Ideas Between Classes: How Boston’s Students Turn Campus Creativity into Startups

Boston is more than just a place for earning degrees - it’s also where many students launch their first ventures. With a dense concentration of world-class universities, startup accelerators, and a founder-friendly culture, Boston and the broader New England area have emerged as one of the nation’s top launchpads for student innovation. While some students rush to class or cram for midterms, others are pitching ideas, building teams, and raising capital.

In this blog, I’ll explore how student entrepreneurs can build startups between classes, highlight the resources that help them flourish, and showcase some of the successful companies that started as campus projects and are now gaining momentum. Whether you’re a student, a faculty member, or an aspiring entrepreneur eager to get started, consider this your crash course in turning ideas into action right from the heart of Boston.

Understanding the Landscape

What makes Boston unique for student entrepreneurship? It’s a rich mix of resources, mentors, and a diverse community of students from various fields. Whether you’re at MIT, Harvard, Northeastern, BU, or one of the dozens of other local institutions, you’re never far from someone starting a business, or from a facility designed to help you build one.

Support comes in many forms:

• Combined co-op and experiential learning programs

• University incubators

• Local accelerators

• A startup culture that embraces experimentation, even by first-time founders

Boston is also fiercely collaborative. Student teams often span several campuses, blending technical, design, and business talent to create something greater than the sum of its parts. This cross-pollination accelerates early innovation and reinforces a culture of initiative, giving students a real-world sandbox to test, fail, learn, and thrive.

Student Startups Born Between Classes

These student-led startups are prime examples of the innovation emerging from Boston and New England campuses. They started as class projects, hackathon ideas, or casual conversations and have grown into scalable ventures. Here’s a look at five startups redefining what it takes to build a company between classes:

SoWork  (Harvard)

What They Do: SoWork is a virtual office platform designed to make remote teams feel like they're working side-by-side by enabling spontaneous video and audio chats, customizable meeting zones, and 2D avatars roaming a shared, Sims-style workspace. It’s powered by an AI assistant called Sophia that automatically records and summarizes meetings, distilling action items into a searchable library. 

How It Started: Co-founders Vishal Punwani, Emma Giles, and Mark Liu were initially building an educational machine-learning platform while at Harvard in early 2020, but their plans were disrupted when the pandemic pushed them off campus and into remote work. Despite relying on Zoom and Slack, they quickly felt the team culture they'd cultivated slipping away - physical offices were empty, and their once-strong connection was reduced to rows of video tiles and chat threads. Drawing on their early experience building camaraderie in a World of Warcraft guild - where they coordinated, strategized, and bonded entirely online - they realized the key was having a virtual “place” to naturally gather and interact. That insight inspired them to build “a WoW-lite for work”: SoWork, a virtual office where teams can spontaneously meet, work, play, and reconnect—bringing back the culture and connection that remote work often erodes.

Funding: Raised $15 million in a seed round led by Talis Capital with participation from Tinder among other investors.

What You Can Learn: Leveraging personal experiences to identify gaps in existing solutions can lead to innovative product development.

heyFreya (Northeastern)

What They Do: Hey Freya is a women’s wellness brand dedicated to providing personalized, science-backed health solutions tailored specifically for women. They offer a range of plant-based supplements designed to address common health concerns such as stress, fatigue, anxiety, and sleep disturbances. 

How It Started: Hey Freya was born out of frustration with the lack of reliable, women-specific health information. Co-founders Dr. Thara Vayali, Cecilia Tse, and Helkin Berg, each driven by personal experiences of burnout or medical dismissal, came together during the pandemic with a mission to close this gap. They were motivated by fragmented, male-centric health data and vague test results, so they set out to create a system rooted in personalized, clinically backed insights covering women’s full-spectrum health - from stress and hormone balance to immune and cognitive wellness. 

Funding: Awarded a $1 million grant by the Department of Energy to develop technology that will render fuel cells more affordable for energy efficient cars. 

What You Can Learn: Academic collaborations and government grants can be extremely useful in taking technology startups to the next level.

Growbie (Harvard)

What They Do: Growbie is a career platform dedicated to helping international students master networking to advance US careers. Through professional-led bootcamps, one-on-one feedback, and a supportive community, Growbie helps students overcome cultural barriers and establish rich professional connections.

How It Started: Founded in 2022 by Boston University graduate Jashin Lin, Growbie was inspired by her own experiences attempting to navigate the US job market as a Chinese international student. Observing her fellow students struggling with the same issue, Lin founded Growbie to provide systematic networking education and community mentorship. The company has been incubated at Harvard Alumni Launch Lab and nurtured in the Harvard Innovation Labs environment.

Funding: Growbie has secured non-equity funding from StartOut and has been highlighted in various institutions, including having been listed as one of Boston's "Startups to Watch in 2024" by BostInno.

What You Can Learn: Growbie's success teaches us the importance of addressing distinctive problems underserved populations are encountering. By using personal narratives and institutional funding, startups are able to create winning solutions that resonate with their target audience.

Popple (Boston University)

What They Do: Popple is a social media app that employs AI to connect college students based on mutual interests and invite them to attend events in groups. Popple exists to combat the loneliness epidemic among young people by making real-life connections through activities like club meetings, concerts, and volunteering.

How It Started: Boston University students Remi Chester and Prianna Sharan created a startup called Popple based on their own experiences with loneliness on campus. Seeing the challenges faced by making in-person connections with fellow students, they designed Popple to take up the slack. The app took shape through BU's Innovate@BU program, where they had mentorship from Professor Ian Mashiter and raised $15,000 in seed capital following being selected as runner-up in the university's flagship innovation competition. Here is the complete news story.

Funding: Popple has also received a total of $25,000 funding. Popple was also chosen as one of the youngest teams in the 2024 MassChallenge Boston accelerator cohort, and this opened them up to being able to access consultants, branding experts, and investors to assist in their acceleration.

What You Can Learn: Popple's experience demonstrates the impact that can be created when addressing a social issues such as student isolation, with a tech-driven approach. By combining individual drive, institutional support, and incremental improvement, student entrepreneurs are able to create platforms that resonate with peers and establish meaningful connections in communities.

Build You Marketing (Babson College)

What They Do: Build You Marketing is a boutique marketing and public relations agency that develops LinkedIn content and media relations for founders, executives, and companies. The agency builds brands' communities of loyalists through the use of social media, email marketing, and press campaigns in order to create customer word-of-mouth marketing, loyalty, and retention.

How It Began: Jake Ross founded Build You Marketing in 2022 during his sophomore year at Babson College. He had been motivated by his experience of building a sports trading card YouTube channel to over 11,500 viewers, where he could witness the power of community firsthand. Having had some agency experience, he then decided to freelance and pitched his idea at a Babson College pitch, getting his first client and formally beginning Build You Marketing.

Funding: While the actual funding numbers are not released, Build You Marketing has experienced phenomenal growth to over six figures in annual recurring revenue within a two-year period. The agency has six employees and has served over 90 clients across 16 industries and 12 states.

What You Can Learn: Build You Marketing's trajectory showcases the importance of community building in establishing a brand. By focusing on authentic storytelling and leveraging platforms like LinkedIn, the agency demonstrates that consistent, value-driven content can establish trust and conversations. Their success demonstrates that it is possible, with intentionality, dedication, and appropriate application of digital tools, for would-be business owners to create formidable businesses which resonate with diverse audiences.

What’s Their Secret to Juggling It All Amid a Packed School Schedule?

“Balance is the key” is a phrase many successful students - and those on their way - live by. They carve out time by dedicating late nights, weekends, and even summer breaks to make real progress on their ventures.

Finding the right cofounder with complementary skills (and compatible schedules) creates a powerful partnership that keeps momentum going. Many schools support this journey by encouraging students to turn class projects into real businesses, and local microgrants and competitions provide seed funding to fuel promising ideas.

Beyond the classroom, these student founders dive into the local startup scene - attending pitch nights, joining hackathons, and seeking guidance from professors and mentors. Being in Boston, a hub for innovation, means surrounding yourself with others who speak the startup language, which helps build clarity and confidence quickly. You’ll even find students using coworking spaces between classes, turning downtime into brainstorming sessions and office hours into pitch practice. For these founders, hustle and innovation don’t wait until graduation - they start now.

Don’t Wait Until Graduation: Start Your Startup Journey Now

From networking and learning  at Startup Boston Week to creating a startup over 54 hours at Techstars Startup Weekend, there is no shortage of onramps for student founders to get plugged in quickly. With an ecosystem this highly connected, startup culture is as accessible as looking up your course schedule - just check out the Startup Boston Event Calendar to see where else you can plug-in! 

And, remember, that Boston student life isn’t just about lectures and late-night study sessions - it’s also a launchpad for the next generation of founders. If you have an idea, there’s likely a campus accelerator nearby. Looking for a cofounder? You’re surrounded by incredible talent. And if you’re ready to build something serious, Boston’s startup ecosystem has everything you need to turn your side project into a real company.

In short, you don’t have to wait until graduation to get started. Boston proves that startups can - and do - grow between classes.

So go ahead: pilot your idea, pitch it, and build it. Your startup journey might already be underway.

And don’t forget to attend Startup Boston Week this September to get more involved in your local startup community! Free ticket here. 

About the author: Tanmay Sangam is currently pursuing his Master’s in Project Management at Northeastern University. A published writer with a passion for storytelling, he recently joined Startup Boston's content writing team. Tanmay aspires to work with innovative founders and one day launch his venture. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, writing poetry, and connecting with like-minded individuals. You can connect with him here.