Unfortunately for the Boston VCs, they can only fix part of the problem. Boston VCs have in the past been timid and unimaginative, and they may be able to fix that by making a conscious effort to be more aggressive. But the biggest problem with Boston may be the weakness of the angel community. It's true that VCs are starting to make more angel type investments, but it seems unlikely they can completely replace angels.
Having moved to the Bay Area from Boston when I started doing startups, I can say that the problem is more of a structural issue than just "not letting the next big one get away."<p>Whenever we talked to East Coast VCs, they wanted our startup (pre-revenue and basically pre-product) to have a clearly defined business model and revenue strategy. In doing that, they do somewhat reduce the downside, but they also eliminate the very top of the bell curve.<p>West Coast VCs seem to have much more of a shoot for the moon mentality. While the latter does lead to a lot of flops, it seems like it also yields some huge winners that the more conservative approach may miss.
The "VCs let Facebook get away" theory seems to imply that Facebook could have been built in Mass.<p>Could facebook have been built in MA?<p>In SV, Facebook could poach from Google's mothership and the alums, not to mention Yahoo, etc. Are there enough comparable people in Mass?<p>And, even if there are, are they available? Doesn't Mass have enforceable fairly-general non-competes? Do the Mass companies that currently employ the folks that Facebook would have hired use them?
I can't speak to the VC environment in Boston, but I do think there are lots of support resources for tech entrepreneurs in the Boston area, through events (TechStars, Lean Startup Challenge, etc.), meetups, support groups, startup spaces (such as the Cambridge Innovation Center) and educational networks fostered by MIT, Harvard, and other schools (even BU offers a mentoring service, modeled roughly on a program that MIT started).<p>There is also a small but strong media cohort that helps spread the word. It's nothing like Wired/TC/VentureBeat/assorted blogs/MSM bureaus in the Bay Area, but people like Scott Kirsner (Innovation Economy, a column in the Boston Globe), and the staff of the MIT Technology Review, Xconomy, and some of the IDG publications write frequently about local startup activity.
Boston is certainly no Silicon Valley (and perhaps never will be), but I'd argue it's still a great place to start a company. Through MassChallenge I had an opportunity to really connect with the community up there and can say from experience that it's a vibrant and helpful one that is turning out some great companies. The article is probably correct in the way it characterizes Boston VCs. But the local VCs are only one small part of what makes a city startup-friendly.
Part of the problem with Boston is that it isn't hip to be doing a startup here like it is in SV (this is getting better. A few years ago it was awful). Boston is an old-fashioned town that values aristocratic careers (Lawyer, banker, doctor) and name-brands (John Hancock) far more than pave-your-own-way careers. This sounds a bit trite but it is a significant cultural barrier for a 22-year-old to overcome. You'll be far more accepted if you move west, so most do.
<i>Facebook — turned down by Battery Ventures and MetroPCS — is valued at $82.4 billion on SharesPost, a secondary exchange for shares of private firms.</i><p>This is like passing on Lady Gaga in High School because she was, well, odd. It has to be hurtful.
The degree to which the premise of this story (which has been printed elsewhere) is absolutely ridiculous, is pretty astounding.<p>The premise, of course, is that Mark somehow "got away" from Boston and was always destined to be more "successful" [your definition here] than any other founder. So there are really two main points: that this proves Boston needs to catch up with the Valley, and that there's another Mark lurking out there somewhere that must have been missed.<p>Let's start with the first part. Boston has needed to catch up with the Valley since the decline of Digital Equipment Corporation, if not before. That was, if I've got my facts straight, in 1992. So it's been nineteen years that Boston's tech scene has been dying. When I was at Harvard trying to get undergraduates excited about technology entrepreneurship in 2003, the club ended up electing me President because only eight people showed up and half of them were my friends. Apparently things have gotten better since then, but I'm still on the Harvard entrepreneurs mailing list and there's not much going on.<p>As for Mark, I've said plenty in the past. The key points are A) that people like Mark don't innovate; they copy; and B) if as much money was poured into another company as has been poured into Facebook, then we'd all be talking about that company and founder instead. (Twitter, anyone?)<p>If VCs are just looking to fund copycats, that explains an awful lot, but they should just admit it and stop pretending that they exist to support entrepreneurs. In the meantime, their returns will continue to decline as they ignore people who actually do come up with novel approaches to problem solving in favor of the coy and disingenuous who can convince millions to waste their time in a uniform manner.<p>There are a lot of bad ideas in Silicon Valley and a lot of bad ideas in Boston. But there are definitely some good ones, too. If VCs can't distinguish between them, they should either just fund everything in the hope that they'll just get lucky, or step aside and get out of the way.
New England VCs have been some of the most difficult people I've talked with. SV and regional VCs have been much friendlier/easier/helpful. So saying they won't let another big one get away... they need to change their attitude for the most part. (IMO).