“and while I’m away, I’ll write home every day…

…and I’ll send all my loving to you”

In the year+ that I’ve been a C3er and CIC staffer, I’ve realized our physical space is another member of our community, one with a huge impact on us, each and every day.  As we settle in our new space, this post is a tribute to the quirky bright orange place we’ve called home, and a retrospective on the last year (or so) in C3.  What are some of your favorite C3 moments?  Here are a few of mine:

We told the world about how much we love C3 in the “I Share my Space” Video Contest. (All the entries are still posted, including Dan Sullivan’s hilarious outtakes.  The Gotham Industries video also shows them launching their highly successful Kickstarter campaign and is totally worth a lookie).

Left: Filming for the video contest. Right: Matchbox presents at Innovate Boston

We were both hosts to and participants in the very first Innovate Boston event, which included both great ideas and great food (pretty much the formula for an awesome event).

We had the The Brand Hack in the space twice to work with C3 companies: first Zeeen in May, then  Mapkin in October.

We had countless community driven events, from Waffle Wednesdays to Brown Bag Lunches to the start of the now quarterly “State of C3” All Hands Gathering.

Left: The first ever State of C3 all hands gathering! Right: The last Waffle Wednesday in the old space.

We celebrated together, crossed fingers together…

Left: Gotham’s Launch Party was super fun, plus their Kickstarter campaign was a huge success! Right: Community Mega Millions pot… what would you have bought with your share if we’d won?

…changed the world together…

Left: Mike Norman of Wefunder in the Rose Garden. Right: Obama signing the JOBS act into law. Wefunder worked long and hard for this moment!

…and ripped cell reception blocking film off the windows and rolled in it together:

Left: the support team’s fearless leader. Right: Vampire Hack 2012

We did our holidays C3 style, from Vampire Hackathon to our very own December Holiday Potluck! (For tons of great photos from VampireHack 2012, check out Bill Warner’s Blog post here)

We’ve lost a few great members… often to exciting opportunities!  This includes former C3ers like CoachUp and Capital Market Exchange making it into the Mass Challenge finals (we still miss you guys, even while we’re happy for you!) and Wefunder to the West Coast.  But we also expanded our community.  The space doubled in size, and C4 joined us, building the community and allowing C3 companies to grow up without growing out of the space. General Assembly also joined us, providing our community more opportunities to teach and to learn.

Both C4 and GA will be staying at 101 permanently, and thus they are welcoming C3 into their (new) home as we have welcomed them into ours.  And what a beautiful home it is!  We’re moving up in the world, by 10 whole floors (5 to 15).  But what I’m most excited for is not the great views, or even the C3 buildout back at 1 Broadway, but for a chance to spend another year working to support our community of coworkers.

Goodbye, Old C3!  You’ve treated us well, and we know you’ll be there all shiny and new, waiting for us to come back.  But for now, hello to the new Cambridge Coworking Center!

Robert Kraft’s Tips for Start-ups (& other Patriots stories)

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft gave a very insightful interview recently connecting many of his own management techniques to the technology startup community.  Kraft opened his fireside chat at the Mass Technology Leadership Council Annual meeting by thanking the technology community for their contributions to the New England community.  He then described his management approach with the Patriots while suggesting how they could be applied to startups and growing companies.

Bob Kraft’s tips for startups were:

• You often have the same data as your competition, the difference is having the mental toughness to stick it out and out executing them
• Biggest success characteristic – Believing in yourself enough and being able to go with your gut
• Surround your self with passionate, smart people
• Get your team believing that they are pursuing a larger (important) goal together
• The hiring traits to look for are (in order):

1. Integrity, character and loyalty
2. Work ethic
3. Brains

• Encourage your team to be assertive but ensure that they know where the boundaries are located
• Communicating in a simple, direct manner to get your team aligned properly (described this as one of Bill Belichick’s greatest strengths)
• Always give back to the community

Some of the Patriot’s stories described by Kraft were:

• How he addressed objections and concerns from friends, family and business colleagues about buying the stadium and the Patriots.
• How he decided to hire Bill Belichick as Head Coach with patience and perseverance.
• Tom Brady telling Kraft that he would be the best draft decision he ever made shortly after being drafted (which he definitely proved)
• How he sets behavior expectations with his team.
• The importance of and his approach to giving back to the community.
• Meeting Vladimir Putin of Russia and the Super Bowl ring gift switch
• Helping to negotiate through the recent football players contract leveraging relationship and common goals over legal debates.
• Working to recently close Tom Brady’s contract based on maximizing the potential to win over one individual’s salary (providing more room to hire talent under the salary cap)
• Negotiating with players as their agents sometimes push a different agenda

It was an incredibly interactive and insightful hour with a truly masterful leader and manager.   We should all aspire to have such an impactful business career while being such a significant community contributor as Bob Kraft.

C3 From The Perspective Of A Young Entrepreneur

My name is Charde Hunt, and I am seventeen and currently a senior at the Community Charter School of Cambridge. I am from Boston, Massachusetts and have spent my entire life here. I have gone to school in Cambridge since the age of twelve and before that I went to school in Fenway Square until seventh grade. For my senior internship project at CCSC, I am interning here at the Cambridge Innovation Center with the Cambridge Co-working Center team, commonly referred to as C3.

I currently co-own a business named Something Belle with my business partner Janika Beatty. Something Belle is an accessories business and we sell handmade bows, headbands, and bow ties. We also fix damaged accessories and repair damaged clothing.

A photograph of our business poster.

One unique aspect of our business is that all of our fabrics are often special edition fabrics, which is just our fancy way of saying our fabrics come from online vendors who do not sell a surplus of their fabrics. Our business is always expanding and our newest project idea is making knitted Something Belle novelty beanie hats. We are currently in the process of making them and very soon they will be on the market for our customers to sell. We started our business in October of 2011 through a Youth Entrepreneurship program called Possible Project.

A collection of some of our handmade headbands.

Possible Project is a program that allows Cambridge students from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, Prospect Hill Academy Charter School, and the Community Charter School of Cambridge to start-up their own business. The program teaches youth the importance of teamwork, hard work, professionalism, self-confidence, patience and dedication, all of the important components of starting and managing a business. The program prepares students for entering a world of business and its set up is very similar to the one here at CIC.

In the co-working space at CIC, many entrepreneurs have the chance to work within the space around other entrepreneurs. Possible Project mirrors the co-working space in the sense that there is one space where entrepreneurs can work together and possibly collaborate together on their businesses.

What I like about the co-working space here at CIC is that there is nearly unlimited space and opportunities to meet new entrepreneurs. The space is set up in a manner that leaves very little room for entrepreneurs to exclude themselves. This is important because as a small business it is very easy for entrepreneurs to limit themselves to feed back from their team, which is hazardous because they are in an environment where they have an unlimited resource of feedback. It demonstrates the importance of communication between not just business owners but between people and capitalizes on communication between all groups of people. Any amount of feedback or discussion can help further a business concept and can lead to further development of a business.

I believe this was the vision behind the co-working concept and it is indeed a great one.

MyLastCard: my to-date adventure creating a new way to connect

It was late last summer when I met my friend and previous boss at the Mariott in Kendall Sqaure for coffee.  We both had recently worked in a mobile advertising startup and were exploring new directions for work and life.  When he suggested I should come check out the Venture Cafe, I had a no idea that a few months later I would be working on startup business with no less than three other people (!) who I met at the Venture Cafe.

 

I felt at home right away my first time at the CIC.  The relaxed, eclectic atmosphere, the friendly and smart people, and the interesting projects I kept hearing about gave me the freedom and confidence that I could work on my own business and possibly even create something great.  Needing a place to work, and wanting to be around more of this, of course I joined the C3 co-working community.

 

I first started working on a business idea around Android apps, but soon after felt inspired to pursue another idea: a networking card using NFC (near field communication) that can supplement or eliminate the need for old-fashioned business cards.  The Venture Cafe was the perfect place to converse with people about this idea, because the Venture Cafe is teeming with people who are into networking!  I met there Manuel Perez and Bob Hughes who were excited about the concept, and soon after we connected with Warren Paul Anderson.  This became the core team of MyLastCard.

 

We’ve been working on creating a Kickstarter campaign.  Our biggest challenge now:  getting the word out.  While multiple people advised us that we need to start building a network of supporters, and get the word out to the media, we didn’t know where to start.  Perhaps because today there is a dizzying array of communication channels: there’s twitter and facebook and google and blogs and reddit and email and traditional news outlets.  How to best reach our audience?  This is still a mysterious art to me.  Should I focus on spreading the word through my social network?  Should we try to send emails to bloggers and journalists and hope they take an interest?  Should we use inbound marketing, or content marketing, or search engine marketing?  The answer to all my questions is probably YES.  For an engineer like myself, this is pretty overwhelming (which reminds me, if there’s anyone reading this, or if you know someone, who may want to help with marketing for an exciting Kickstarter project, make sure to contact me ASAP).

 

Starting a business is something I always wanted to do.  Why?  Because I love inventing things and solving problems creatively.  I also didn’t like focusing on one small task or a small slice of a big problem, I like looking at the big picture.  I think this preference is reflected in the whole approach of MyLastCard.  We didn’t want to create another app, or try to push a new technology on people, perhaps useful, but awkward and geeky, like Bump or location-based networking.  Instead we chose to build upon and augment what people already naturally do: the hand-to-hand exchange of the business card.  And we thought, why not make the business card reusable?  After all, when you give away your card to someone, they will probably look at it for 5 seconds, add it to a stack of cards, and never look at it again.  Until one day they think “oh, I should contact that interesting person I met”, and then hopefully they can find your card again!

 

I hope with this story I intrigued you enough to take a look at our website… and definitely like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and support us on Kickstarter! 🙂 Oh, and might I interest you in signing up for our beta program and mailing list? Ok, I’m done with the shameless self-promotion now.  If you have any questions, ideas, or Kickstarter tips, I would love to hear them, you can contact me (Otto von Wachter) at vonwao@gmail.com. To all C3 peeps, thanks for being part of this great supportive community!

 

By way of reminder…

Volunteer with student entrepreneurs

We have a couple CIC volunteer & city of Cambridge youth events coming up, and the kids would love to meet you! I’m hoping you might have time to participate in one of our two E-Shuffles. I know you’ve been super busy, but I was hoping I could steal you away for an hour and a half. It is right here at CIC…aaaand we’ll give back to the community and have dinner in the time allowed!

We have over 30 Cambridge students coming to network and ask questions of entrepreneurs just like you. These students are very aware of the environment, but may not have made the connection of how to turn their interests into their own careers. They could learn a lot from you and how you’ve made it happen! Each CIC volunteer will sit at a desk and the students will have 10 to 15 minutes to ask you questions, and if time allows, you get to ask them questions too! In the rotation you’ll end up meeting 3 bright students who are interested in starting their own business and being an entrepreneur.

We have two opportunities for you to volunteer:
Wednesday, 3/13/13 from 3:30-5PM (20 volunteers needed)
Thursday, 3/21/13 from 4-5:30PM (10 volunteers needed)

If you would just shoot me an email (students@cictr.com) and let me know which day you can do, that’d be great!

Thanks so much. I can’t wait for the students to meet you!

C3er Wins WPI Venture Forum Pitch Contest

On February 12, Worcester Polytechnic Institute Venture Forum held its 7^th annual pitch contest where I won the Judges’ Choice Award for Amico, the stylish bracelet that brings social networks to life.

I want to thank the CIC and the overwhelming support I received from fellow C3ers for this victory. The C3 is truly a great space to be in and without them I’m not sure I would have been so successful.

I did not have a presenter with me to practice before the pitch, so instead I asked a C3 member. Presenter, check. I wanted feedback about my presentation, five minutes later I was in a room with a C3er listening to me and giving me great insight. Feedback, check. I have to thank the CIC and the guys who helped me to win this prize.

The runner-ups were two MassChallenge companies, Freight Farms (who won the Poster contest and now is admitted to Techstars) and Bounce Imaging (who took the Audience Choice Award). Standing out among such fierce competition has inspired me to consider applying to MassChallenge myself, believing my company has now reached maturity to compete at this level.

My increased confidence may also be the result of a recent feature in The Boston Globe. The article discusses face-to-face networking and Amico’s new approach to this challenging market. Also referenced is C3 Director, Sidi Gomes, for his past breakthroughs in social discovery and his current success with the Parallel Cities platform used by C3.

Can technology help face-to-face networking? The headline of Scott Kirsner’s article poses a very good question, but only time will tell.

For more information on Amico visit www.amicobracelets.com.

---

C3 spotlight #2: Leo von Wendorff

Name: Leo von Wendorff

Company name: Virtual Knowledge Workers

Education: MBA, Chaminade University of Honolulu

Hometown: Zeven, Germany

Twitter handle: @LeoVKW

Typically sits: on a chair

---

What are you working on? – We just completed the Sales Process Engineering, which makes a closed deal a predictable outcome of a process. Now, the focus is on working that process and closing deals. Feel free to chat me up if you need a case study for Sales Process Engineering.

How do you get your music? – Amazon Cloud Player, about 30,000 songs in my library.

Favorite C3 moment? – Meeting ViralGains. These guys rock!

What’s your favorite thing about working in C3? – The productive energy here at C3! When I’m here, I feed off everyone else’s energy working on their project or company. People here are so dedicated. Soaking in that aura makes me want to be a better and more productive worker.

Are there any C3 related projects you would like to help out with or see happen? – I’d like to see a C3/C4 fair – an event where all C3/C4ers get to showcase their company or project. The purpose would be to help us gain new clients for our ventures.

Favorite CIC kitchen food?  – Greek yogurt (9th floor).

What’s your daily commute like? – Dull.

What’s something every entrepreneur should know before starting a business? – Business Ethics. As an entrepreneur, you’re also a leader for those who work for and with you. Your own personal values shape the company more than the idea, implementation or marketing. It’s good place to start to know who you are, what your values are, and what you want your company’s values to be. Besides, ethical companies are more profitable, less harmed in economic downturns and enjoy a much longer company life-cycle.

---

Move Scheduled!

The move to 101 Main St will be on the weekend of March 16th -17th, and C3 and C4 will be CLOSED for regular work during the weekend.  Let us know if you are interested in helping out!

For more information, check out the transcripts from the Q&A Session: Move and C3 Buildout

Life After C3

My name is Jesse Waites, and I’m a former CIC/C3 client. I first came to the CIC years ago to visit the Venture Cafe, and was very excited to meet likeminded people that also enjoyed building things that solved problems. At that point in my life, I had released an iPhone app in the app store and was looking to meet other app developers. Little did I know that the people I would meet and the things that I would learn at the CIC would forever change my life.

I continued to come to the Venture Cafe and meet other entrepreneurs, and I discovered that there was no set mold for what an “entrepreneur” was like. I met older people, younger people, black and white people with Harvard MBA’s working next to high school dropouts on computer programming. People from all walks of live united over the common dream of building something great. There was and always has been an exciting buzz at  1 Broadway and there are a lot of friends to be made, if you try. I have been at the CIC for a few years now, both as a guest and as a client, and have seen good friends build fantastic companies over the years that get covered in awesome tech sites like TechCrunch. (I’m looking at you, WeFunder) There is no way to describe watching a friends business blow up and get great exposure like that- I hope you all get to experience it for yourself one day. Life is hard and has a pretty set duration, but how a person chooses to spend it is up to them. Some people are content to spend their life entertaining themselves, but not Makers like us. I am proud to know so many people that do their best to build something great, whether it be a movie script, a fashion blog, or the next hot software startup.

I left CIC to pursue some other interests, but CIC will always be my community and I am thankful for the people I have met and opportunities that those connections have given me. And as fate would have it, one of those connections may be bringing me back into the CIC fold… I’m considering rejoining soon!

You see, while I was teaching myself web design in the C3 space, I got to know a few Ruby on Rails developers and got to learn about their careers. Software developers are on every top 10 list of “hot jobs” so far this decade, and Ruby on Rails is on the top of Software Development jobs. If you learn Rails, you will be one of the very most desirable candidates in this otherwise lousy economy. In Boston, an entry level Rails developer can make 90k a year. After a few years of experience, you’re looking at making around 150k-180k a year. This is in addition to the fact that you will also have the ability to build whatever kind of web based software you can imagine.

Through connections that I made at the CIC, I was able to meet the founders and apply to the Launch Academy program. www.LaunchAcademy.co is an intensive 10 week course that teaches people to be full stack web developers. With my background of self taught web design and the hustle they saw I had at the CIC, they thought I would be a great fit for the program. The whole time that I was sacrificing time and teaching myself web development, I had to trust that it would somehow, someway pay off for me. I didn’t know how it would, but I had to have faith that it all meant “something”, and to keep pushing through. I’m very happy that opportunity presented itself in the form of this program. Lauch Academy is an absolutely fantastic opportunity for anyone at any skill level, and I encourage you to look in to it and apply for the next course. We should be thankful that we live in such a fine city with opportunities like this one, and the great connections that the CIC has to offer. May you all make the best of it.

Q&A: C3 Buildout

After the questions on 101 Main (please see “Q&A: 101 Main”) Sidi moved onto the topic of the C3 buildout:

---

Q: What percentage of the neighborhoods will be predesignated?
A: Right now we have four. We have Mexico City, which is going to be the “Loud Area” which is the count part to the Quiet Space, we have CriticalMass, which you guys will determine, and we have the Greenlight Labs area, but of course we’re looking for more of you to start forming your own communities to populate the space.

Q: I have an idea, for a workout community. I really like the walking desk, but it is always booked. Is there going to be something to get people up and moving during the day?
A: We are going to have something similar with the walking desks. Right now, by the way, we are thinking about crowd funding another walking desk, because there is a high demand for it and we don’t have the resources, so if you guys are interested, let me know.

Q: Will there be more standing desks in the space?
A: Yes

Q: I’ve noticed in C3 people tend to find a spot and stay there, so I’m wondering if for the communities there might be more of a tendency to do that, and it might make people less inclined to meet other people, except in the common areas?
A: This [design, for new members, should allow] more of an opportunity to come in and get to know your neighbors right away. Whereas the barrier to get to know your neighbors right now is really high. [Perhaps making people less likely to move once they have made those connections.]

Q: In the new version of the Venture Cafe are there televisions?
A: Yes

Q: Would there be the opportunity to schedule [via Roomzilla] meetings in the social spaces?
A: That’s something we may experiment with. For example, in the 101 “Party House” area, there will be a reservable game room adjacent to the kitchen. So the answer is: yes, there will be spaces like that available, but not all social spaces will be reservable.

Q: What spaces will C3ers have access to in 101 once the C3 build out is complete?
A: 101 Main will be an extension of 1 Broadway, so C3 will have access to the Common Spaces at 101 Main, just like you have access to the Common Spaces at 1 Broadway. The conference rooms on the C4 floor of 101, once C3 returns to 1 Broadway, C3ers will not have access to.

Q: Is there a difference in Seating capacity in the build out?
A: It will have a higher capacity.

Q: Are there going to be land lines in the build out?
A: Yes. There are dedicated phone booths and phone tables in the new design.

---

If you have more questions not covered during the Q&A sessions, don’t hesitate to let us know!

Q&A: 101 Main Street

The Q&A session started with CIC’s CEO Tim Rowe giving a bit of background about the 101 expansion.

“I guess the big context here is just ‘good stuff.’ There are tons of entrepreneurs in this area, and we have a long wait list at CIC… Kendall Square is at something like 98% occupancy, which means there’s nothing out there. We started talking with the landlord next door at 101 Main St… and we finally got this deal done.

“It is nicer space than we originally looked at, a high floor, fancy, great views… and for those of you in C4, this is great news… For C3, this is the opportunity to create some empty space here [at 1 Broadway] to give us the time to rebuild and make it awesome.

“Not all of you may know this story, but Sidi Gomes was a volunteer at Venture Cafe [and]… he came to me one day and said, “you know, Tim, I’m also an architect, and I have some ideas about social space and how it should work.” It took a couple weeks for us to sit down, but then Sidi shared with me the results of his thesis at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and I said, “Stop everything. This is exactly the kind of thinking that I know we’ve been lacking… and would you be willing to join us at CIC and express your thinking in the space here?”

“…About a year ago, we completed the initial design for C3. The problem was that in the mean time, C3 had become so popular that it was full, so we couldn’t do the buildout… Now we’ve finally found [a] place [for C3 to go during construction], and that place is 101 Main. We really appreciate the C3ers bearing with moving a little bit down the block and moving back a few months later. As C3ers, we’re hoping it won’t be too onerous on you, and may be a welcome change of scenery for a little while.

“[For C3]… while you’re going to be there, the coolest parts of the [15th] floor are going to be under construction… We’re creating what I’m calling the “party house” which is a two floor section with a connecting stair case, and a game room and kitchens and hang out areas, that I think will be really cool for events… For C4 folks, you will get the benefit of the party house.

“I will say a couple more words about 101 Main Street: that building is starting to be a very happening building…. On the ground floor, CIC is launching a new thing called the Hub. The Hub is part of a global network of social entrepreneurship communities. They’re in all the cool places except for Boston, but they’re coming to Boston now… So that’s the bigger picture.”

---

Q: How long will C3 be at 101 Main Street?
A: Three months is the current timeline for the construction. It does look like the actual move may be delayed a couple weeks after March first.

Q: Will there be some additional parking at the new building?
A: There is some additional parking at 101 Main, details TBD. Also, MIT is going to be closing the garage in 1 Broadway for repairs coming up, for approximately [two] years. There is an underground garage nearby, and CIC is looking at other options as well.

Q: What will there be for kitchens in 101 Main while C3 is there?
A: While the full 15th floor kitchen will be under construction, we will have a kitchenette on the 15th floor, plus a kitchen on the 14th floor.

Q: Are there going to be land lines at 101 Main Street?
A: Yes. We are working on temporary and more long term solutions for both phone tables and phone booths.

Q: What would the opportunity be for people who are part of the C3 community to participate in the Hub?
A: The Hub will be separate from C3, but available to anybody who is interested in participating in a community with other people who are interested in making the world a better place through entrepreneurship. You can move your membership from the C3 community to the Hub community if you are looking to use that as a place to work, or if you just want to be involved by coming to events or the online community, then we’ll have a membership type for you as well, so you can be part of the C3 community if that’s better for you, and simultaneously be part of the Hub community.

---

To be continued in “Q&A: C3 Buildout.” If you have more questions not covered during the Q&A sessions, don’t hesitate to let us know!

After questions on 101 Main, Sidi introduced the support team that will be working the space while C3 is located there:

Dave

Sidi

Natalie

Hillary

Meghan

Julian

James