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

At a time when inboxes are flooded, paid ads are easier to ignore, and digital channels feel more crowded than ever, some startup marketers are looking backward to move forward. That was the central theme of Bring Back the Brochure: How Old-School Tactics Are Driving Modern Deals, a Startup Boston Week panel moderated by MK Getler-Porizkova, Chief Marketing Officer at Loop Anti. Joining them were Jon Carlson, VP of Marketing at Yottaa, Nika Ouellette, Senior Product Marketing

At Startup Boston Week, a panel of product leaders and founders unpacked a question many startups eventually face: should you build everything yourself, or plug into someone else’s platform? Moderated by John Zilch (Product, Breakthrough Ventures), the session featured Ada Glover, Chief Product Officer of Zeus Health, Izzat Jarudi, Co-Founder and CEO of Edify, and Jennifer Bullard, Founder of Yes Yes No. Together, they explored how founders can use platforms, partnerships, a

At Startup Boston Week, one of the conference’s final sessions tackled a question founders obsess over and investors debate constantly: when there’s limited traction, incomplete data, and plenty of uncertainty, how do investors decide whether to write a check? Moderated by Lucia Maffei (Technology Reporter, Boston Business Journal), the panel brought together James Massaquoi of Glasswing Ventures, Ron Levin of Alumni Ventures, Jillian Chase of Azolla Ventures, and Andrew Bloo

At Startup Boston Week 2025, one of the most candid conversations of the week didn’t focus on fundraising tactics or growth hacks. Instead, it tackled something founders often discuss far less publicly: burnout, bias, resilience, and the support systems required to keep building. The session Real Talk from the Trenches: Female Founders on Tradeoffs, Grit and Support Systems brought together moderator Sheri Palazzo (Founder, Saplings Consulting) alongside Erin Dewicki (CEO, Ly

At some point, nearly every founder runs into the same question: When do I stop being the salesperson? That was the focus of Startup Boston Week’s panel, Passing the Sales Baton: Scaling Revenue Without Losing Control, moderated by Deborah Kurtz, founder of Magenta Search. Joining her were Jennifer Harrington, branding agency founder focused on sales storytelling; Hannah Leary, strategic accounts leader at OneScreen AI and the company’s first founding account executive; Liz G

A strong startup can still lose investor attention if the pitch deck makes the business harder to understand, evaluate, and remember. TL;DR After working on 350+ startup pitch decks, the same issues keep showing up. Not because the business lacks clarity, but because the slides aren’t designed for how investors scan and evaluate. These mistakes are subtle, but they cost attention. Here’s where they happen. Introduction A strong startup can still lose investor attention becau

Startups love a channel conversation. Should we run paid search? Should we post more on LinkedIn? Should we build a content engine? Should we hire someone to own growth? Should we test outbound? Sometimes the answer is yes. A lot of the time, though, the real problem is a page problem, not a traffic problem. More specifically, it has a decision-page problem. That matters because early teams can burn a lot of time scaling ambiguity. More traffic to a weak page does not solve m