Who doesn’t like a good drink every once and awhile? There is an abundance of bars, beer gardens, and breweries in the Greater Boston area. Taking a look at the size of this particular market, it comes as no surprise that there are a ton of startups with liquor/beer/wine/etc. Whether they are trying to deliver alcohol or make a night out with friends that much better, there is a growing cluster of tech companies involved with drinking. DrinkTech if you will.

We’ve compiled a list focusing on a handful of startups within this rather particular space. Keep in mind this isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list, but rather a sampling of what kinds of startups are in this sector. Check it out!

Also, we advise any users to use these apps and services responsibly.

Drizly

Drizly’s eCommerce platform devoted to selling and sharing liquor, beer, and wine. The company has connected with various retailers for a seamless online, or mobile, shopping experience. Drizly is a venture-backed startup that raised $35M to date.

Kuvee

Kuvee is a delivery service where customers will receive wine every 30 days. However, here is where they are different; wine is delivered in the company’s patented FreshPour bottles, which will help keep the wine cool and fresh for a month.

Coravin

Coravin is a device that allows wine enthusiasts to pour a glass without having to pop the cork on the bottle. The company has recently released their newest model, the Coravin Eleven which has the ability to pour wine with the use of Bluetooth.

We profiled Coravin on VentureFizz.

Buttery

Buttery is another alcohol delivery app, but it prides itself on the speed of which it completes its deliveries. Since Buttery works closely with local retailers, they are able to give users the same price as they would in-store.

BevSpot

Managing a bar can be a tough gig. BevSpot is a management platform designed for every aspect of the food & beverage industry, bars included. Through BevSpot, bartenders can figure out costs of certain bottles, order supplies from the bar’s distributor, and keep track of your inventory.

Drync

Drync was founded in 2008 and is a mobile app dedicated to wine drinkers. Users will be able to find reviews and recommendations for particular bottles, but can also use the app to scan wine barcodes for pricing information.

Relativity Whiskey

Relativity Whiskey is changing the way whiskey is distilled. The company has created and developed their Compression Finishing method to make sure the whiskey retains it full taste, while being able to brew it quicker. The company is based in Kentucky, sells the product all throughout the Greater Boston area through Drizly.

Vinolytics

Vinolytics is a wine collection management platform. The platform can tell wine collectors how pricey specific bottles are, how old they are, and if they are interested, what the country of origin the wine is from.

Host Events

In Boston tech, there are dozens and dozens of networking events that feature an open bar, but with the abundance of events, there is bound to have a bar that is short-handed. Host Events is a bartender sharing app, where people hosting events can hire a helping hand for the overcrowded event.

We recently Host Events as part of our Startup Q&A series.

For this episode of The VentureFizz Podcast, I interviewed Kent Bennett, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners.

Kent’s career path into venture capital wasn’t typical. He was actually a Hollywood screenwriter before attending Harvard Business School and pursuing a career in venture.

He now has 10 years of experience as a venture capitalist and has made investments in lots of high profile companies like Blue Apron, Toast (which just announced $115M in new funding at a $1.4B valuation), MealPal, Renoviso, and others.

In this episode, we cover:

• His experience as a screenwriter in Hollywood
• How he got into venture capital
• His investment criteria, and how to get on his radar
• What to expect during your first meeting with him
• Plus, a lot more!

To make sure you receive future episodes, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Soundcloud. If you enjoyed our show, please consider writing us a 5-star review—it will definitely help us get the word out there!

Over the last two weeks, I focused on the challenging art of both giving and receiving feedback. I’m wrapping up this series with yet one more challenge many of us face; accepting positive feedback.

We know that providing positive input to team members can do wonders to motivate and engage them.  And yet actually accepting that feedback can be inexplicably difficult. Often, we’ll zero in on the developmental feedback instead; and discount the positive.  And yet, if we understand those compliments can serve to motivate us further, why do so many of us deflect them? Moreover, how do we strengthen the capacity not just to hear it, but to internalize it as well?

EMBRACE THE COMPLIMENT RATHER THAN IGNORE

I have a horrible habit of deflecting anything positive with either a dismissive “thank you” or “no big deal.”  I need to knock that off, and instead view that positive comment as information gathering. For example, if we are praised consistently for something (a skill, a mindset, etc.), it’s logical this is probably something we enjoy doing. Instead of casting aside the words of praise, offer a polite thank you and then actually listen to the person taking the time to share.  Ask questions, rather than quickly moving on to the next item. The point is to follow up the thanks with a follow-on question to get a deeper understanding. When we are good at something, seek to understand why that is.

YOU ARE NOT FISHING, YOU ARE LEARNING

No, asking a follow-up question does not have to equate to fishing for compliments. There is plenty to learn from someone who is giving you positive feedback.  They have taken the time to share with you; maximize that opportunity. A simple “I really appreciate that feedback, especially coming from you. Would you mind sharing a little more about why you saw X that way, so I can get a better understanding and repeat it in the future?” Yes, I acknowledge it feels weird. Perhaps practice with a trusted friend or peer before you put it into action.  Think of it as a definite gift to aid in your learning and development.

CORE STRENGTHS

We all have things we are good at, but do you know which of your many talents helps you stand out from the crowd? Often when we do what comes naturally, we can take for granted that it might just be the thing that differentiates us. When we can recognize a strength, we can use it to better craft our overall value proposition.  Weaving in the lessons learned from the positive feedback themes you receive can aid tremendously in being able to do this.

MODEL THE WAY

When positive feedback is given in the same conversation as developmental feedback is given, many tend to tune out the positive and focus only on the negative messages. Practice building your “accepting the positive skills” by focusing on modeling behavior that would maximize your team's’ experience doing the same.  For example, find times to catch people doing things “right” and offer praise with no “buts” attached - no developmental words, just the positive. In addition, recognize that we often advise how to remediate the negative feedback. Apply the same practice with positive feedback. In other words, make it actionable. A simple, “I’m so impressed you shared your point of view in the team meeting… I’m going to challenge you to share at least once in each meeting to continue to build your confidence in speaking up in groups.  Hearing from you adds some serious impact!”

We all thrive when we are motivated in the right ways. While developmental feedback can go a long way in helping us learn from our mistakes, positive feedback can be just as valuable in terms of our personal development. That, and it sure feels good to hear what we are doing right every so often!

Christina Luconi is Chief People Officer for Rapid7. Follow her on Twitter: @peopleinnovator

For this episode of The VentureFizz Podcast, I interviewed Rick Grinnell, Founder and Managing Partner of Glasswing Ventures.

Glasswing, which is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on investing in next-generation AI startups, just announced its $112M debut fund.

Rick has a proven track record of success in the venture capital industry where many of his investments have led to an exit. His investment in EqualLogic led to an acquisition by Dell for $1.4B, which at the time, was the largest cash transaction of a venture-backed company.

In this episode, we cover:

• How music led him down the path to a career in the tech industry, and how he transitioned into venture capital
• The story behind EqualLogic and the massive acquisition
• The launch of Glasswing Ventures
• The details around his area of focus in terms of making investments
• Advice for founders who are looking to raise venture capital
• Plus a lot more!

To make sure you receive future episodes, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Soundcloud. If you enjoyed our show, please consider writing us a 5-star review—it will definitely help us get the word out there!

Last week, I shared thoughts about the art of giving feedback. Just as challenging, however, is the art of receiving feedback. I’ll focus on receiving difficult feedback, as the majority of us are capable of hearing the good stuff. (That said, I’ll do a final post next week on how to take positive critique and use it to your advantage). Regardless of who the feedback comes from, our ability to do this well can prove to be invaluable in helping you to achieve your full potential.

Let’s get real though: critical feedback of any kind can plain sting.  Whether we admit it or not, we all want to be liked, respected, and have the people we work with think we are amazing. Receiving critical feedback, by definition, confirms we aren’t quite perfect. For high achieving people who are aiming to thrive, it can put a dent in our self-esteem. And yet intellectually, we understand and must embrace that we need this input if we are going to continue to keep improving. 

How can you balance maintaining a healthy ego with an ability to take feedback constructively? Find four steps below that can help you master the art of receiving feedback.

LISTEN ACTIVELY

As pointed out in last week’s post, it can be difficult for the person giving feedback to share, so be mindful of the notion that this might be a robust conversation for her as well and show her both respect and patience. You can do this by maintaining eye contact, using open body language (unclench those fists and uncross those arms!). When she’s done sharing, summarize the key messages and ask questions to clarify if necessary. Ask for examples that support the feedback.

DO NOT ARGUE

Be careful not to turn your clarifying questions into a defensive move.  Even if you believe the feedback is just plain wrong or off-base, if you get defensive, you’re showing the feedback giver that you are unreceptive. That’s not going to help anyone. If you disagree, become upset or angry, give yourself some time to calm down before responding. If you display defensiveness or an unwillingness to listen too often, you can end up with an “uncoachable” label. No one wants that. Listen, ask your questions and choose your words carefully, and end with a polite, “Thank you for sharing.” Any feedback can help you to improve your performance, so always consider how you can refine the behavior, attitude, or situation.

EVALUATE THE INPUT

Ok, you survived the discussion. Now it’s time to decide what you want to do with this new input. While you shouldn’t just discount it altogether, you shouldn’t rush to accept it either unequivocally. Sit on it for a day or two, and really consider it. Is it additional feedback on something you were already working on? Does the person sharing have all the information or credibility to share their observations?  Have you heard this feedback before? Reflect on the feedback and determine your next steps, and how are going to use the feedback to further your continued development.

PUT IT TO WORK

Once you’ve decided what feedback you’ll embrace, develop a game plan to find opportunities to put it into action. Include the feedback giver in this plan. A simple, “Hey, if you see me doing X again, please give me a signal so I can continue to make improvements?”

Giving feedback can be hard; receiving it can be harder. If you can embrace that people taking the time to provide you with constructive contributions will only make your awesome self that much better, you’re well on your way to appreciating that while getting praised can feel good, it’s the developmental feedback that can be invaluable to our career success.

Christina Luconi is Chief People Officer for Rapid7. Follow her on Twitter: @peopleinnovator

Manually reviewing contracts sounds like mind-numbing work. For legal and finance teams at enterprise companies, it’s also a task that may take too much time, considering they already have a large workload.

LinkSquares developed an AI-oriented platform to help those teams review contracts and hopefully give them the right information from the agreement. The company recently made headlines with its seed round announcement, which featured several prominent angel investors.

The company’s Co-Founder and CEO Vishal Sunak discussed with us how the platform works and named a few of the company’s clients. Sunak also went into detail about how his previous career at Backupify helped inspire him to become a first-time founder.

Colin Barry [CB]: I’m a big fan of the phrase “origin story.” What are the origins behind LinkSquares?

Vishal Sunak [VS]: My co-founder Chris Combs and I met at Backupify in 2013. In the fall of 2014, we were told that Datto was going to acquire the company. During the acquisition process, we saw firsthand the number of requests that were asked of the Backupify team around the executed contracts with our customers.

One of the big projects that Datto wanted to accomplish was to move Backupify off of Amazon Web Services (AWS). We were storing petabytes of data in AWS for years, and because Datto was a backup provider and had their own cloud, it didn’t make sense for Backupify to use AWS from a business perspective. The question remained, “Which customers can we move off AWS without their permission? Which customer contracts say we can’t move them freely, and how do we notify them?”

At the time, we had thousands of enterprise customers, all with unique and negotiated contracts. We hadn’t been tracking this specific piece of data across our customer base, and it presented a challenging situation to figure out what each contract said. With the tight timeframe to deliver the answer to this project and the lack of tools that were available to do this type of analysis, the only real option we had was to read every agreement one at a time manually.

After the acquisition was completed, we saw a need in the market and started exploring the use cases. After a year of research, we figured out that most companies don’t know what is in their executed agreements and this was a big business problem with legal and finance teams. That’s how we got started on this journey.

CB: What is the ultimate goal of LinkSquares?

VS: Our goal is to enable legal and finance teams to stop reading contracts one at a time to figure out what they agreed to. We want to allow instant access to the data that lives in executed contracts so that this information can be quickly and efficiently gathered to support any project that requires this information including fundraising due diligence, changes to laws/standards, and internal requests.

CB: Explain what your company does. How does LinkSquares’ platform work?

VS: At our core, we are a contract repository. Our customers store all their executed agreements in our cloud-based web application. With that foundation, we then layer on powerful analysis capabilities. We use AI-powered analysis to read the contract text and surface crucial pieces of contract metadata automatically and also provide powerful full-text search for one-off queries. Every report that a user can run is fully exportable, making it easy to share the answers.

CB: How long was the development process on the platform? Was AI always going to focus of the company?

VS: One of the hardest things for a founding team is to know what problem you are solving for a customer confidently. We took a year to dive into the use cases and understand deeply where the pain was inside legal and finance teams before we started building software. It took about 10 months to create and develop our initial product and then close our first customer in April of 2016.

The development of our AI-powered analysis came through customer discovery process and talking directly with legal teams. We consistently heard statements like “If you could just tell me that this contract automatically renews, that would be powerful.” It became evident that we could accomplish this with AI and we started down that path.

CB: Who are some of LinkSquares’ clients? Are there any use cases that stand out to you?

VS: We have over 50 customers all over the US. Locally in Boston, we work with DraftKings, Carbonite, Drift, Salsify, SessionM, Recorded Future, CloudHealth Technologies, C Space, and Globoforce to name a few.

We get to work with an amazing group of high growth companies. We’ve seen half our customers use our software in support of fundraising due diligence, tracking information related to contractual obligations they have with their customers, and working through changes to laws/standards (like GDPR).

CB: How big is the team? Looking to hire any particular position in the upcoming months?

VS: We have 14 full-time employees and the majority work out of our office in Downtown Crossing.

We’re always looking for sales, business development, and engineering talent. We’re also starting to build out our marketing team on the content and demand generation side for the remainder of the year.

CB: Has your company participated in any trade shows/meetup events in the Boston area? What about events outside of Boston?

VS: We’ve participated at the Boston TechJam and Northeastern University IDEA Expo around the local area. In the second half of the year, we’re looking to set up a regular meet up with the corporate legal teams in the Boston area and continue to integrate the legal community together.

We sponsored our first trade show for the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium that was held in Las Vegas in April. We had a chance to speak with many of the legal teams at high growth companies. It was a great experience, and we had a blast.

CB: You’ve recently raised your seed round, congratulations! How was that experience and who are some of the angel investors?

VS: Thank you! As a first-time founder, it was an educational experience. We have an amazing team of advisors and angel investors that have given me a ton of advice. We’re excited about growing the team and continuing to enable our vision.

Some of our local angel investors are Rob May, Dave Balter, Jere Doyle, Phil Beauregard, Sam Clemens, Pawan Deshpande, Ari Buchler, Steve McKenzie, and Tim Parilla.

CB: I’m always interested in how a startup came up with its name. How did LinkSquares get its name?

VS: Lawyers talk about the “four corners of an agreement” as the bounds of a written contract. We’re linking those squares of paper together in our software, so that’s LinkSquares.

CB: Do you think Boston has potential to become a major hub for AI-based startups? Has LinkSquares collaborated with other AI startups in the area?

VS: Absolutely, yes. It starts with having an amazing talent pool that comes from the local colleges and universities. Being located near the best engineering schools in the country like MIT, Harvard and Northeastern University is why Boston is as a place where cutting-edge technology can be created. Then layering in the thousands of companies that are based here, many of whom are using AI to solve huge problems, creates an environment that can support innovation in AI.

Colin Barry is an Editor & Staff Writer to VentureFizz. Follow him on Twitter @ColinKrash

Images courtesy of LinkSquares

For this episode of The VentureFizz Podcast, I interviewed Armen Zildjian, the VP of Sales at Drift, which one of the fastest growing companies in the area.

I don’t know if his last name looks familiar, but if your sales team has a gong in the office, odds are it has his last name on it, as he is part of the Zildjian family tree—the famous maker of cymbals that are played by pretty much every major drummer out there, from the Rolling Stones to the Foo Fighters.

Armen has created his own legacy in the tech industry by having built up sales organizations at companies like LogMeIn, GrabCAD, and Dyn—which all had an exit (either by IPO or acquisition).

Based on this common theme of success, I was really excited to chat with him about his expertise around building out high performing sales organizations for tech companies.

In this episode, we cover:

• Armen’s experience building out sales at each company.
• Drift and how they are creating the category of conversational marketing.
• The unique structure of the sales team at Drift and what he looks for when hiring salespeople for his team.
• Advice for founders who are setting up sales and when they should bring in a VP of Sales.
• Plus, a lot more!

To make sure you receive future episodes, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Play, or Soundcloud. If you enjoyed our show, please consider writing us a 5-star review—it will definitely help us get the word out there!

Founded in Needham in 1985, Parametric Technology Corporation, or PTC as it is commonly known, is a manufacturer of computer-aided design (CAD) modeling software. The company had their IPO in 1989 and its current market cap is greater than $11B.

Since then, the company’s product catalog has grown to include product lifecycle management (PLM), IoT, and augmented reality through their ThingWorx platform.

With PTC’s long-standing presence in the Boston tech scene, it may come as no surprise that several of its former employees have gone onto executive roles at other prominent companies in the area or have started their own. We’ve created a slideshow showcasing 30+ alumni to share the details on what they are up to now.

Keep in mind, this is not meant to be a definitive list, but rather a sampling of noteworthy alumni who have come out of the company. For this slideshow, we used the specific criteria:

• Located in the Boston area
• 2+ years at PTC
• In an executive leadership role 
• We limited some of the people who joined via acquisition from companies like Mathcad and Computervision, unless they stayed with the company several years post acquisition

Colin Barry is an Editor & Staff Writer to VentureFizz. Follow him on Twitter @ColinKrash