Aug 11, 2012
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All good things must sadly start to come to an end. For this year’s Summer@HIGHLAND program, it’s beginning with the departure of Team Webcred. As they in particular would appreciate it given their software prowess, it happened to adhere to FIFO – (First In, First Out). Connor & Nam were the first team to arrive back on May 25th, fresh off of completing their sophomore years at Boston University. They jetted off to Europe last night and we wish them all the best in the coming weeks and years as they continue to build out Webcred and pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.
Takeaways from "Building & Managing Your Board"
The below recap on Jim Cash’s session is courtesy of Connor McEwen of Webcred:
We had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Jim Cash speak about his experience as an entrepreneur, professor, and board member. The entire session was full of great information, but there were a few things that really stuck out to me. I’ve heard multiple people speak about advice. They always say, “People are going to give you a ton of advice, but in the end, the decision is up to you.” Dr. Cash gave us a bit of a different spin, telling us to first figure out if the person telling you to do something has actually done that thing themselves. If your English professor is giving you advice about which string searching algorithm to use, you should probably weigh it very lightly as compared to a string searching algorithm Peter Norvig recommends. Dr. Cash also provided a great deal of valuable advice about building a board, especially for someone who hasn’t really thought about it yet. He suggested putting together an advisory board in order to get to know potential members and work with them before adding them to a formal board. An advisory board also gives you a chance to see the group dynamic of a board as well. It’s not only important to have great board members, but great board members who can work well together. The last thing a startup needs are board members focused on each other instead of the company. In addition to the formal board meetings he has, Dr. Cash said he found it really important to get out into the field. A large company like GE has thousands of employees and hundreds of locations, so spending time talking to the employees actually working in the plants and offices can reveal meaningful information about the direction of the company. Though a startup may not have multiple locations or hundreds of employees, it’s just as important to get into the field and talk to customers about product direction. My favorite part was when Dr. Cash told us to avoid the word potential. After playing college basketball at TCU, he went to an NBA camp to try out. Lenny Wilkens told him, “You have potential … but you’re too short, too slow, can’t play defense, and can’t shoot.” Right now I think we’re lucky to even have potential, but hopefully we have more to go off of by the end of the summer. Overall, I really enjoyed listening to Dr. Cash, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the speakers.
Folks close to this year’s Summer@HIGHLAND program (link) may recognize these two fellows – Connor & Nam. We first met late last winter when I was at Boston University speaking to a group of students about the program. They were sophomores at the time and decided to apply and were ultimately accepted. BTW, you can track some of their experiences at (100) Days of Summer (as they were the first team to arrive, they get some extra exposure).
Their startup (Webcred) is focused on building trust online for those looking to rent, buy, sell and share through the Internet. As Summer progressed and they developed stronger clarity around the opportunity in front of them, they began to contemplate next steps with respect to where to take the business. Startupbootcamp Berlin caught their attention and the Berlin/European startup scene made a lot of sense given the collaborative consumption area they’re in. So they decided to apply and see if they could get in. If they did, they would take some time off of school to focus on Webcred full-time.
As an aside, many student entrepreneurs face the same choices and decisions as Connor & Nam. It’s ultimately a personal choice, although there can be a number of key variables that can help tilt the decision one way over the other. Based on seeing a lot of examples play out over the years, it’s a topic for a SXSW speaking slot that I’m under consideration for (here).
Enough of that plug and back to Connor & Nam. Well, they made the first cut as one of the 20 finalists for Startupbootcamp and were invited to Berlin in early August to interview & pitch for a slot as one of the final 10 teams selected. The program would officially start three weeks later for those teams selected.
They were now were faced with a decision – should they invest in the costs to fly over to Berlin in early August and how to plan their travel over the extended period with the uncertainty of the selection process hanging over their heads?
So they took the path that many committed entrepreneurs who believe in themselves and their idea would pursue – they went all in. Connor & Nam bought one-way tickets to Berlin and packed for the next four months. They were selected and haven’t looked back since.
One of the added bonuses in coming to Berlin for me is the opportunity to continue to get to know and work with Connor & Nam.
The Brothersport Games work area out in Menlo Park is well optimized for collaboration and team productivity. That being said, some may even call it a little messy. On the latter point, how does that compare to the now legendary London Conference Room in Cambridge that houses Axio, CareDojo and Webcred? Well we shared the pic with some of the residents. As one put it: "lol they got nothing on us." And another more succinctly: "The London is more than just a messy room... it's a state of mind."
All good things must sadly start to come to an end. For this year’s Summer@HIGHLAND program, it’s beginning with the departure of Team Webcred. As they in particular would appreciate it given their software prowess, it happened to adhere to FIFO – (First In, First Out). Connor & Nam were the first team to arrive back on May 25th, fresh off of completing their sophomore years at Boston University. They jetted off to Europe last night and we wish them all the best in the coming weeks and years as they continue to build out Webcred and pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.
Boston Globe: Highland Helps Interns Start Their Own Companies
The Boston Globe featured Summer@HIGHLAND in a profile on "cool summer internships" for students across Boston. Summer@HIGHLAND is a bit different that corporate internships and it was really viewed in the spirit of the closest thing to an "internship" for entrepreneurs that were further building their startups. Team Wellframe is highlighted in the picture and the online article can be found here.
Jacob Sattelmair and his partners worked on a mobile application that helps heart attack victims navigate and monitor their recoveries.
Why intern for somebody else’s company when you can start your own?
That’s the idea behind Summer@Highland, a program by Cambridge venture capital firm Highland Capital Partners, which gives student entrepreneurs free office space, expert guidance, and $15,000 cash — all with no strings attached.
The program, launched in 2007, has already hatched several successful companies, including Boston online custom jewelry maker Gemvara,which recently raked in $25 million during a round of fund-raising that ended last month.
Summer@Highland is open to undergraduates, graduate students, and recent graduates. This year, 257 teams from across the country applied for 14 spots. The winning teams operate out of Highland’s Cambridge and California offices for 10 weeks, developing their businesses while making connections with chief executives, founders, and venture capitalists brought in by Highland to give presentations and chat with students.
This summer, interns at Highland’s Cambridge office are working on a variety of projects, including a headband by a team called Axio that reads users’ brain waves and sends a visual representation of the data to a screen. Another team is writing software that would help build trust between strangers online who want to swap houses or carpool.
The latter project is the brainchild of Boston University juniors Nam Chu Hoai and Connor McEwan, both 20. Their idea, called Webcred, is to give users a universal online login that can take “trust” earned on any website — a positive buyer rating on eBay, for example — and display their trustworthiness wherever they go online.
Hoai and McEwan met as freshmen when they were assigned as roommates. Now they’re running a company, something that has proved more difficult than anticipated. In part, that’s because their idea has both technical and business obstacles to overcome, such as winning over websites that could benefit from the product.
“We’re sleeping in the office half of the nights. It’s frustrating at times,” Hoai said. “You have to be somewhat crazy to do this.”
Highland vice president Michael Gaiss says the company is looking for interns with passion, natural leadership qualities, and a history of entrepreneurship that might stretch back to childhood lemonade stands.
“I know they can go take more lucrative summer internships from Microsoft or Facebook,” said Gaiss, “so we’re really looking for those who want to forgo the more secure opportunities in order to change the world with their visions.”
Many of the business ideas will fail, Gaiss said, but that’s OK, too.
“Sometimes the best answer is, ‘This isn’t really going to take off,’ ” Gaiss said. “We’re helping smart people think through things.”