Depending on who you talk to, you get conflicting views about where real innovation and growth come from in today’s economy.

One school, well represented at the established venture capital firms on Winter Street in Waltham or Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, says that there are only a few truly disruptive technology ideas in each business cycle; that these ideas end up generating most of the wealth and job creation in the technology industries; and that wise investing is mostly a matter of finding the right teams of entrepreneurs with the rare and magical combination of ingenuity and experience needed to build strong companies.

The other school, represented by the dozens of startup incubators, business plan competitions, and angel-investing groups currently popping up across the country, says it’s better to let a thousand flowers bloom, even if they turn out to be dandelions. According to this point of view, there are far more entrepreneurs with good ideas than the established venture-capital business can handle, and the important thing is to find ways to connect these innovators with capital, at least in small amounts, so that they can test their ideas in the market.

Chris Hurley belongs to this second group. He’s the founder and CEO of Revolutionary Angels, a new investing group based in Cambridge, MA. Revolutionary Angels isn’t a traditional angel investing group where members pool their own money to fund startups. Rather, it plans to run a quarterly business plan competition where the prizes—currently pegged at $250,000 for the first-place winner and $50,000 for second place—are financed by entry fees from the competitors themselves. The group began soliciting submissions for its first competition on October 1, and plans to announce the first two winners in November. In return for their fees, Hurley says, entrants will get not just a chance at the big prizes, but enough advice from a group of experienced advisors and service providers that the $4,995 entry fee could be a good investment even for teams that don’t win.

“The pool of people looking to get a business of the ground is growing, while the pool of venture and angel capital available to help them is shrinking, and what occurred to me is that there has got to be a better way to do this,” says Hurley. A longtime sales executive and IT consultant, Hurley was until recently a member of corporate development group at Sun Microsystems. He says he resolved to leave Sun after Oracle announced plans to acquire the struggling maker of business software and servers.

“I decided it was better to control my own destiny than to have someone else control it,” he says. “I’m hoping this is an opportunity that will not only provide that control but help a lot of other entrepreneurs out there, because it’s a challenging environment.”

Despite, or maybe because of, startups’ thirst for capital, Hurley’s model may prove to be a controversial one. The $4,995 fee to enter Revolutionary Angels’ first competition is not inconsiderable to a business in need of cash. Hurley’s plan is to …Next Page »

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While Scott Kirsner and my fellow Xconomist Tim Rowe both recently have commented on the benefits of mixing and mingling in Kendall Square, we have a more basic problem that won’t be solved by just rubbing shoulders. Chalk it up to Yankee stoicism; our long, dark winter; or our independent sectors of software, communications, medical devices, interactive media, financial services, health care, and finance. Whatever the cause, you probably haven’t heard of “Northern Hospitality” for a reason. Simply put, we just don’t talk with each other like people do in other parts of the country, and changing will help entrepreneurs.

Starting a new company is hard. We talk a lot about entrepreneurship and innovation in the technology community, but that’s not really the entrepreneur’s chief mission. Big companies innovate and create things. Mature small companies do, too. What makes entrepreneurs unique is coupling that with creating a new organization, which means creating something out of nothing.

To do that, they need to find those rare people who are willing to take the risk with them, and who share the dream and want to solve the same types of problems. These include co-founders, employees, lawyers, distributions partners, suppliers, and most importantly, customers.

Finding all those people takes time and energy. It can be hit or miss, and it’s mostly miss. Unfortunately for entrepreneurs, the biggest expense usually is time, which also is usually in fairly short supply. With a little effort from the rest of us, we can help entrepreneurs cut these costs dramatically and help build an even more vibrant technology community here in Boston.

Last year, Bill Warner (another Xconomist) and I collaborated with the Mass Technology Leadership Council to launch Innovation 2008, an “unConference.” Unlike traditional conferences with lots of speakers and little networking, this new model of conference is mostly structured networking that delivers content based on participants’ interests rather than a pre-planned rigid agenda. The attendees create the sessions themselves, allowing people with shared interests to find each other efficiently, and then they spend an hour at a time sharing their expertise, asking questions, discussing critical issues, and getting to know each other. It was a huge hit, particularly by breaking down traditional barriers between old and young, investors and entrepreneurs, and people in different sectors because everyone had something to offer.

This year, we are turning that event, which will be held on October 1, into the kick-off for a year-long platform. We will ask particular participants to become “connectors,” and for the next 12 months, they will try to be the quick “answer man/woman” who entrepreneurs can contact with the simple question: “Who do you think would be the right person to help me with __________?” Connectors either make an introduction and get out of the way, or refer the request to another connector who might have a better answer.

A select group of entrepreneurs from the unConference also will be invited to join a …Next Page »

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Boston-based Apperian, founded by Apple veterans as a development shop for enterprise-oriented iPhone applications, has closed a $1 million Series A venture round led by CommonAngels of Lexington, MA, according to an announcement circulated today. “We have been incredibly impressed by the team as well as their customers’ vision and passion for the possibilities on this platform and beyond,” CommonAngels managing director James Geshwiler said in the announcement. We profiled Apperian in March.

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Two weeks ago, I was in Atlanta for the annual Angel Capital Association (ACA) conference and, this past week, here in Boston for the annual National Venture Capital Association conference. Depending on whom you asked at both conferences, it was the best of times or the worst of times, most likely depending on whether or not they had money to invest. In fact, NVCA conference chair, Kate Mitchell, even kicked off the event with that opening line from Dickens’ book.

That said, both events were generally positive-you’ve got to be an optimist to be involved in entrepreneurship-and both had a roll-up-your-sleeves, let’s-make-things better outlook. Overall, the mood and energy was somewhat more upbeat in Atlanta than in Boston, as characterized by ACA Chairman John Huston’s welcoming remark and call to action, “Thank you for supporting capitalism!” which drew a lot of applause. Perhaps it was because individual investors don’t feel obliged to go to conferences and the pessimists just stayed home. Maybe this part of the venture investing market is still so young that that there’s a lot to be learned and done.

The hot topics among angel groups were on fund formation, increasing deal flow, deal structuring, and how to syndicate deals—while top of mind with venture capitalists was how (or whether) to invest in the current climate. Kudos in particular to NVCA President Mark Heesen for making the trip down to the ACA annual meeting for the second year in a row to build bridges. He participated in an excellent, frank discussion about how venture firms and angel groups can collaborate better and more frequently. Attendance was about the same as 2008, with around 350 people present. Certainly, a lot of angels have had their portfolios hit hard by the recession and have cut back on investing, but at least this crowd was looking forward.

The NVCA meeting had nearly twice as many people, just over 650, but that was down by maybe half from last year when the conference was in Silicon Valley. To be fair, travel logistics from the West Coast to the East Coast for a mid-week conference may have also played a role, but the mood was still different.

NVCA does a vastly superior job to ACA when it comes to inspirational messages, but a lot of them provided a sober contrast between what venture capital has achieved in the past and what might no longer be possible in the future unless there is structural change in the market. Outgoing NVCA Chairman Dixon Doll’s opening comments included a call for action to the federal government: “Unless we are willing to pull out all the stops, we’re in danger of heading down a slippery slope.” He then proceeded to unveil NVCA’s “Four-Pillar Plan to Restore Liquidity,” which you can read by clicking here.

Both organizations had high concerns about liquidity and availability of capital. At ACA, a lot of the discussion revolved around state and federal tax credits to increase the availability of capital for individual investors. NVCA provided a lot more data and structure, as noted above in the call to action, showing that with liquidity down so much over the past 10 years, the cycling of capital already is decreasing and is at risk of slowing even more.

To me, perhaps the most important issue centers on the fact that these two meetings happened in two different cities. Overall, both organizations still have a lot to gain from each other. In addition to Mark Heesen coming to the ACA conference, about a half-dozen ACA members-including yours truly-also were present at the NVCA conference because we are members of both organizations. But there could be far more overlap and dialog as well. Roughly two-thirds of ACA-member angel groups co-invested with venture firms last year. We have a lot of the same goals and cooperate and collaborate far more than we compete. No matter if you think it’s the best of times, or the worst of times, ultimately, it’s the entrepreneurs who benefit by having the players in the capital markets work more efficiently and effectively together.

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Life goes on, even in the face of great tragedy. Startup life also goes on, even in the face of great economic decline.

That was one message that came through loud and clear yesterday at the Early-Stage Life Sciences Technology Conference, an annual event (this was the fifth) put on by the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center. A dozen hopeful startup founders and technologists gathered at Harvard Medical School in Boston to share their entrepreneurial visions with potential investors, partners, and others. In the process they painted a picture of a world with new ways to fight breast cancer and deliver drugs to the brain, gel-based scaffolds to promote tissue regeneration, safer and more accurately positioned catheters, and even less painful tonsillectomies.

The presenters, all pre-venture money but some with angel funding, represented recently formed Massachusetts companies or “faculty of Massachusetts institutions with technologies that could be the basis of a start-up or license,” according to the application guidelines. The forum provided an opportunity for these folks to give 10-minute pitches laying out the market for their products, their business strategy, and their technology, and describing the funding they are looking for to get off the ground—and in some cases, to get all the way to profitability. But to kick things off, I had the privilege—and fun—of moderating an opening panel on the climate for startups today.

I had four great guests: Carl Berke, associate director of Partners Innovation Fund and co-founder of MA Medical Angels; David Beylin, program manager of the SBIR Development Center at the National Cancer Institute; Aaron Sandoski, managing director of Norwich Ventures; and David Steinmiller, founder and COO of Woburn, MA-based Claros Diagnostics, which just raised a $4 million B round.

In other words, three people with different flavors of money for startups, and one who had successfully raised money in this climate. We had a great discussion about current conditions for launching a life-sciences startup—and yes, there is life in life sciences. The main message for me was that while innovation is always messy, it’s even messier today, with a multitude of eddies swirling in the startup pool–as opposed to rosier times, when the flow is more uniform. Here are some highlights of the conversation:

—Money is still available from venture firms and angels, but it comes with more strings. Berke pointed out that investors are asking for a lot more in capital efficiency in startups, challenging development plans more carefully, and doing more tranching of investment dollars to reduce risk.

—More virtualization and outsourcing—but at a potential cost. At the conference, and in my discussions before the panel, panelists mentioned that forming more virtual companies and outsourcing non-core work can save a lot of money in today’s cash-strapped climate. At the same time, they pointed out, workers in such settings don’t necessarily have that same passion and drive as when everyone is together, going all-out to fulfill a startup’s vision. Sandoski predicted that there might even be a little bit of a backlash a year or two from now against so much outsourcing and virtualization.

—-Strong interest in the new SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) Phase II Bridge Program, which launched last May to provide up to $1 million per year for up to …Next Page »

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A patent infringement lawsuit filed last month against Histogen has triggered a funding crisis at the San Diego biomedical startup, which was forced to lay off all 36 of its employees at the end of January.

Histogen founder and CEO Gail Naughton told me this afternoon the suit filed by rival SkinMedica of Carlsbad, CA, prompted a group of angel investors to withdraw their planned $2.4 million investment in Histogen at the end of January. The ensuing funding crisis has been playing out behind the scenes at Histogen, even while Naughton reported promising findings on the startup’s experimental hair regrowth treatment last week at the 4th Annual Stem Cell Summit in New York.

“The lawsuit really took us by surprise, particularly because it was an infringement suit that was filed when we don’t even have a product on the market,” Naughton told me. “It really cut us off at the knees.”

Since then, Naughton says she has been working on two fronts to find new funding for Histogen. But losing the early stage funding, which had been set to close on Jan. 29, necessitated the immediate layoff of all Histogen employees, she said. About 20 employees have volunteered to continue working despite the layoffs, which were first reported today by The San Diego Union-Tribune.

“I’m not trying to take advantage,” Naughton told me. “They are an unbelievably engaged and passionate group of people who really believe in what we’re doing, and I’m very grateful.”

Privately held SkinMedica provides both prescription-based and cosmetic skin-care products to dermatologists and others to improve the health and appearance of skin. SkinMedica’s suit alleges that Naughton, Histogen, and its cosmetics subsidiary, Histogen Aesthetics, are infringing on two SkinMedica patents covering its “NouriCel” product line and related proprietary technology for culturing human cells in growth media. SkinMedica acquired the patents in 2003 from Naughton’s previous company, San Diego-based Advanced Tissue Sciences, which filed for bankruptcy in 2002 after spending 14 years developing living tissue skin patches.

Naughton denied that Histogen or its subsidiary are infringing on SkinMedica’s patents.

Naughton says she’s been meeting over the past four weeks with a whole new group of investors, whose primary interest is in the potential use of ReGenica, Histogen’s lead product in development, as a hair regrowth product. Histogen says ReGenica is made from proteins and other molecules secreted by human fibroblast cells grown in proprietary bioreactors that mimic the embryonic environment. Last week, Naughton reported early results from a clinical trial that suggests that injecting ReGenica into the scalp promotes hair growth. She says she also has been having simultaneous discussions with four pharmaceutical companies about forming a partnership to help bring certain Histogen products to market.

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Southern California’s Tech Coast Angels said today its members participated in 15 first-time financings in 2008, providing $75 million in funding for new companies from members and affiliated investors. The organization of angel investors also participated in 16 follow-on rounds last year. That compares with 12 first-time fundings and 14 follow-on rounds in 2007. Since the organization of angel investors was founded in 1997, members of the Tech Coast Angels have personally invested more than $99 million in early stage companies—helping to induce $960 million in investments by venture capital and private equity firms in TCA-funded companies.

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Right now there’s really only one great educational institution for those who want to learn how to be an entrepreneur, and it’s called the School of Hard Knocks. That isn’t to say there aren’t some wonderful classes and programs in entrepreneurship at places like MIT, Stanford, and other universities. But those are typically short-lived courses with little, if any, hands-on training. In truth, there aren’t very many opportunities for hopeful entrepreneurs to learn first-hand about the career. And even if you have a passion for building your own business, it’s often incredibly hard to put in the time to do so without giving up your day job—and unless you are independently wealthy or a starving student already, that is often impossible to do.

Today, the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City, MO, is launching an ambitious program designed to help fill a big gap in the entrepreneurship world by providing two-year fellowships to allow would-be entrepreneurs to build their dream business—salaries and expenses paid—while working side-by-side with mentors who know how to do it. It’s called the Kauffman Entrepreneur Fellows program, and it’s being launched in partnership with three leading venture creation companies—two in Silicon Valley, and one right here in Boston. That would be PureTech Ventures, which is run by Xconomist Daphne Zohar.

There’s a lot to this interesting program (read on). But first it’s important to note that “venture creation” companies are different from venture capital firms because they don’t typically fund entrepreneurs who come through the door with business plans. Rather, they tend to come up with their own ideas for starting companies and then proceed to launch those businesses themselves, often in partnership with VCs. Working with such firms, as opposed to venture firms, would presumably give hopeful entrepreneurs a much deeper training ground in forming their own company.

Zohar says the opportunity to have one or more fellows at PureTech fills a big void and helps both the entrepreneur and the host company. “It’s an entrepreneurial initiative and something that doesn’t exist” anywhere else, she says of the program. PureTech and Kauffman each pay half a fellow’s salary, so PureTech gets a motivated worker at a bargain rate to help it explore new ideas and hopefully launch companies. The fellow, of course, gets financial security and stability and first-hand training—and not just for a semester, but for two years. After that time, the fellow could potentially join one of the companies he or she helped form, or perhaps stay with PureTech.

“It’s real exciting. I wish that there was something like this that existed when I was first starting out,” Zohar says.

Lesa Mitchell, who has the great title of VP, Advancing Innovation, for the Kauffman Foundation, says her organization has long been involved in fueling entrepreneurial flames in different ways. Back in the early 1990s, the foundation convened a group of luminaries on Cape Cod that in 1994 led to a program to help take the venture industry to a new level through what was called the Kauffman Fellows Program. The idea was that the venture industry was mainly staffed by “investment bankers and business guys,” she says. The fellowship program was designed to bring more scientists and engineers into the field by supporting fellowships for them at leading venture firms. The program was a huge success, she says, and in 2003 it was spun off and placed under the wings of a separate entity, the Center for Venture Education, which is based in Palo Alto but still tied to the Kauffman Foundation.

Since then, the foundation helped create the Lenexa, KA-based Angel Capital Association, a leading trade association for angel investor groups around the country. Having worked to bolster both the angel and venture components of innovation, the foundation turned its attention to entrepreneurs themselves.

In addition to PureTech, which has launched a variety of life sciences companies, the other venture-creation firms involved initially with the Entrepreneur Fellows program are …Next Page »

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For startup entrepreneurs who need less than $5 million in capital, the venture capital industry might as well not exist. The average U.S. venture capital fund has doubled in size since 2000 to over $200 million, according to Dow Jones/VentureOne. That means most venture partners see investments of under $5 million as a waste of their time, according to James Geshwiler, managing director of Lexington, MA-based CommonAngels. Only a gigantic return on such an investment would “move the needle,” or provide adequate returns, for such a large fund, Geshwiler points out.

And that’s what has created an opening for the angel capital phenomenon. As of 2008 there were 168 angel capital groups nationwide with more than 6,500 members, says Geshwiler, who ran a well-attended tutorial on the angel investing business at the last Web Innovators Group meeting in Cambridge on December 9. That’s up from about 20 groups when CommonAngels got started in 1998—and it doesn’t even count the thousands of non-affiliated angels. Most of them are wealthy individuals who are industry veterans or former entrepreneurs themselves, who like to invest relatively small amounts (usually on the order of $25,000 to $100,000), and want to be more involved in their portfolio companies than they would be if they simply became limited partners in venture funds.

Angel groups have helped to get hundreds of new ventures off the ground—including Xconomy, which is a CommonAngels portfolio company. These types of groups, like Tech Coast Angels in San Diego and the Alliance of Angels in Seattle, just to name a couple, work by assembling many individual investments to fill what Geshwiler calls the “funding gap” between the $500,000 and $5 million levels. Geshwiler tailored his overview of the angel industry for startup entrepreneurs working to launch small, pre-venture-funded startups, focusing on questions like how to approach angels, what sectors are most interesting to these investors, what levels of equity they usually expect in return for their investments. (Geshwiler has posted the PowerPoint deck from his presentation here.)

The “very nature of angel funding has changed tremendously” over the past 10 years, with the Internet having a big impact, Geshwiler says. Most individual investors “are not interested in letting the world know that they have money,” he says. But organizing into regional groups with their own websites has given angels a new way to filter proposals and function almost like mini-venture funds. (Xconomy’s other bureaus have seen a couple examples of this in action recently, with Redmond, WA-based Healionics collecting $2.6 million from a syndicate of angels in the Northwest, and San Diego-based MicroPower Appliance scoring an interesting round of financing from the Tech Coast Angels.)

Angels, like all other investors, have been hit hard by the financial crisis, with most seeing their personal portfolios shrink by 30 to 50 percent in the last year, Geshwiler says. But the good news, he points out, is that the risks involved in angel investing aren’t necessarily any higher than in the past—they’re just different. It may be harder these days for small, growing companies to obtain follow-on investments, but on the other hand, there’s less competitive risk as fewer companies enter each niche. That also makes its easier for small companies to attract and hold on to great employees.

“This is not our recession, it’s Wall Street’s recession,” Geshwiler says. “You guys [entrepreneurs] haven’t bought into the story that the economy is over. I wish we’d just get over all this hand-wringing.”

Angel investors are a good resource for many startup entrepreneurs because they’re typically future-oriented, backing companies that can reach exits in five to …Next Page »

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As people gathered from near and far to celebrate Thanksgiving, a couple of startups with San Diego connections had more than one reason to give thanks, with deals closing on a variety of fronts, including one close to home—at home, really—for Xconomy.

—Cardinal Partners of Princeton, NJ, (not to be confused with Cardinal Equity Partners of Indianapolis or Cardinal Venture Capital of Menlo Park) led a $13.3 million venture round for Awarepoint, a San Diego startup developing wireless sensors for use in hospitals and elsewhere. Cardinal was joined in the deal by Venrock and previous investor Avalon Ventures of San Diego. Awarepoint has developed software and hardware that provides real-time remote monitoring of supplies, equipment, and personnel.

—San Diego’s Kratos Defense & Security Solutions agreed to buy Digital Fusion, a Huntsville, AL, information technology company that specializes in computerized simulation, engineering, space systems, optics and other defense-related work. Kratos said it would issue 25.4 million new shares of its common stock to close the deal, which is valued between $34 million and $38 million.

—The San Diego connection was not immediately apparent when Battery Ventures of Waltham, MA, and Menlo Park, CA, said it had led a $100 million venture round for San Antonio’s Pocket Communications. But the deal, which was joined by Pocket CEO Paul Posner and Charles River Ventures, which also has offices in Waltham and Menlo Park, poses fresh competitive implications for San Diego’s Leap Wireless and its flat-rate Cricket unlimited-calling plan. Pocket’s Posner says he can undercut his rivals on pricing and still make a profit.

—And on the home front, Xconomy closed the first tranche of its second financing round less than two months after launching its third Web site, here in San Diego, for news about technology innovation and the “exponential economy.” New England’s CommonAngels led the deal, as it did with Xconomy’s first round in August 2007. The new round was joined by LaunchCapital, a new investor and a number of individual investors.

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One of the most influential people in the Seattle tech-innovation scene doesn’t even live in the area. He’s Neil Patel, and if you’re in the Web analytics or Internet marketing business, you already know who he is. That’s because Patel has done marketing and search engine optimization for everyone from giants like General Motors, AOL, HP, Samsung, and Viacom to fast-rising local companies like Wetpaint. He has tons of business in the Seattle area, and he also has some funding news about his own company.

Instead of the drizzly Northwest, Patel makes his home in warm and sunny Orange County—Buena Park, CA, to be exact—where he’s lived since he was a kid. Except he’s still a kid. He’s only 23 and technically still lives at his parents’ house, though it’s mostly a practicality because he travels about three weeks of every month. Still, he knows the ins and outs of Orange County and isn’t in a hurry to move. (I can almost imagine him saying, “Welcome to the O.C., b***h.”)

I chatted with Patel a couple weeks ago after I learned he was a limited partner in Founder’s Co-op, the Seattle seed-stage investment fund. Patel says he comes up to the Northwest every month. “It’s my favorite place other than Orange County. There’s much more investment going on,” he says. “I do more in Seattle than in most places.” For starters, he is an investor in a few area companies, including Bothell, WA-based Sandlot Games and Seattle-based EvoLanding, a media network and website developer. He also serves on the boards of BuddyTV, ICanHasCheezburger.com, CultureMob, LiquidPlanner, and Optify (which TechFlash profiled yesterday).

Patel is also the co-founder of the marketing companies ACS, Crazy Egg, and Kissmetrics. He gave me some news about Kissmetrics, an analytics startup that he spends most of his time with: it recently raised $800,000 from True Venture and other investors. (To his knowledge, this hasn’t been reported anywhere else.) The model for his virtual company is low overhead and small offices: the eight employees are spread out in places like Australia, California, Chicago, and Eugene, OR. “I’ve done so much marketing for these investors, it doesn’t take much to get money,” Patel says. “The VCs let me do whatever I want…The guys have their own startups, so they themselves are used to doing multiple things at once.”

Patel explains what makes Kissmetrics different from other analytics sites that tell you how your website is performing. “All these sites out there, there’s all these solutions, and all they do is traffic stats,” he says. “None of them tell you how to improve your site.” What Patel’s company does is “social analytics”—it tells you “here’s the users interacting, here’s the users commenting, here’s where they come from,” he says. It tells you how best to target visitors who come back three times, say, or how to increase your page views per visitor, or what your “viral growth rate” is. “If you’re an e-commerce site,” he says, “here’s the visitors who are converting, here’s who’s not converting. You might try X, Y, or Z.”

The plan is to start the beta phase in early December, and make Kissmetrics available to the public by the end of January. Patel’s goal, he says, is to “get millions of people” using his analytics software.

But how did he get to where he is so fast? That’s an interesting story. Patel says he started his first company in high school, when he was 16, with the help of business partners and his sister. “I hate school religiously,” he says.

His first company was an online job site to compete with Monster.com. It didn’t work out, because it got no traffic and it didn’t take credit-card payments. “I paid Internet marketing companies, and got screwed over,” Patel says. “They didn’t do much. So I learned it myself.” Soon thereafter, he was taking a speech class at a community college when he met a classmate who was a sales rep from ElPac, an Orange County-based electronics company. “He said, ‘Hey, you should work for ElPac,’” says Patel.

ElPac was bringing in more than $20 million per year, Patel says, and asked him to help boost its Web traffic. By optimizing webpage codes for search engines and hitting up other sites for links, he helped more large companies find ElPac and then buy electronics from it in bulk. The company paid him $3,000 per month for about 10 hours of work. “That’s a lot for a 16 or 17-year-old kid,” he says.

The pay may have changed since then, but not the mission: to help companies find more customers online. “We focus on the website itself,” says Patel.

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After seeing two San Diego startups get crucial, early stage funding this month from members of Southern California’s Tech Coast Angels, I arranged to have coffee with their archangel, Michael Elconin.

Elconin, who is about halfway through his two-year term as president, was among the 30 or 40 members of San Diego’s erstwhile “Band of Angels” who combined in 2000 with the Tech Coast Angels of Orange County and Los Angeles.

What began for Elconin as “dabbling in high tech investments” has gradually become a nearly full-time occupation, or it would be if Elconin didn’t have a restless curiosity in just about everything.

“I don’t see angel investing as a career,” he says. “But as long as I’m learning new things, I’m happy.”

Elconin, who is 55, has followed his eclectic interests through politics and public policy to software, corporate governance, finance, and angel investing. These days, he says he’s also interested in physics, cleantech, and emerging aerospace technologies, a burgeoning entrepreneurial market.

“I’m a techno-geek,” he says. “I fall in love with cool technology, which happens to be one of the warning signs in the 1,001 ways a business can fail.” Elconin says it’s better to fall in love with a management team, or with a business.

While there are large groups of angel investors in San Francisco, Boston, and New York, Elconin says the Tech Coast Angels, or TCA, has become the country’s largest group of angel investors. It has expanded to more than 280 members in five Southern California Counties, including Santa Barbara and Riverside, who have collectively invested more than $100 million in over 100 ventures.

Elconin says those companies went on to raise more than $1 billion in secondary funding from venture capital firms and others. He estimates that 60 percent have survived.

“In terms of the number of deals and the size of our deals, we’re huge,” Elconin says. The group discourages uncommitted investors and groupies from professional service firms by requiring its members to pay dues that range from $1,600 to $1,800 a year.

While each startup is unique, Elconin says the San Diego companies that recently got funding from the Tech Coast Angels were more or less typical. AgileNano has been developing composite materials made of nano particles that absorb energy and therefore would be useful in helmets and body armor in helping to minimize blunt-force trauma injuries. MicroPower Appliance is developing Web-based networks of ultra low-power wireless video cameras for use in surveillance.

Angels traditionally have been the largest source of seed funding for startups in the United States. The Tech Coast Angels meet and listen to presentations as a group, but members make individual investments with their own money and often get involved as consultants.

“I’ve found it a fascinating group,” Elconin says. “We’re mostly CEOs, with a smattering of other C-level executives. Most have made their money and are in it to do interesting things.”

One reason the Tech Coast Angels has so many members is because so many successful entrepreneurs and executives come out of Southern California’s business community, Elconin says.

He came to San Diego in 1999, after selling his Milwaukee-based software company, Software Banc, to a publicly held rival that was later acquired. Software Bank developed business management software for doctors and lawyers. Elconin says it had about 800 clients throughout the upper Midwest by the time it was sold.

Elconin also was elected three times to the Wisconsin legislature, beginning in 1972 when he was just 19. He later served as chief of staff for Wisconsin Gov. Marty Schreiber from 1977 to 1978 and on a number of public, private and non-profit boards, including the Milwaukee School Board.

Elconin says venture capital investments in San Diego have weakened in recent years, partly because many Bay Area VC firms have withdrawn the outposts they once established here during more expansive times.

Because of the meltdown on Wall Street, Elconin expects the Tech Coast Angels will see more deals from more mature companies in search of capital.

“We’re going to see much better opportunities,” Elconin says. “But angels are like everyone else—their investment portfolios are down too.”

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It must be the weather—or rather, the climate. How else to explain another tech startup with Seattle roots moving to the San Francisco Bay Area? Last week I heard from DocVerse, a collaborative-document software company, which relocated from the Seattle area to San Francisco this summer after raising a round of funding from Bay Area investors. This week it’s Chatterous, a “multi-channel communication” startup founded by two former Amazon developers. The story of Chatterous cuts across three familiar themes we’ve written about lately: the investment climate for early-stage startups, the role of incubators, and the challenge of helping people manage their daily communications.

I tracked down Chatterous co-founder Wilkins Chung yesterday. He and his business partner Kenshi Arasaki have been busy with the move to San Francisco—they’re setting up an office in the SoMa neighborhood that will officially be up and running in the next week or so. The idea behind Chatterous, which is about to start beta trials, is to let you communicate with a group of friends, co-workers, or other contacts across different channels like e-mail, text messages, instant messaging, and Web-based social networks—as smoothly and automatically as possible.

The idea was born from an experience many people can relate to. Chung says that on Thursdays or Fridays at Amazon, he would send out e-mail blasts to friends about getting together for happy hour. But some people wouldn’t get his message because they had already left or weren’t checking e-mail. So he’d have to call them or send text messages. “I became the aggregation point, and it’s really hard,” he says. Why not create a service to handle these different modes automatically, he thought. It just so happens, he met Arasaki at one of these happy hours, and the two started talking about possibilities.

They applied for the Y Combinator incubation program and got in. “We thought, let’s go for it,” says Chung. “Opportunities don’t come along often.” So he and Arasaki left Amazon—Chung had been there for two and a half years plus an internship—and spent the winter session at the beginning of this year in Silicon Valley, developing their product and making contacts.

When the time came to raise a round of funding, Chung and Arasaki talked to investors from Seattle as well as the Bay Area. “We did talk to people from Seattle, but mostly people in Seattle came down to San Francisco,” Chung says. “We were in Seattle for a short period of time, with the idea to move down to the Bay Area.” In the end, Chung says, they raised a round of angel funding (an undisclosed amount, but Chung says it was less than $1 million) from four investors in the Bay Area.

And that’s the main reason for the company’s move—to be a lot closer to its investors. “We’d like the ability to just call them up for coffee,” says Chung. “Especially in the angel round, it’s not just about money, it’s about their experience, and being networked to people in your space.” (As an aside, Chung is from Toronto and Arasaki is from Calgary, so they don’t really have local roots that would tend to keep them in Seattle.)

Chung also had some keen observations on the early-stage investment climate in San Francisco versus Seattle. “People are willing to meet if you get an intro. Even if an investor isn’t interested, they’re really willing to help you find others who might be,” he says. “Our investors came about through referrals. It’s a lot easier to meet investors that would be suitable. [There seems to be] a lot more investment opportunity in the Bay Area than Seattle. Even if your company is in Seattle, it’s probably a good idea to come to the Bay Area. The network of investors is stronger than in Seattle in scope and breadth… In the Valley, the investor network is big, but word gets around really quickly.”

“Another thing is,” Chung continues, “a lot of investors [in the Valley] used to have their own startups. That’s a really big difference. Sure, you have people who made a lot of money in the corporate world, but still, having investors who’ve started their own company, have been through the whole thing, is very important. They can advise us on how to get through it.” The implication is that Seattle has fewer of these—which is probably true, at least in raw numbers.

At this point, Chatterous is still two guys, but they’re looking to hire. And that’s something that’s not any easier in the Valley. “The talent in Seattle is also there, it’s just as good as the talent in the Bay Area. In fact, recruiting is a bit more challenging, because there are a lot more opportunities to work for cool startups,” says Chung.

Chatterous is in the process of adding new features for its beta run, such as more types of social-networking channels. “We’re trying to make Chatterous into a product that you use without changing your existing methods of communication,” Chung says. If you’re used to primarily using e-mail or instant messaging, he adds, the aim is for you to not even notice Chatterous. That’s as opposed to a service like Twitter, which competes in the same social communications space. “The concept of updating your status for everyone to see—a lot of people outside the Valley don’t understand it,” says Chung. “Whereas with Chatterous you’re just trying to reach [certain] people and communicate with them.”

It’s definitely a crowded space, and Chatterous has its work cut out for it to stand apart. Kevin Merritt of Seattle-based Blist recently had an interesting post about how he views all the different forms of communication and their best uses—from face-to-face to e-mail to instant messaging and Twitter—and how much he likes yet another service, Yammer (which just won best in show at TechCrunch 50).

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Angel capital groups have become a vital part of the New England innovation ecosystem, investing millions each year in promising startups in fields from energy to Web 2.0 to life sciences to non-technology related areas. For an overview of what makes local groups different from their national counterparts—what they invest in, how much they invest, how big they are, and more—click here. For a few specifics on each one of the 20 active groups we’ve tracked down, read on.

We no doubt have missed some folks, so please leave a comment below to fill us in on other angel groups, or e-mail us updates at editors@xconomy.com.

Angel Healthcare Investors
Newton, MA
617.630.0777
E-mail: info@hcangels.com

Does early-stage investments in healthcare services, biotechnology and life sciences, and medical device companies

Angel Investor Forum
East Hartford, CT
Elizabeth Karter, 
Executive Director
E-mail: lkarter@kartercapital.com

Focused on seed-stage opportunities in Connecticut and the Northeast

Bay Angels
Cape Cod, MA
E-mail: cbyron@bayangels.net

Funds startups in Cape Cod and the Islands, Southeastern Massachusetts, and Rhode Island

Beacon Angels
Boston, MA
E-mail: candidates@beaconangels.com

Typically invests between $100,000 and $300,000 in small but fast-growing startups

Boston Harbor Angels
Boston, MA
E-mail: info@bostonharborangels.com

Invests in firms seeking to raise between $250,000 and $1.5 million. Portfolio includes medical devices, IT, consumer products, business products, specialty materials, Internet, aviation, and more.

Boynton Angels
Worcester, MA
E-mail: plan@boyntonangels.com

Makes seed- and expansion-stage investments in firms within a two-hour radius of Worcester, MA. Target fields: life sciences, energy, transportation, communications, and software

Breakfast Club of New Hampshire
Nashua, NH
E-mail: investors@angelbreakfastclub.com

Invests between $250,000 and $1 million in seed- and early-stage New England firms in information technology, cleantech, software, services, and medical devices

Cherrystone Angel Group
Providence, RI
E-mail: info@cherrystoneangelgroup.com

Invests between $100,000 and $500,000 in companies within a two-hour drive of Providence.

CommonAngels
Lexington, MA
781.274.9124
James Geshwiler, managing director
E-mail: james@commonangels.com
Chris Sheehan, managing director
E-mail: chris@commonangels.com

Does early stage software and technology investing. Prefers to take part in Series A rounds of between $500,000 and $5 million

eCoast Angel Network
Portsmouth, NH
E-mail: ecoastangels@comcast.net

Invests in advanced technology, e-commerce, healthcare, and industrial products and services. Targets firms in the New Hampshire coastal region

ECS Angels
Bar Harbor, ME
207-288-0428 or 513-265-1309
Charles Sidman
E-mail: CSidman@EvolutionaryManagement.com

Perhaps the newest angel fund in the region, it formed last year to invest in diverse fields—and to invest nationally rather than regionally (web site, link above, was “coming soon” as of this writing)

Golden Seeds
Cos Cob, CT; Boston, MA
Stephanie Hanbury-Brown, managing director
E-mail: shb@goldenseeds.com

Invests in women-led ventures in tech and non-tech.

Granite State Angels
Hanover, NH
Fred Wainwright, executive director
E-mail: wainwright@granitestateangels.com

Provides funding of between $250,000 and $1.5 million in early and later-stage New England companies (Wainwright is executive director of the Center for Private Equity and Entrepreneurship at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business)

Hub Angels
Brookline, MA
E-mail: info@hubangels.com

Maintains a diversified portfolio that includes investments in financial services, entertainment, retail, biotechnology, healthcare, water treatment, food technology, and digital audio.

Investors’ Circle
Brookline, MA
617.566.2600

This network of angels invests in energy and the environment, media and education, food and organics, health and wellness, and community and international development

Launchpad Venture Group
Wellesley, MA
E-mail: info@launchpadventuregroup.com

Invests between $100,000 and $500,000 in wide variety of tech and life sciences firms

Maine Angels
Portland, ME
E-mail: info:maineangels.org

Makes small investments of between $50,000 and $250,000. Has a diversified portfolio in tech and non-tech areas.

Mass Medical Angels
Boston area
Richard Anders
E-mail: info@massmedangels.com

The group seeks investments in life sciences startups that are looking to raise between $250,000 and $3 million.

North Country Angels
Montpelier, VT
Fred Wainwright
E-mail: wainwright@northcountryangels.com

Invests $250,000 to $1.5 million in early and later-stage companies throughout New England

River Valley Investors
Hadley, MA
413-241-7285
Paul G. Silva, co-manager
E-mail: paul@rivervalleyinvestors.com

Typically invests between $250,000 and $1 million in both early and later-stage firms within two-hour drive of Springfield, MA.

Walnut Venture Associates
Wellesley Hills, MA
E-mail: info@walnutventures.com

Focuses on information technology companies. Investment target: $250,000 to $1 million

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Angel investment, as we angel-backed folks at Xconomy know firsthand, is the lifeblood of many a startup company. Angels often finance promising companies and ideas that are too small or too early in their development to attract the interest of venture firms. These seed and early-stage investments—typically of under $1 million each—help fill a vital gap in the innovation funding pipeline.

Angels started out as individual investors, but increasingly they have been organizing into professional groups, sometimes with full-time staff. Last week I took a look at the predictions that 135 such groups in the U.S. and Canada are making for angel investing in 2008, as described in a report from the Lenexa, KS-based Angel Capital Association. As a follow-up to that story, I wanted to zero in on New England angel groups. The region, after all, has always been in the vanguard of angel trends. This history dates back to around 1980 and the recently deceased Mort Goulder’s then-informal gatherings at the Nashua (NH) Country Club known as the Breakfast Club, which evolved into the still active Breakfast Club of New Hampshire, according to James Geshwiler, managing director of Lexington, MA-based CommonAngels (the lead investor in Xconomy).

What Geshwiler terms modern angel groups, bigger and more organized, got going with Silicon Valley-based Band of Angels in the mid-1990s, followed here in Massachusetts by CommonAngels and Walnut Venture Associates of Wellesley, both of which he says launched in 1998. They paved the way for nearly 20 others that exist in New England today, resulting in what is probably the country’s greatest concentration of such groups. The region’s angel roster now includes several large and fairly diversified groups like CommonAngels, Angel Healthcare Investors of Newton, MA, Launchpad Venture Group in Wellesley, and Brookline, MA-based Hub Angels, as well as smaller, typically more specialized operations like Golden Seeds, which invests in women-led ventures and now has arms in Boston and Connecticut.

And a bit to my surprise, given the region’s somewhat insular, go-it-alone ethos, ACA executive director Marianne Hudson says New England is the clear leader in supporting collaborations between angel groups, a practice that allows groups to pool their funds to support larger investments. Indeed, back around 2005, Geshwiler, Bill Swiggart of Beacon Angels, and others convinced ACA member groups in New England to work out standards for working together (more on this below). And this April, some 20 groups will meet for their eighth quarterly Regional Angel Summit.

I’ve listed all the New England angel groups I could find here, along with brief descriptions of their investment focuses, contacts, and links to their home pages. I also pressed Hudson for any data she has on New England angel groups, what they invest in, how much they invest, and how that stacks up to the rest of her membership. She cautions that her data set isn’t the greatest, since only a little more than half of the New England firm in the ACA responded to the survey. But here are the highlights.

—Smaller than average group sizes

The average size of a New England angel group (42 members) is a bit smaller than the average for all ACA groups (55 members). Geshwiler says New England’s large numbers of entrepreneurs who’ve cashed out and become investors, coupled with the region’s density and a cultural bias against the less-personal mega groups found in California, all fueled the trend. “We’ve got different groups for Wellesley versus Waltham,” he says.

—Slightly more deals, slightly lower average investment

New England angel groups invested in an average of 7.7 companies last year, slightly more than the ACA average of 7.3 firms. However, their average investment of $255,000 was a bit under the $265,000 figure for the broader group. (Obviously, the smaller average group size in New England could have something to do with that.)

—Widespread interest in biotech, healthcare, and medical devices

Upwards of 80 percent of New England angel groups reported a preference for investing in both biotechnology and medical devices, with healthcare services only slightly behind. ACA-wide, the medical device figure was equivalent, but biotechnology was a preference for only about 58 percent of groups—and healthcare services was preferred by only about 28 percent of angel groups.

Other top choices for New England angel investment were consumer products and services and financial services (each preferred by 70 percent of angel groups reporting); electronics/information and media and entertainment (about 65 percent each); and then a pack that included industrial/energy, IT services, networking and equipment, and software (all of which were preferred by about 60 percent of the groups).

—Leading the way in collaboration

As mentioned above, New England angels are far beyond the rest of the country when in comes to joint investing, with several groups pooling their funds to enable larger investments, often over $1 million. “It’s happening elsewhere but I think they [New England groups] have the most systematic set-up, where they have really built a lot of knowledge and trust between the groups,” says Hudson. They’ve really gotten to know each other, and that’s critical.”

Indeed, groups in the region have already worked through a lot of thorny issues—including reaching general consensus on terms, developing standard documentation, and agreeing on minimum standards of due diligence, so that when one group brings a deal to the table, the others can trust that some basic homework has been done. Beacon Angels’s Swiggart championed the idea of crafting a “treaty” under which groups to promise not to be litigious over due-diligence issues if an investment goes bad. “That type of hold-harmless approach was a major benefit to entrepreneurs,” says Geshwiler, noting that startups under consideration for investments might otherwise get reference calls from five groups asking the same questions.

Of course entrepreneurs can also benefit from a little competition between angel groups, as well. So click here for the list of the 20 New England-area angel organizations a crafty entrepreneur might want to try to lure into a bidding war.

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Greater Boston ranks as a startup haven. And there are few, if any, places in the country where more and better-organized angel investor groups exist. So the news that even with a recession looming (or already here), angels around the country are expressing cautious optimism about the startup scene for 2008 should perk up some area entrepreneurs’ ears and spirits.

Angels’ relatively positive predictions for 2008 come courtesy of the Lenexa, KS-based Angel Capital Association, which recently released its Angel Group Confidence Report, a survey of its roughly 135 member groups in 37 U.S. states and Canadian provinces. The report (which didn’t get any local coverage that I have spotted, though I confess I was on vacation when it was released in late February) offered pretty sunny 2008 forecasts about the numbers and quality of startup opportunities, as well as the numbers and sizes of deals to be done.

Speaking as an entrepreneur, and keeping my fingers crossed that angels’ optimism holds if the economy continues to sour, this is good news. Angel investors, of course, are the rich (angel groups like to call them “high net-worth”) individuals who put money into promising new (usually very new) ventures. They’re often the main source of funding for companies before venture firms get involved, and therefore an important driver of innovation.

In recent years, many individual angels have banded together into small groups or associations, and these organizations have become increasingly sophisticated—forming committees to do due diligence on deals, pooling resources to make larger investments, and sometimes hiring professional staff and acting very much like seed-stage venture firms themselves. (Xconomy’s lead investor is one such group, Lexington, MA-based CommonAngels). The ACA, which executive director Marianne Hudson says really only got going in the last year or two, estimates that some 275 angel groups now operate in the U.S. and Canada, up 65 percent since 1999. About half are ACA members.

Before we get to the prognosticating, here’s what the angel groups that the ACA surveyed had to say about last year: In 2007, the ACA reports, its member groups made an average of 7.3 investments each (of which 3 deals were typically follow-on investments). The average size of each deal or round was $265,926, making the average total funding allocated by each group $1.94 million. That was roughly even with 2006, when the groups invested an average total of $1.8 million in 7.4 deals each, with an average round size of $241,528.

And here are the main predictions for 2008 that the ACA gleaned from its survey data:

Deal flow will remain strong in 2008.
Many angel organizations expect improvements in the quality and quantity of deal flow this year. From the ACA’s press release about the survey: “Nearly 55 percent of the respondents said that the number of investments and total dollars invested will increase this year, with another 32 percent believing that the activity would be the same as 2007. All angel group leaders predicted that their group would invest in a new company in 2008—with 81 percent planning to invest in three to nine companies. Most impressively, twelve percent think they will invest in ten or more companies.”

Exit activity will hold steady.
Nearly 60 percent of the ACA’s respondents foresaw no change in the outlook for IPOs, M&As, and other exit events this year. Some 25 percent thought exit activity would strengthen slightly in 2008, while 16 percent predicted it would weaken slightly. Just 1.4 percent of those surveyed predicted a significant decrease in exits.

Ongoing stock market uncertainty could affect angel investments.
“Some groups are concerned that their capacity for investment may be reduced if problems continue in the public stock markets,” the ACA reports. “Many angels have investments in corporate stocks and may lose some liquidity, and therefore will have reduced ability to make angel investments, if the public markets don’t grow this year.” Not to worry (too much), though. The ACA reports that “these concerns were factored into the 2008 predictions, but the strength of deal flow appears to have led to the generally optimistic forecast.”

Co-investment will continue to be a strong component of angel group strategy.
Just about two-thirds (65 percent) of angel groups reported co-investing with other angel groups in 2007—a strategy that increased their capacity to take part in bigger deals. Two-thirds reported that their portfolio companies also took investment from venture firms, either as a co-investment or in follow-on funding as the startups grew and required additional investments. Those figures look to be rising, as 95 percent of respondents said they intended to work with other angel groups in 2008, and 81 percent expected to work with early-stage venture firms (a smaller number expected to partner with later-stage VCs and other private equity groups).

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A couple of weeks ago, I had the great honor of attending Xconomy Forum: The Future of Innovation in New England. As I met some fantastic angel investors and shook hands with iRobot CEO Helen Greiner, I felt the strange euphoric giddiness once only reserved for Christmas mornings. What was I, a lowly and unproven student, doing in the company of giants?

As the forum progressed, my purpose became clear (to me, anyway). The question at hand was what can we do to build more billion-dollar technology companies in Massachusetts? I heard talk of providing free housing, eliminating capital gains taxes, and scratching out non-compete clauses. All of this made sense, and formed an exciting new viewpoint for me. However, where was the talk about connecting with students, sourcing ideas out of academic institutions, and retaining talent? These ideas were raised—mainly by MIT Media Lab head Frank Moss—but never fleshed out. Well, ladies and gentleman (by which I really mean investors), you can’t escape the truth (or a driven undergrad on a late-night sugar high). I present to you my one-man discourse on the following question: “How do I make connections with students, and why should I even care?”

First off, let me give you a peek into the student psyche. Mind you, this reflects the understanding and assumptions of just one MIT senior in Material Science and Engineering. With that disclaimer/personal pitch taken care of, here are some interesting facts:

1. A significant portion of my MIT friends (of which Facebook meaninglessly counts 459) have expressed interest in starting their own businesses. Very few have acted on that interest.
2. Today’s mainstream, aspiring student aims for a job in:
   • Glamorous, lucrative, ambition-drenched Wall Street
   • Prestigious, door-opening, generalist-friendly consulting
   • Young, hip, cool Google/Apple
3. You have networks. So do we.
   • All the entrepreneurs in each class know who each other are.
   • We go to dinners together. We brainstorm with each other. We share our dreams of bootstrapping a billion-dollar startup with one another.
   • We host mini conferences together. You probably haven’t heard of them. Maybe you never will.

So, you may ask, “what does this all mean to me?” Well, note that you are not involved in any of the above hopes, dreams, or activities—all of which can profoundly affect whether and how today’s students become tomorrow’s innovators and entrepreneurs. I take great pride in knowing that my fellow MIT students are going to be the world’s best scientists and engineers. Unfortunately, most of these students are not likely to help you in your efforts to make money, change the world, or whatever else it is that drives you. Why is that? Because the vast majority of students fall into one of the following four categories:

1. They don’t know you exist
2. They don’t trust you (read: vulture capitalists)
3. They are intimidated by you
4. They haven’t had the opportunity to meet you

Now, I am not suggesting that you, as a venture capitalist or angel investor, should chill at MIT looking to meet students. We both know that you don’t have the time for that. Instead, I am suggesting that you connect with major network nodes within the MIT student-entrepreneur community. Get to know the student who knows all the entrepreneurs and has the talent and drive to make something of himself/herself, and you get the value of their network as well. And as technology continues to evolve, disciplines continue to merge, and systems become more complex, the value of that student network will continually increase.

So how do you find these superstars? You don’t! Truth is, they find you. All you need to do is eliminate category four above and create the opportunity from them to find you. Now this is where I propose a groundbreaking and immense concept that will change this ecosystem…internships! Silly? I think not. Anticlimactic? Probably, but just listen a little longer. Establishment of a very selective internship program at your firm or angel group will:

1. Boost your reputation at MIT
2. Encourage entrepreneurship at MIT
3. Establish student connections that will provide great returns
4. Increase the quality and number of ideas making it through your filters

Are these investments in the MIT community worth it? Frank Moss has challenged VCs to spend 0.1% of their funds on students. Will it kill you to do that, or maybe even to increase that to 0.2%? Internships really do make a difference. I did an internship at incTANK Ventures my sophomore summer, and I can honestly say that you wouldn’t be reading this right now if it wasn’t for the mentorship of firm partners Karl Ruping and Chad Jackson. Whether that’s a good thing or bad thing, I’ll let you decide.

Ultimately, I just want to point out that coaxing growth in this region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem requires a multi-pronged approach, so while you’re thinking about housing and contracts, taxes and billion-dollar companies, I’d like to send out a friendly reminder not to overlook the students. Of course, I’m just an undergrad—and what do we know? My guess is it would benefit you, us, and the innovation ecosystem if you found out.

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