curtis is gearing up to launch her new fashion line, and Ida Apel and co want to provide people with healthy on-the-go meal options with Bentida.

What’s challenging about building real world stuff is that you have to worry about material sourcing and balancing quality with cutting costs and managing the supply chain and distribution and yikes I can go all day. Each of these processes takes lots of TIME and MONEY and can’t be done at the tip of your fingers. You have to deal with too many actors whose reliability is out of your control. You can’t iterate and roll out new features just like that. Investors aren’t interested because you can’t test the market demand and reaction just like that. It’s hard!

All the attention is on digital and web technology and SaaS these days. I’m not discounting those startups by any means, but I do know that the process of creating real world products and services, and more specifically consumer products (some of my favorite stories include those of Red Bull and Quiksilver), in what I consider to be traditional entrepreneurship, is pretty damn difficult too.

Fortunately, we appear to have reached a beautiful marriage between two of the most disruptive forces in the life of the Internet: e-commerce and social media. Look at all the amazing new crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, powerful e-commerce communities like Quirky and Daily Grommet and Etsy. Did you hear about Shopinterest?! Everyday folks now have the ability to create and sell to large audiences without nearly as much friction as before. Leveraging the latest Internet trends and taking advantage of creative marketing tactics that drive traffic to your site and dollars into your pockets. It still requires hard work and determination, but there’s a lot less risk involved, and there’s help every step of the way.

It’s no secret that power is shifting towards the independent musician, the author, the inventor. And the masses are finally coming around to buying online and hanging out in places where they will undoubtedly discover new brands. We’re going to see a lot of action on the real-world startup front in the near future. Great timing indeed for the entrepreneur in us all.

By Shaun Johnson

[Shaun is co-founder of Boston Startup School. You can follow him or find out more on Twitter, @idealexit.]

At Boston Startup School, we wholeheartedly appreciate the fact that Veterans are supreme risk-takers and leaders, most agile in the face of change. What we do in our early-stage ecosystem can never be compared to what they perform daily for our nation. That said, it’s incredibly apropos when someone transitions from a life of military service to the world of startups. Last week, I had the honor of representing Boston Startup School at the TechStars Patriot Bootcamp, mentoring over 75 entrepreneurs who share the common bond of military service.

Hosted at Georgetown University, in the heart of DC’s tech scene, the TechStars Patriot Boot Camp is a three-day program providing intense education and mentorship exposure to service men and women in their respective entrepreneurial endeavors. Over these few days, Service Members and Vets have all come together to advance their respective companies. One specific Marine, Terry Roberts, chose to use the exposure to launch his startup, Picsure.

Throughout the weekend, I’ve come to help these founders through refining product and addressing their market. In the Boston Startup School spirit of #LearnToDo, each entrepreneur dove in head first and began soaking up information, testing their abilities and building the skills it takes to grow great companies. I can only think of how great it would be for Boston Startup School participants to join an outstanding Patriot Bootcamp company.

Hoping each company continues to march uphill,

Shaun

Co-Founder, Boston Startup School

By Matthew DiStefano

Do I have your attention now? Good. I am sure at some point in your life you have thought about a career change. Are you currently doing something that makes you happy? If not, why not look for that? It is about time to quit your current job and try that one thing that will make you truly happy.

By Nicki Haylon

Just a few short months ago, I was in the midst of my senior spring semester at Roger Williams University (in scenic and historic Bristol, RI!), where I was steadily applying to every job I could find. I was taking the route I was expected to—I had studied Creative Writing for four years, concentrating in literary publishing—by applying to every large and small publishing house out there. During my senior year, I had started a brand new professional literary magazine called Mount Hope, and I thought being a part of the publishing industry was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. At some point, though, I finally came to the realization that it wasn’t so much the industry that was so thrilling for me, but the creation of something I was wholeheartedly passionate about.

The idea of working in startups definitely was not new to me. My dad is a career entrepreneur who has worked for a variety of different startups and early-stage companies for as long as I remember. Some were more successful than others, of course, but his enthusiasm for what he was doing was always the same. I wanted that for myself, and I think that I always subconsciously knew I would end up somewhere in the startup world. After my interview for BSS at the Techstars office in Cambridge, I was hooked: on the program, on the startup world, and on Boston.

I had always seen myself ending up in Boston, having loved the city every time I had visited for its history and the people. I think sometimes Bostonians get a bad rep for their attitudes, but I for one feel that they are just intensely passionate about what they want and what they believe. I wanted to be a part of that. Plus, it had been hard growing up as a Red Sox fan in Yankees territory, and I was ready for some relief.

I can honestly say, four weeks into the program, that coming to BSS and being part of the marketing track is the best decision I have ever made. I have learned from actual professionals who have worked in startups and larger companies, and the education I’ve received in the past four weeks is more than I could have ever learned in a college classroom. I have turned my love for writing and design into a love for content marketing and brand identity. I have collaborated on some fantastic projects and assignments. I have contributed my own talents to help others through skillshares. I am actively reaching out to potential employers and making connections. I know without a doubt that within the next couple of months I will have the job of my dreams.

I’ve discovered that BSS isn’t just about career training. It’s about personal growth. It’s about taking who you are and making every piece of yourself bigger and better. Never in a million years would I have thought that I could not only move to a city where I knew no one and successfully adapt, but also explore career options I never thought possible. There is no question in my mind that Boston Startup School has given me the in, and the confidence, to succeed here.

By Geordie Kaytes

Graduating from college in 2008, my career path was certain. Do my time in management consulting, hop over to a client in a “strategic” role, and spend Sunday afternoons on my boat. I dutifully joined a great consultancy, and begin climbing the ranks.

Four years later, something went terribly wrong. I wasn’t laid off; my firm didn’t fold. I just had a startup idea that I couldn’t shake.

Since this is not an “Ask the Wildly Successful CEO” piece, the reader can confidently predict what happened next: my idea disintegrated almost immediately upon contact with the real world.

This sucked, because I really liked my company logo. I had been given a taste of the entrepreneurial life, with its ridiculous ups and downs (mostly downs), and yet I wanted more – so I signed up for a Startup Weekend in Philadelphia to see if I could build and push out a useful product on a short timeline.

Failure number two. My team floundered, and at the end of the weekend all we had to show was a clipart-laden slide presentation.

The problem this time was simple: I didn’t have the technical skills to contribute on the UX and design side. My self-taught Illustrator chops were just window-dressing so long as I lacked a solid grounding in web development.

So, I grabbed my nametag from Startup Weekend, which read “Geordie Kaytes: Non-Technical”. I drew a big red “X” through the “non”, and hung it by my desk. If I wanted to build my own ideas, I needed to learn web development skills. That was in April.

A crazy few months commenced. I stayed up late learning Python, Rails, JavaScript, and the principles of human-computer interaction. I entered the Boston Innovation Challenge, taking second place with a mobile web app for the American Red Cross (www.mygobag.org) as the lead developer and designer. And most importantly, I applied to the Product & Design track at Boston Startup School.

I didn’t think I stood a chance at getting in. BSS was meant for “recent” college grads, and I didn’t fit the description. In my interview, I didn’t for a second think about trying to impress them with what I knew (which, I had learned from my recent experiences, was very little). I talked instead about my failures, and about the steps I had already taken to get where I wanted to be.

Building, hacking and designing felt so natural, but I was afraid I’d spent too much time in the belly of the big business beast to change course. I later learned the term for this fear: “the competency trap”. It was a trap built by my own expertise, funneling me toward further specialization in a field for which I lacked passion — simply because I couldn’t bear the thought of starting over.

Somehow, the BSS founders saw some potential in me, and provided the resources to help me kick-start my career in a new direction. I’ve recently joined a great design agency that will let me pursue my passion for spreading happiness through beautiful, usable products that solve big problems.

The boat will have to wait.