Boston Startup Week begins - volunteer group has organized 40+ free events with notable speakers

BOSTON - Sept. 15, 2017 - PRLog -- Monday, September 18th, begins five days of almost 50 free events with speakers from some of Boston's most promising startups and at-scale successes, as part of a community-organized effort to boost Boston's already significant startup scene and increase its visibility within Boston's business community.

Sessions range from investor discussions of emerging opportunities in trending industries to guidance from experienced, multi-exit founders on building high-growth companies. These sessions are grouped across six tracks -- The Idea, Funding, Growth & Marketing, Operations, Technology, Hot Industries -- and have already drawn over 4,000 registrations.

Events are taking place across the city at venues including the City of Boston's startup community center, District Hall; national coworking spaces WeWork, Alley (Powered by Verizon), & CIC; and on-campus at Boston University and Northeastern University. Registration is open through the week, up to the individual start times of events; their schedule can be found at http://bosstartupweek.com/schedule/.

Highlighted speakers & keynotes

Boston Startup Week is featuring a number of regionally and even nationally-known speakers from Boston's startup community -- from HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan to investor & former PayPal COO David Chang to serial founder & CEO of ClearSky Data Ellen Rubin.

More than 100 founders, investors, and executives will present at Boston Startup Week, from organizations like MassChallenge, OpenView Venture Capital, Startup Institute, the City of Boston, Silicon Valley Bank, MITX, and of course many of Boston's most successful and promising startups.

Each day of the week features not only a number of educational sessions, but also a keynote speaker and networking opportunities. Monday morning kicks off with the Co-founder of Keurig, Dick Sweeney, in a fireside chat with Boston venture capitalist Eric Paley. And Friday evening closes with a keynote speech from noted Boston founder Jules Pieri, CEO of The Grommet.

Boston's first Startup Week, inspired by the national trend, developed with local partners

Startup Week was created as a program of TechStars, a nationally-renowned startup accelerator (that's seen some of its biggest successes in Boston cohorts -- companies like Localytics, Pillpack, and GrabCAD). TechStars provides the format, branding, and marketing assistance to communities that want to organize a Startup Week for their city.

The Startup Week format has been a catalyst for other communities -- and a major amplifier. In Portland, ME for instance, organizers expect this year they will have over 5,000 attendees, drawn from 30+ states and multiple countries. In Denver, the State of Colorado's Chief Innovation Officer helped bring the event there, with 13,000 registering to attend in 2016 and over 47 million impressions generated on twitter.

BSW lead organizer Stephanie Roulic first encountered Startup Week in San Diego.  "I was absolutely in awe by how the entire community was coming together to celebrate and encourage one another's goals, and I knew then that this event needed to come to Boston. Our city is so rich with talented individuals and unique ideas; we need to connect them and show them off more -- this week will be a platform to do that."

A number of local partners have gotten involved in promoting and sponsoring Boston Startup Week, including some of Boston's mainstay event series like Boston New Technology and Mass Innovation Nights. The CIC coworking space is a Silver Sponsor as well as a venue, alongside fellow sponsors EY and Silicon Valley Bank. And Fortune 500 company Salesforce is BSW's Gold Sponsor, providing financial support as well as hosting a panel of senior startup sales executives.

Strengthening the Core Community, Inviting in the Edges

As a week long event series, Boston Startup Week will be help connect many groups with the startup community, as well as expanding it. Panels with experienced founders will provide advice and stories of their own journeys to those considering starting a company in Boston. While simultaneously subject matter experts in marketing, technology, and operations will present lessons learned to their peers, helping already-succeeding startups continue to grow.

"Boston's always been a great place for startups to grow because of the strong business and research community in Boston that surrounds them," said BSW marketing lead Jay Neely. "Robotics, healthcare, education… all of these industries where Boston has so many hot startups are ones with a very mature set of companies and institutions already existing here. That's how both our startups and our pillar companies build talent, innovation, and partnerships. And events like Boston Startup Week are how people find opportunities to build them."

Getting Involved

Space is limited for events, but registration will remain open for available spaces through the week. Those who wish to attend can find events of interest to them at http://bosstartupweek.com/schedule/ and register.

More information and updates can be found throughout the week by following @BOSStartupWeek on twitter (https://twitter.com/BOSstartupweek) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/bosstartupweek/).

Press & Media

Press & media requests can be directed to marketing lead Jay Neely at jay@jayneely.com. Lead organizer Stephanie Roulic is also available for follow-ups to provided quotes or additional comment.

Logos, photos, and other imagery are available at: http://bosstartupweek.com/press-kit/

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