RunKeeper's Jason Jacobs has an edge over many startup founders: he used to work as a recruiter. So when talented people are looking for their next gig, his grapevine tends to tell him about it. That's how Jacobs connected with Doug Williams, right, who'd served as VP of engineering...
Read more Category: Doug Williams, Innovation Economy, RunKeeper, ZipcarIt's not often that I meet a fellow Miami native in Kendall Square, but Albert Santalo, right, dropped by Voltage Coffee this morning to fill me in on his company's expansion to Boston. Santalo is CEO and founder of CareCloud, which is in the same business as Athenahealth, the public company..
Read more Category: CareCloud, Innovation EconomyIn many ways, buyers of lottery tickets have more information about the game they’re playing than job candidates do. They know the odds, and how the numbers will be chosen, and when. That’s not always true when you fire off a resume, or even when you’re invited to interview...
Read more Category: Compete, Constant Contact, Gemvara, Innovation Economy, TripAdvisorI have been asking a pretty straightforward question over the past few weeks, on Twitter and by e-mailing my best-connected contacts: who has been most active in 2012 at working to make Boston's innovation economy better? I've curated that list, and woven in some names...
Read more Category: Aaron O'Hearn, Abby Fichtner, Chris Lynch, Cort Johnson, Dave Balter, Dmitri Gunn, Frederic Lalonde, Innovation Economy, Jean Hammond, Jeremy Weiskotten, Jon Pierce, Katie Rae, Mark Chang, Paul Hlatky, Reed Sturtevant, Sarah Hodges, Sean Lindsay, Shaun JohnsonMuch has been written here and elsewhere chronicling the surge of interest in the urban core, as venture capital firms, biotech companies, and big software-as-a-service businesses have abandoned the suburbs, mainly heading for Boston's Innovation District and Cambridge's Kendall Square...
Read more Category: GSN Digital, Innovation Economy, Peter BlacklowPinterest is the latest social media company to start accumulating scads of users (23 million so far) and a sky-high valuation ($1.5 billion, according to Forbes.) The site, which allows users to "pin" products and images they like onto a digital bulletin board, is growing at a faster rate than Facebook did...
Read more Category: Innovation Economy, Jit SaxenaThe "big data" sector continues to gain steam locally, with a new VC firm called Big Data Boston that is out trying to raise $25 million. The firm doesn't yet have a web site or an office, but its founder is Richard Dale, a former principal at Boston-based Sigma Partners and a co-founder of the life...
Read more Category: Innovation Economy, Richard Dale, Sigma PartnersSeveral summers ago, an MIT student named Drew Houston showed up for an internship at Bit9, a Waltham network security company. After graduation, he landed a job there as a software engineer, but left in May 2007 to do his own start-up. Since then, Bit9 has had a pretty good run. But the business...
Read more Category: Drew Houston, Dropbox, Innovation EconomyBabson College held its Summer Venture Program "demo day" this afternoon, showcasing 14 startup ideas that students have been working on for the last two-and-a-half months. The teams come not just from Babson, but also Olin College and Wellesley. Here's a quick run-down, along with...
Read more Category: Babson College, Innovation EconomyThis week's Boston Globe column focuses on a group of MIT students who developed some of the first wearable computers — and are now working on Project Glass at Google. Glass is an effort to develop a light-weight, wirelessly-linked, wearable information display. Google took the wraps off late last month...
Read more Category: Google Glass, Innovation Economy, MIT