Let me describe a scene that every CS student or self-taught developer knows too well. It's 11pm. You're staring at a LeetCode problem. You read the solution three times. You understand it. You close the tab. Two days later, you can't recall a single thing about it. That was me. I came into software engineering from a mechanical engineering background, having taught myself Python from scratch to break into the field. I loved building things. But technical interview prep felt

Summer is in full swing, but Boston's startup ecosystem isn't slowing down. July is packed with opportunities for founders, investors, operators, researchers, and ecosystem builders to connect, learn, and collaborate before the busy fall conference season begins. This month's calendar features everything from AI workshops and founder networking mixers to life sciences showcases, workforce discussions, and community celebrations. Whether you're looking to meet potential co-fou

Some of the biggest innovations in healthcare start with a simple question: What if there’s a better way? For CranioSense’s co-founders, Dr. Ryan Myers and Kristian DiMatteo, they wanted to find a different way to diagnose elevated brain pressure following traumatic brain injuries that’s noninvasive and can be used across a variety of care settings. CranioSense’s product, IHdetect, will be able to diagnose elevated intracranial pressure in minutes, without the need to drill a

At Startup Boston Week, the session “The No-Budget Growth Hack: 10X Your Reach with Partnerships” focused on one of the biggest realities founders are facing in 2026: Everyone is trying to grow with fewer resources. Moderated by Danielle Johnson, the panel brought together founders and operators who have used partnerships to grow audiences, build distribution channels, and create leverage without massive marketing budgets. Speakers included Leslie Forde and Julia Wu. And whil

Climate founders are solving some of the world's hardest problems. They're building new battery technologies, reinventing heating and cooling systems, launching satellites, and developing solutions that could fundamentally change how we adapt to a changing climate. But according to climate tech marketing leader Cara Hogan, one of the biggest challenges founders face isn't building the technology, it's explaining it. On a recent episode of Cents Check, Startup Boston's podcast

At Startup Boston Week, the session “Innovations in Life Sciences: From Lab to Market” explored one of the hardest challenges in biotech and health tech: how do you actually turn great science into something that reaches patients? The panel brought together leaders across biotech, healthcare systems, AI drug discovery, and startup operations, including Sheila Phicil, Rachel Salazar, David Cardoso, and Vanita Sood. And while the conversation covered everything from AI platform

After designing 700+ decks for founders, CEOs, and leadership teams, the same board deck issues keep showing up. Not because the business is weak, but because the slides aren't designed for how boards actually read them. These design gaps are easy to miss, but they cost approval. Here's where they happen and what to do instead. Board decks are getting longer. We regularly see board presentations cross 25, 40, even 60 slides. At the Fortune 500 level, the full board pack can

For many founders, startup ideas emerge from market research, brainstorming sessions, or years spent inside an industry. For Ratnam Srivastava, the idea came from paperwork. After spending years conducting medical research at institutions including Harvard Medical School, Mount Sinai, and Northwell Health, Ratnam repeatedly encountered the same challenge: research projects were being delayed not by science, but by administrative processes. Protocol approvals, compliance docum

Rock climbing includes a lot of starts and stops, all the while navigating up, down, and across to the next point. You can say it’s a similar journey for many founders. For Dr. Mengdie Wang, being an avid rock climber (in some ways) prepared her journey to launch RedPoint Oncology. Wang is the co-founder and CEO of RedPoint, which is building a new payload class for targeted oncology. The startup’s goal is to eliminate therapy-resistant solid tumors where current treatments f

At Startup Boston Week, the panel “From Cradle to Grave: Designing Products That Last (and Last)” explored one of the hardest transitions in startups: moving from a scrappy prototype to a real product that can survive customers, manufacturing, scale, and the real world. Moderated by Sheri Palazzo, the conversation brought together leaders across engineering, manufacturing, batteries, and venture capital, including John Unima, Raimund Koerver and Praveen Sahay. And while the t

Every startup begins with a spark. But sometimes that spark is less like a lightning bolt and more like a pattern you cannot stop noticing. For me, that pattern was the gap between what women experience after birth and what digital health tools are actually built to support. Postpartum recovery is often framed as a short, temporary stage. In reality, many women continue navigating fatigue, sleep disruption, mood changes, pain, hormonal shifts, identity changes, and fragmented

On June 8, Startup Boston and City of Boston brought together some of Greater Boston's leading accelerators, incubators, founder education programs, and innovation hubs for an evening designed to answer one simple question: Where should founders go next? For early-stage entrepreneurs, navigating the startup ecosystem can feel overwhelming. Between accelerators, incubators, venture programs, founder communities, mentorship organizations, and industry-specific resources, it's o

AI search is completely rewriting how people discover brands online today. To stay visible, companies have to stop relying on cheap SEO tricks and start focusing on being clear, credible, consistent, and undeniably easy to trust. AI engines don't reward noise; they reward brands that are easy to verify and cite. The Shift in Search Behavior For the better part of two decades, getting found online meant playing a very specific game. Someone typed a phrase into a box, and a sea

At Startup Boston Week, the panel “Closing the Gap: Recruiting and Upskilling for AI Success” tackled one of the startup ecosystem’s biggest anxieties head-on: how workers, founders, and companies can adapt to a world increasingly shaped by AI. Moderated by Rizel Scarlett, Tech Lead of Open Source Developer Relations, Block, Inc., the conversation brought together leaders across engineering, recruiting, and AI startups, including Luisa Herrmann, founder of AINova; Catherine W

If April showers bring May flowers, then May brought startup events. Between Startup Boston programming, Boston Tech Week, founder meetups, investor gatherings and ecosystem partnerships, May was one of the busiest months we've seen so far in 2026. Over the course of the month, we hosted, supported or partnered on more than a dozen events designed to help founders, startup operators, investors and startup-curious professionals build meaningful connections and learn from one a

It’s easy to picture a company buying raw materials and distributing products into stores, but getting a product into a customer’s hands is much more complex. Procurement is a given company’s process of specifying needs, evaluating suppliers, negotiating contracts and more, before anything is purchased. On top of that, companies have to manage their supply chains, which includes manufacturing, assembly, warehousing, and delivery. All of this creates and involves huge amounts

One of the most fun parts of building in startups is getting to see companies before they fully become companies. Before the polished decks, PR announcements and the “we should grab coffee sometime” LinkedIn posts after a Series A. That was the energy inside Startup Boston’s “Test Early-Stage Startups IRL” during Boston Tech Week. Instead of founders pitching on stage, attendees spent the night walking around testing products, clicking through MVPs, giving feedback, breaking

Alicia Tulsee didn’t walk into her Startup Boston Week workshop promising founders an easy path to success. Instead, the founder and CEO of Moxie Scrubs arrived with a challenge: learn how to “tame the beast” of ambitious startup goals by breaking them into measurable, manageable steps. Speaking to a room filled with founders, operators, and students, Alicia Tulsee framed the session around a central idea many early-stage builders struggle with: big goals are meaningless unle

June is keeping the momentum going across Boston’s startup ecosystem, with founders, operators, investors, researchers, and ecosystem builders gathering for a packed month of networking, innovation, and high-signal conversations. From climatetech and robotics to life sciences, AI, quantum computing, and founder-focused community events, this month is all about deepening connections and exploring the technologies and ideas shaping what’s next. As summer kicks off, the ecosyst

Real estate has long been known as one of the world’s largest and most traditional industries. But today, it is standing at the intersection of major change: rising interest rates, labor shortages, shifting office demand, housing constraints, and growing pressure to modernize. Into that uncertainty steps proptech - the wave of technology companies using software, AI, automation, and data to rethink how buildings are bought, leased, managed, and experienced. That was the focus

Raising capital is often framed as the ultimate milestone for startups. But at Startup Boston Week, a panel of ecosystem leaders argued that founders should look beyond the check. During the session More Than Money: Turning Portfolio Support into a Competitive Edge, moderator Tricia Bitetto (Program Manager, Venture Café Cambridge) was joined by Steve Bernard (Investment Principal, Techstars), Brandon Oliver (Principal, BankTech Ventures), and Beth Porter (Head of Studio, C10