#StartupsEverywhere Profile: Stephanie Roulic, Founder & Lead Organizer, Startup Boston
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Educating, Connecting, and Celebrating Up-and-Coming Entrepreneurs
Startup Boston is a community-building organization that provides New England-based startups with the programming, content, and initiatives to propel them toward success. Stephanie Roulic, Founder & Lead Organizer of Startup Boston, spoke with us about her organization, COVID-19’s effect on the startup ecosystem, and how policymakers can better support startup founders beyond the pandemic era.
Tell us about your background. What led you to create Startup Boston?
In August of 2016, I co-founded a marketing technology company called nDash and I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know anyone in the startup ecosystem and during that time, a lot of the startup-focused events happening in Boston were more performative, fluffy events. There weren't great forums to learn how to build a startup. Around the same time, one of my good friends who lives in San Diego created San Diego Startup Week and I thought it was super cool. We didn't have anything like that here in Boston; that's what led me to create Startup Boston Week. We first launched the event in September 2017 and about 2,200 people showed up. I was really satisfied with the result and thought it should become a staple event for the Boston startup ecosystem. Over the almost six years that Startup Boston has existed, we have grown the volunteer team from just me to include 42 other people. We do it because we want to help connect the startup ecosystem and foster relations where people may not have found community otherwise.
In addition to Startup Boston Week, what other work are you all doing at Startup Boston?
One of the big things we're doing now is hosting a monthly founders club. To join the group you have to request an invite and we only require that you have a Beta or minimum viable product (MVP) and no more than $10 million in funding. We also hold three staple, quarterly events. Our co-founder matching event helps you find a potential co-founder to build your business with or connects you with someone who has an idea if you want to join a startup. There’s also the mentor exchange, which is specifically for startup employees. We match them up with people who have expertise relevant to their startups. Finally, we throw a dealflow mixer, which matches founders and investors. Outside of that, we are producing a lot of content on our blog and social media channels, focusing on outlining the resources available to startups within Massachusetts and the New England area in general. We write about everything from industry breakdowns that highlight investors in a particular industry space, to networking event announcements, conferences, and more.
How did the pandemic affect your work as a community building organization? What are new challenges or opportunities that you think could change the ecosystem moving forward?
The Boston startup ecosystem that we knew in 2019 no longer exists. For example, over the past two years, many companies have been founded in Boston, but the founders are not necessarily based in Boston. Or maybe they founded their company in Boston, but have since left, and their headquarters that doesn’t exist in a physical space is still there. That poses a huge question that I don't yet have an answer to, which is, “What is the Boston startup community now?” And that question can be expanded more broadly to, “What do startup communities look like around the globe?” With the shift that the last two years has brought to startup ecosystems everywhere, Startup Boston has worked hard to focus our blog content and social media on this new era of the Boston startup community and how we can support entrepreneurs with the resources we currently have.
Social media sites like LinkedIn also underwent a monumental change, shifting from being a vehicle of self-gratification to a hub of support for up and coming founders during the pandemic. Take Silicon Valley and the amount of mindshare they have in their community out there. I look at LinkedIn now and it's becoming a similar virtual watercooler space where people aren't being so secretive about their thoughts and ideas. That's really the only way you can create a successful startup community: being open to sharing what you're doing, even if it's with your competitor. I remember when I would go on LinkedIn in 2019 it was “Oh, look at this blog article I wrote” or “Look at this thing I achieved.” But over the past few years, something changed. When people lost their jobs, I saw LinkedIn users really utilizing their networks to help support their colleagues. A different way to find community without being in person is one of the good things that came out of the pandemic and I'm very excited to watch it continue to benefit entrepreneurs and potential founders.
What are the specific kinds of challenges that you’re regularly hearing about from founders that you think policymakers should be aware of?
There are absolutely a few things about startups in general that policymakers could better understand and support. The first is that it can be really difficult for people to take the leap to start a company if they're not sure where their health insurance is going to come from. In Massachusetts we're fortunate to have MassHealth, but it's still a challenge to figure out. At least for me, health insurance was one of the big things I was really hesitant about when I first co-founded a company. I actually ended up not having health insurance for a year and I got penalized for that in my taxes later on. At the time, I was young enough and willing to take the risk, but in retrospect, I probably wouldn't have done that because it was way too expensive. And then of course there’s child care and student loans, which also inhibit people from taking that leap. For people who have kids and are thinking of potentially leaving their full-time jobs to work on their startup, it’s a lot of responsibility. Policymakers should also think about other ways to offset the cost of launching a startup. It's really expensive to start a company, and policymakers should provide more tax breaks for entrepreneurs to give them that extra push. I think startup founders should still be taxed, but not as much as larger, well-established companies are. And then those taxes should be based on profit as opposed to revenue because, especially starting out, startups have to spend so much money just to get off the ground.
Policymakers should also spend some time learning about the difference between small businesses and startups. Right now, they are treated very similarly but they are not the same thing. When they understand the differences and unique challenges startups face, the government can work on updating their web resources geared toward startup founders. Right now, it's really difficult to find grant programs on government sites, and founders are faced with the choice of spending countless hours trying to figure out the grant system or doing their own cold outreach.
What impacts have Massachusetts’ strict non-compete agreements had on the Boston startup community?
They have certainly impacted Boston entrepreneurs' ability to found companies and it kind of explains why Boston didn’t become the next Silicon Valley. In SV, it’s a very tight community where people frequently move from company to company with ease. Boston can be like that at times, but not so much with a company’s direct competitors. Because of Massachusetts' strict non-compete agreements, entrepreneurs need to wait a certain period of time before starting a business that may be considered a competitor of their previous place of employment. I’ve heard stories of people founding their companies secretly to wait out their non-compete agreements.
What are your goals for startup Boston moving forward?
The goal of Startup Boston over the next three years is to become the epicenter of the New England startup ecosystem. I want it to be the place people go to when they're starting their startup journey and are looking to answer the question, “How do I meet people within my industry or within my department that can help me grow as a startup employee or as a founder?” I created Startup Boston out of a place where I, as a startup founder, didn't know where to go. That's what we're trying to transform. Startup Boston doesn’t need to be everything for everyone nor do we want to be. We just want to be the place people come to when they need some direction on where they should go next.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
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