Eyes On The Sky With Feet In The Sand
PHOTO/EMILY MICUCCI
Alan Phillips, Jack Schofield and Walter Dobberpuhl, left to right, founders of social networking startup Homeplete.com, moved into TechSandBox in Hopkinton last month. The three moved from their former office in Grafton to be with other like-minded technology entrepreneurs.
Photo/Emily Micucci
Entrepreneur Fil Firmani is working on a business plan at TechSandBox for his mobile enterprise startup. He says the venture has helped him network with investors.
Inside the Route 128 belt, technology entrepreneurs who need cheap space to work have plenty of options.
Rents may not be affordable, but there are about a dozen incubators that provide office space for companies that are in the early stages of launching a business. Yet, west of 128, the options are far more limited.
So when James Geshwiler, managing director at CommonAngels, a Boston-based venture capital company that provides seed money to technology startups, learned that a technology incubator would open its doors in his backyard, he was intrigued.
Geshwiler and a handful of other executives living in Hopkinton and working in either Boston or Cambridge put their support behind TechSandBox — a non-profit organization that provides space, networking and professional support for tech entrepreneurs — by making personal donations.
Then, CommonAngels agreed to be a TechSandBox sponsor, providing it with startup funding. CommonAngels is one of a handful of sponsors that have invested in the venture in the hope that new technology businesses will be born.
Geshwiler said that given the workspace, networking and support needed to thrive, there's a lot of potential for startup success in the MetroWest region, which has lacked a technology incubator until TechSandBox launched earlier this year. It called the Becker College campus in Southborough home until it found permanent digs on South Street in Hopkinton last month.
“Living in Hopkinton, I experienced first-hand that MetroWest is mostly filled with very experienced entrepreneurs,” Gershwiler said. “There's just a simple dynamic of demographics and geography that people, when they get married and have kids, move out to the suburbs.”
That means people who are thinking about starting their own businesses out here often have between 10 and 20 years of experience working for technology companies, compared to young entrepreneurs who are recent graduates of colleges and universities in Boston and Cambridge.
That's exactly what Barbara Finer, CEO and founder of TechSandBox, was banking on when she conjured up the idea for a MetroWest incubator — her sixth startup. Actually, she refers to TechSandBox as an innovation center, but explained that it's really an incubator, workspace and co-working space where entrepreneurs can work with and meet others in the industry and receive mentoring from experts, such as attorneys, on a pro-bono basis.
Potential In Numbers
Finer wanted to create a place to harness the talent that exists in MetroWest, which she noted has a population the size of Boston proper — about 600,000. According to Finer, the TechSandBox creates a center for those people, who, according to her market research, would prefer a commute that does not exceed 30 minutes.
“And it's not easy because we're the first ones, but that's the problem we're trying to solve,” Finer said during an interview in her TechSandBox office earlier this month.
TechSandBox began operating at the Becker campus in the spring, and announced the signing of a lease for an 8,700-square-foot office space behind the Lonza Biologics facility on South Street. Lonza's Hopkinton location is being phased out just as TechSandBox is getting off the ground.
Finer, who has a particular interest in robotics manufacturing and most recently worked as a business consultant, said Hopkinton wasn't her first choice. She wanted Westborough or Marlborough because they're more centrally located. But she said the landlord in Hopkinton made her an offer she couldn't refuse, including a lease that increases as TechSandBox matures.
The space also has everything an incubator needs: a conference room for speaking events, a large, open common work space, which Finer calls “the bullpen,” a handful of private offices, workspace, conference area and a kitchen.
Participating entrepreneurs pay licensing fees to work at TechSandBox. It costs $195 a month to use the common workspace and other facilities, while those interested in private office space pay between $300 and $575.
To the handful of businesses that have signed on since the Hopkinton location opened, TechSandBox is more than an affordable place to work beyond their home offices.
For One Entrepreneur, Access Matters
Jack Schofield, who co-founded Homeplete.com, a site that allows users to store and share information about home contractors, said TechSandBox is a more conducive work environment for him and his co-founders. The Homeplete staff of three recently left an office in Grafton in favor of the incubator. Schofield noted other offices on South Street also house tech companies.
“The neighborhood is a lot more appealing for technology folks than good old Grafton,” Schofield said.
Fil Firmani, who is working on a business plan for a mobile enterprise startup, said TechSandBox is a place to come and focus. But it has also opened new doors for him.
“Honestly, it's helped me get in touch with some investors as well….there's a lot of resources here you just don't get in your house,” said Firmani, a Holliston resident. He added that he prefers to avoid traveling to Boston or Cambridge to work. Then again, if he has to head to the city, it's easily accessible from MetroWest, he said.
TechSandBox residents also enjoy each other's company, as well as the frequent events Finer plans, which provide useful information to entrepreneurs from intellectual property attorneys, accountants and other experts. Finer said experts participate as a way to meet potential clients as well as support the region's technology ecosystem.
The TechSandBox business model is based on having 40 companies leasing space at the Hopkinton facility, with the incubator surviving on revenue from sponsorships and licensing fees. But Finer admitted she sank a lot of her own money into TechSandBox.
Yet, even if just a handful of companies are successful, Finer thinks TechSandBox will be a worthwhile investment. She's realistic about the size of the impact of the incubator, and she said no matter how successful it is, the technology community in MetroWest will lag behind those in Boston.
“There is a lot to be said for 1,000 MIT students who fall out the door in Cambridge,” Finer said. “We're not going to have those numbers out here.”
On the other hand, the Worcester higher education community isn't far away, and Finer said TechSandBox may draw graduates of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. And she would even consider pursuing a similar venture in Worcester in the future.
Expansion Into Worcester?
Finer said there's been talk of launching a technology incubator in Worcester for several years, but it has struggled to get off the ground. She was blunt about what she believes to be the problem.
Worcester “doesn't have the right leadership to put these things together unfortunately,” Finer said, which she called “typical” of the city.
On the other hand, she said Worcester's life sciences incubator, Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives (MBI), which launched 20 years ago, has been a strong example of how an incubator can make a meaningful impact on an industry.
Kevin O'Sullivan, CEO and president of MBI, said MBI was a “fledgling incubator” when it launched, but today it's at 98-percent occupancy. Fifty companies that grew out of the MBI incubator are still in operation today, O'Sullivan said. And that's the best measure of how successful an incubator is.
“I think the important part is, at the end of the day, how many companies have we been able to germinate and get going?”
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