

Kendall Square: Still the place to be for start-ups - jchernan
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/04/13/square-still-place-for-start-ups/JcqbMI98Drrb2NG17jH54M/story.html

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dgallagher
I'd frequent the Kendall area when I lived in Boston 3.5 years ago. The thing
that bugged me most about it was the lack of street-level places to sit down
and work. There was one Starbucks and nothing else, besides semi-fast food
restaurants which aren't good laptop environments.

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?

~~~
grinich
Yeah, it's way better now. Voltage and Tatte are very friendly for hackers,
and Starbucks, Cosi, or ABP aren't bad either. The entire ground floor of the
MIT Stata Center is open to the public (literally 24/7) with ultra fast WiFi.
If you need dedicated desks, Dogpatch or the Cambridge Innovation Center have
you covered.

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. :)

~~~
dantheman
I loved to work at the Atomic Bean & 1369 in Central & when by MIT I love the
Rotch Library - that is one nicest spaces to hack.

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mrgordon
Still the place to be in Boston/Cambridge for start-ups, certainly, but it is
hardly "the" place compared to San Francisco and the valley. The lack of
funding, even compared to New York, has been a real problem for the ecosystem.
Why did Facebook, Dropbox, and many others start in Cambridge and leave?

~~~
JayNeely
Massachusetts is consistently the second-highest ranked state in the nation
for VC investment, and has been for the past 28 years (source: NVCA Yearbook).
Assuming I haven't F-ed up these calculations, MA has invested an average of
146% more than NY over the past 10 years.

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.

~~~
mrgordon
Boston has been the second biggest VC market (counting the Bay Area as one)
but every report I've seen shows New York has tied or surpassed Boston over
the past few years.

<http://mashable.com/2013/02/21/top-cities-startups/>

[http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/stats-and-the-
city/2011/te...](http://mycrains.crainsnewyork.com/stats-and-the-
city/2011/technology/ny-overtaking-boston-in-vc-deals)

[http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/venture-capital/tech-
venture-...](http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/venture-capital/tech-venture-
capital-new-york-boston)

[http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2011/10/13/mass-
drops...](http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2011/10/13/mass-drops-to-
no-3-for-vc-behind.html?page=all)

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."

~~~
JayNeely
I wish NVCA made a full breakdown of the data available. New York did top MA
in "internet-related investments" in 2012, but that's not an accurate
depiction of tech investment. MA has strong robotics, hardware, and medical
devices industries that contribute to the ecosystem here.

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.

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jchung
Also published today in the Boston Globe: "Time to leave the Kendall Square
nest" by P. Shah, CEO at Mobee
[http://bostonglobe.com/business/2013/04/13/time-leave-
kendal...](http://bostonglobe.com/business/2013/04/13/time-leave-kendall-
square-nest/1YPAE991bK40HMvKwFfX0K/story.html)

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bernardom
I work in Kendall. I'm consistently impressed with the number of interesting
companies doing interesting things. It is getting really developed (nice
office buildings, nice luxury apartments, bars, restaurants) really fast-
though it's still weirdly sterile. Nowhere to buy beer or even groceries
outside of 7-eleven.

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!!

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virtualwhys
Yeah, Kendall Square.

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.

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ef4
The article hit the key word: density.

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.

~~~
hga
Errrm, but how many of these employers require their workers to sign non-
competes? I have no idea, I left the Boston area in 1991 after Route 128 died,
but they were not uncommon back then. I'm convinced their non-enforceablity in
California is one reason for the Bay Area's wild and sustained success.

~~~
ef4
I know many, many people who have successfully job-hopped around Kendall
Square with no adverse impact from noncompetes.

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.

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lvs
>"Kendall Square institutions like Aceituna Cafe and Voltage Coffee"

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).

~~~
radd9er
Anyone know what the deal is with Aceituna Cafe? Parked outside there are
always Mazaradis, Porches and other expensiveness cars, and they are
differenct almost every day.

~~~
lvs
There are a bunch of apparently wealthy Middle Eastern kids who live in
University Park. They and their friends drive your typical Maserati, Porsche,
GT-R, Ferrari, etc.

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em70
As someone who lives in Kendall Square and studies at MIT, I would say that,
in spite of the amount of brains, Cambridge and the whole Boston area are a
terrible place to live, with few opportunities for recreation and a horrible
weather...

~~~
techiferous
Cambridge is a wonderful place to live: extremely walkable, pretty
architecture, good food, plenty to do, tolerant social atmosphere, very tech-
friendly. Not sure if it's fair to call Cambridge/Boston a "terrible" place to
live.

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.

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rikacomet
I want a Kendall Square in Delhi, India as well. Entrepreneurs are scattered
all over, India is such a big country, yet here we are.

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 :/

~~~
pm90
If you could convince the large number of 'newly rich' industrialists to start
investing in startups, you could make much more progress. As I see it, most of
their money currently goes into Real estate: which is driving up property
prices like crazy, but the money is not really doing any 'work'. Also, many of
these gentlemen are located in small towns (Rajkot, Pune, Nagpur) rather than
in the megapolis'

