Kendall Square: Still the place to be for start-ups
bostonglobe.com
bostonglobe.com
Beautiful new high-rises were going up everywhere. There's a neat "secret" park on top of one of the buildings (Cambridge Center Roof Garden). Extremely easy to cycle around, and by far the best pedestrian-friendly traffic controls in the entire state.
However, unless you worked in one of the office buildings, or could enter MIT legally, there were few places for "outsiders" to wonder in, hang out, and hack. Is this still the case, or has it since become more welcoming to laptop nomads?
Unfortunately Google has invaded much of the roof garden with a recent renovation.
My favorite is Dwelltime on Broadway. Close enough to Central to get to quickly, yet away from much of the hustle+bustle and suits. They shut off the internet from 11-3p, which is great for a productive boost in the middle of the day. :)
Voltage Cafe http://voltagecoffee.com
Tatte Bakery and Cafe http://www.tattecookies.com
But those ads are actually coming true now.
> and by far the best pedestrian-friendly traffic controls in the entire state.
Yeah, among other things all of Cambridge uses [leading pedestrian interval](http://streetswiki.wikispaces.com/Leading+Pedestrian+Interva...), which is fantastic and something you really miss when you no longer have it.
First world problems, I know.
But we've still got a long way to go. Pockets of warehouse owners are holding on tight to their empty, broken-windowed buildings knowing that they're sitting on a gold mine whose value only goes up with each new biomedical company or silicon valley branch office that moves in next door. So the result is this odd landscape of new buildings next to run-down two story structures.
We need to rezone for mixed use and people with an interest in Boston should rally together and buy out the warehouse hold-outs to build the kind of living/working spaces conducive to early-stage companies.
The challenge for startups here has been in finding:
a) seed funding, and
b) funding for consumer web businesses
Both areas have seen significant improvements since five or even three years ago. Since YCombinator left Boston in 2009, Spark Capital (one of the main consumer web & seed-stage VCs here) has raised two additional funds of over $800 million. NextView Ventures raised its first fund in 2012 to invest in seed stage deals, and both New Atlantic Ventures & .406 Ventures raised new funds in 2008 to do the same.
Boston/Cambridge is certainly still far from the amounts of funding in Silicon Valley, but we're far ahead of anyone else, particularly when you factor in population.
http://mashable.com/2013/02/21/top-cities-startups/
http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/stats-and-the-city/2011/te...
http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/venture-capital/tech-venture-...
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2011/10/13/mass-drops...
From the last link, dated October 2011:
"Still, for Massachusetts to fall behind New York in VC financings is noteworthy, said Anand Sanwal, CEO of CB Insights. New York had already been leading Massachusetts in VC for tech — including Internet, mobile, software, hardware and electronics — since the second quarter of 2010. But due in large part to health care VC activity in Massachusetts, the state had remained ahead of New York in overall VC until the third quarter."
In your last link, they're talking about funds raised by VCs, not dollars invested. NY firms did have a good year in 2011 -- $4 billion raised to MA's $2.5 -- but in 2012 MA firms raised twice as much as NY firms, and MA firms have raised $1.5+ billion in Q1 of 2013 alone.
It seemed like the startup scene was going to expand to more of Boston and Cambridge for a while with YC doing one batch of startups there each year but they gave up on that. I was running a startup in Boston for a while and talked with the mayor about his vision to make the old port area a revitalized live-work space for startups but it seems to be happening very slowly if at all. Meanwhile, tons of promising startups keep pouring out of the area and NYC is becoming the #2 US startup hub.
Just today I was at my gym (Bosse on third street) and overheard a guy complaining that he could rent a better apartment in Manhattan than in Kendall right now. The rent for the Watermark tower (corner of Third and Broadway) is around $3200 for a two-bedroom!!
What sold me on the Cambridge Innovation Center was the unlimited supply of FREE organic coffee, tea, peanut butter, butter butter, soy milk, milk milk, cereal, jams, etc. ;-)
Couple of guys were actually living there, crashing on couches in one of the upper floors, and then later, given das boot -- not sure if they were start-up co-founders or what, they certainly leaned on CiC 24/7 for around $250/month, cheapest rent in town.
The unique thing about Kendall Square is the sheer density of geeks in general and startups in particular. Other places have higher absolute numbers, but not in such a concentrated space.
Plus, from a tech worker's perspective it's fantastic to have so many potential employers all in one place. You don't have to disrupt your lifestyle to change jobs, which gives you some extra clout as an employee.
I suspect the reason is that the noncompetes are sufficiently narrow, and the software industry is a big, wide place. I don't know as much about the impact on biotech.
These aren't really institutions so much as they are a restaurant and an overcutesy coffee shop that are only a couple years old each. Voltage opened in 2010, and it's some of the most overhyped espresso I've ever had. I think Acetuna might be a couple of years older, and it's a decent Lebanese lunch, priced for the pharma clientele ($20/plate).
I would say that the weather and recreation opportunities aren't as good as in some other locations of the country, so you have a point there.
What kind of recreation are you looking for?
In Delhi, we have the IIT, but the Community Center just across it, is a place to get high on wrong skies. If only the VCs living in Delhi, would rather come out of the swanky embassies and foreign centers :/