Author: Courtesy of Door to the OutdoorsStanley King, founder of Door to the Outdoors
Smarter in the City, a business incubator in Dudley Square, is continuing to build on its early success and has selected the second group of local startup companies it will support for a five-month period starting next month.
Seven area entrepreneurs and their startup companies will be given free office space at Smarter in the City’s Warren Street location. The companies will benefit from shared business amenities — printers, copy machines, kitchens, meeting rooms — as well as access to mentors and a program of business development education that is designed to help develop the startups into viable business. The companies are also provided a stipend during the five-month stay at Smarter in the City to allow the entrepreneurs to devote their time and effort to develop their startups.
Also crucial to Smarter in the City’s support are several networking functions designed to showcase the startups and connect the entrepreneurs with potential investors and partners.
The startups taking up residency at Smarter in the City next month are: Beacon Lab Partners, founded by Jamila Smith and Annamaria Lusardi; Door to the Outdoors, founded by Stanley O. King II; Dreamers, founded by Chris Castro, Matt Burke, Alex Bou-Rhodes and Emaad Ali; Fittus, founded by Joel Edwards; Loadlytics, founded by Rashad Sanders and Matthew Shannon; Techtrition, founded by Brandon Ransom and Katia Powell; and Tech Connection, founded by Melissa James.
National recognition
Launched last summer, Smarter in the City has been lauded for its early work to boost the startup economy outside of traditional Boston innovation hubs such as Kendall Square or the Seaport District, focusing on entrepreneurs from Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan and other Boston neighborhoods. While there have been other business incubators or startup accelerators that emerged with a similar mission — notably Start Up Lab and Fields Corner Business Lab — Smarter in the City has helped bring efforts to boost urban entrepreneurs in Boston national exposure and recognition when it beat out over 800 applicants last fall to become one of 50 business incubators to receive $50,000 from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Growth Accelerator Fund.
Gilad Rosenzweig, founder and executive director of Smarter in the City, is thrilled about the newest group of entrepreneurs his organization is working with.
He expects the second go-round to build on the success of the first and hopefully improve the experience.
For one, Smarter in the City shortened the stay from six months to five months for the second group of companies — the intent being to establish a more focused and intense period of development.
“You can accomplish in five months the same thing you can accomplish in six months, you just work harder and faster,” Rosenzweig said. “It is not a question of having more time — it is to be more effective with the time you have.”
The startup entrepreneurs are also going to start working with mentors almost immediately — another way to make their time at Smarter in the City more effective.
“We will be having a slightly more intense mentor interaction right at the beginning. This is something that we have learned. The more that your ideas can be questioned right from the start the better off you are at not going down the wrong path for too long — to make the mistakes early in your business,” said Rosenzweig. “Every business has to test ideas. You have to test your market you have to test if what you are doing is right, if it will be received. And there are lots of great people who have done this already in the city who are really willing to share their knowledge and advice.”
The first group of startups Smarter in the City supported — KillerBoomBox, Post Game Fashion, Mbadika, Practice Gigs and Headthought — may have reached the end of their program at Smarter in the City, but they are not just being cut loose. Some have received, or are close to receiving, additional funding to support their businesses and will move out on their own.
“It definitely doesn’t mean that at the end of the accelerator period [you’re done] ,” Rosenzweig said. “You are always part of the network. You always continue with us. Some of the teams will continue to work here too. But we do definitely make room for the next.”
The entrepreneurs behind Smarter in the City’s newest startups are excited about the opportunity in front of them.
“Being accepted into Smarter in The City is an opportunity for me to finally work toward a life-long dream of building my own business,” said Rashad Sanders, co-founder of Loadlytics, which is developing a web-based dispatch management system that allows trucking companies to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of operations. “Our plan is to really take advantage of every opportunity presented to us.”
Dreamers CEO Chris Castro says being part of Smarter in the City will give his company the early resources needed to accomplish the goal of developing web-based education tools to help immigrant populations qualify for job training, advanced education and improved health.
“It’s fantastic to see Smarter in the City foster innovation and entrepreneurship in Roxbury’s growing economy. Our goal is to encourage collaboration and bold thinking that inspire positive change,” Castro said.
Jamila Smith, co-founder of Beacon Lab Partners, a financial wellness firm developing a platform for businesses, public institutions and nonprofits to increase the financial literacy of their employees, looks forward to working alongside other like-minded entrepreneurs.
“We, at Beacon Lab Partners, feel that great ideas are transcendent, and look forward to working with a talented group of people who understand that,” Smith said.
