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Innovate413 Looks to Fuel New Startups for the Region

By
Paul Silva
Cover Story

Getting the Band Back Together

Paul Silva

Paul Silva

They’re calling it VVM 2.0.

And that nickname for a new initiative called Innovate413 says a lot, said Paul Silva, who will be leading this effort to spark new, tech-based startups in the region, while not repeating some of the mistakes of the original VVM, Valley Venture Mentors.

Chief among them is getting into the real estate business, said Silva, noting that he was president of VVM when many of its board members pushed for a physical presence, and got one in the form of a building on Bridge Street in downtown Springfield that now bears no trace of the agency, which exists essentially on paper as an affiliate of the Western Massachusetts Economic Development Council, but hasn’t been active for years.

“One of the things that killed VVM was getting that space, because then you become a landlord, and then you’re tied to all the challenges of having space, as opposed to being focused on entrepreneurs — we’re not doing that again,” said Silva, quickly moving past the problems that visited the once-impactful nonprofit and focusing on the positive energy and dozens of startups it fostered in its better days.

It was this energy — and startups nurtured by VVM, such as Northampton-based Machine Metrics, and the critical need for more — that prompted Steve Davis, a director with the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation, to reach out to Silva and commence a dialogue about creating a new engine for fueling startups in the region.

These talks would eventually lead to the creation of Innovate413, what Silva calls a new kind of venture studio, one designed, according to the recently launched website, “to help bold ideas grow, connect founders to game-changing partners, and build the next generation of employers right here at home.”

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that there’s trouble when big companies are shrinking and there aren’t any new companies being born … that’s not going to be great for us 20 years from now.”

With $150,000 in seed money from the Davis Foundation and another $100,000 from the MassMutual Foundation, Silva explained, Innovate413 will seek to foster startups and put them on the path to success by providing what he called “an unfair advantage.”

Elaborating, he said this advantage will come in two forms — access to potential customers, meaning large regional employers that will talk about problems facing them and all those in their industries, and access to the latest artificial intelligence and product development techniques.

“When you’re in Silicon Valley or in Boston, you have access to that stuff, but the vast majority of the country doesn’t,” he noted, adding that access, in this case, comes largely from the Center for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (CDS) at the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass Amherst.

“This isn’t just an ivory tower institution — they actually work with the business community,” said Silva, adding that CDS is one of many catalysts that will work with startups through Innovate413 and help provide them with that unfair advantage.

Machine Metrics, profiled in this 2015 edition of BusinessWest, is an example of the kind of tech-based startup that Innovate413 will look to cultivate.

“Most programs have mentors — we’ve learned that we must go further,” said Silva, noting that these catalysts are businesses and organizations with pressing challenges and powerful networks. Early catalyst partners include the CDS, manufacturers such as Belt Technologies and OMG, the Human Services Forum, and PixelEdge, which builds software to give business leaders a competitive edge (more on that later).

Access to these catalysts can give entrepreneurs the equivalent of a running head start, he said, adding that startups will need any advantage they can get to move off the ground and then become scalable.

For this issue, BusinessWest talked with Silva about Innovate413, its importance, its mission — and how it will carry it out.

 

Bringing Back the Magic

As he discussed all that, Silva stressed that this agency is itself essentially a startup, one that, as noted earlier, has been given some seed money to solve a problem.

“I said, ‘look, I’m going to practice what I preach — here’s a small amount of money to try a new way; how do we do things in a way that will be more sustainable and engaging for the region?’” he said, summing up what he told those funding this pilot program. “‘And we should be able to figure out if we’re on the right track within a year; if not, you shouldn’t keep funding it. If we are, great — I’ll come back and ask for more money.’”

He emphasized that the need for an agency focused on fostering startups, and the need for that agency to succeed, is clear — and pressing.

“Steve Davis and I were commiserating on the tragedy of what’s happened to the entrepreneurship ecosystem since VVM’s demise,” he explained. “It’s on the order of 5% as many scalable startups being generated as there used to be.”

Elaborating, he said the region was generating as many as 50 scalable startups a year through VVM, and now, there are maybe a handful.

“Meanwhile … big companies are relocating jobs, and there’s not a lot of stories about companies moving tons of jobs to this area — it happens, but the trend has not been good,” Silva noted. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that there’s trouble when big companies are shrinking and there aren’t any new companies being born … that’s not going to be great for us 20 years from now.

“So, Steve Davis asked me if I’d consider putting together a proposal, and a team, to bring the magic back,” he went on, adding that the proposal has become Innovate413, and in many respects, he is putting the band back together — meaning many of the mentors and supporters in the business community that made the original VVM so successful.

But Silva wanted to stress what’s different about this agency, beyond the real estate factor. To do that, he talked about what’s he’s learned from other startup-related agencies, such as MassChallenge, about what has made them successful.

“They have to find a way to create an unfair advantage for their startups that’s tied to the local economy,” he told BusinessWest, adding that this generally comes from access to customers — specifically, a pilot customer that can help a startup get off the launch pad.

“We’re bringing in big regional employers to have them talk about the problems they and their industry are facing, so that entrepreneurs won’t be coming up with some random idea and having no idea if anyone gives a crap,” he explained.

“We’re bringing in big regional employers to have them talk about the problems they and their industry are facing, so that entrepreneurs won’t be coming up with some random idea and having no idea if anyone gives a crap.”

“Instead, they’ll be someone with pain and a budget sitting across the table from me, who, as long as I’m nice, will go out for coffee with me,” he went on, assuming the role of an entrepreneur. “And if I make progress, they’ll keep going out for coffee with me, and they might even become my customer.”

To drive home the importance of such encounters with catalysts, he related the story of Machine Metrics.

“They stood up at a VVM meeting and said, ‘we make software that makes factories run more efficiently,’” Silva recalled. “And Al Kasper said, ‘I have a factory, and I’d like it to run more efficiently.’”

Kasper, then CEO (now retired) at Westfield-based Savage Arms, became sufficiently impressed with what he saw and heard, and Savage became the pilot customer for Machine Metrics, Silva went on, adding that Kasper introduced the team to its eventual second customer.

“For a startup, you’ve got to get that pilot customer in a narrow window of time,” he continued. “Otherwise … you’re dead. No one’s going to want to work with you. You’re stale; you’ve been around too long.

“So, we’re going to cheat,” he continued, adding that, by bringing in large employers with pain of some form, entrepreneurs can find problems to solve — and often realize that the solution is something they’ve been working on, or at least thinking about.

“Entrepreneurs can see if there’s something they can be passionate about, or maybe they were thinking about a solution that could solve a variety of different problems. And now they find … ‘back when I worked in healthcare, we solved this problem over and over again. These guys in manufacturing have the same problem; they just use different nouns and verbs. I’ll go work on that.’”

 

Starting Something

Such encounters will be one of the main thrusts of Innovate413, which will start to ramp up this fall — with events with names such as ‘idea jams,’ ‘startup sprints,’ and ‘hackathons’ — while also giving entrepreneurs exposure to cutting-edge AI and product development techniques through the AI center at UMass and PixelEdge, which Silva serves as chief innovation officer.

“The CDS and PixelEdge are donating the training, skills, and consulting to any startup that gets into the program so they can now have access to the most modern tools,” Silva explained, adding that access to such resources can help entrepreneurs dramatically reduce the time and expense of bringing a product or service to market.

“These days, there’s a number of situations where you don’t need a technical co-founder to get off the ground. You can use AI to build you an ugly, minimally viable product to get off the ground; you can use AI to let you do the thing that would have taken five people before. You still need the humans — humans working really hard — but if there’s one thing startups don’t have, it’s a lot of people, because they’re broke. This lets them magnify their capabilities.”

Overall, Innovate413 is a hybrid of many different models within the nation’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, said Silva, adding that several elements are being borrowed from DeltaClime VT, an accelerator based in Burlington, Vt. that serves startup and seed-stage ventures focused on climate economy innovation across multiple industries.

Among other initiatives, that agency puts entrepreneurs in front of utility companies to help identify solutions for that sector, he noted, adding that companies from across the country gather in Burlington for that opportunity.

As for events, programs are slated for early this fall at UMass Amherst, Mount Holyoke College, and Western New England University, he said, adding that these will likely include some gatherings with large employers, ase well as hackathons, which he likened to inventors’ contests.

“They usually take place over the course of a weekend,” Silva explained. “You bring together a lot of engineering-type people, you give them some tools, you talk about some types of problems, and they basically spend the entire weekend hacking — trying to build something to solve that problem.”

From there, the goal will be to turn that solution into a business, he said, adding that it’s a leap to go from developing technology to creating a startup and enrolling in an accelerator program to bring it to the market.

Efforts to facilitate such leaps are an element of the entrepreneurial ecosystem that has been mostly missing for the past several years, he noted, adding that Innovate413 was created to close the gap and grow the startup population in the region.

As with any startup, success is anything but assured, but Silva says the problem has been identified, and he believes he has a possible solution. As he said, we’ll certainly know more in a year.

For now, he’s getting the band back together. There will be a different sound, though, one focused on providing that much-needed unfair advantage.

 

This Could Be the Start of Something

By
Opinion

Editorial

 

Back in 2009, the first year BusinessWest staged its Difference Makers recognition program, the group of honorees included a relatively new nonprofit devoted to inspiring entrepreneurship and giving startups and early-stage companies a leg up as they sought to develop concepts and bring them to the market.

It was called Valley Venture Mentors, and its mission was relatively simple … give entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs exposure to mentors within the business community and provide programming to accelerate startup initiatives and get them off the ground. And the need was real, because new businesses weren’t coming to the region in large numbers, existing businesses were being merged into other entities at an increasingly alarming rate, and, because of these forces, new sources of jobs would be needed for the decades to come.

VVM, as it was called, was still in its infancy then, but it was already generating momentum and some positive results, enough to earn it the designation Difference Maker.

A dozen or so years later, VVM all but vanished from the landscape. We’re not sure what happened, but it was probably a combination of the pandemic, which robbed it of momentum and the ability to stage in-person meetings, changes in leadership, and other factors that led to dormancy — and a sizable hole in the region’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Recognizing the importance of filling this hole, a group led by Paul Silva, one of the early leaders of VVM and an entrepreneur himself who has created several ventures aimed at fostering startups, has launched Innovate413, or what they have nicknamed VVM 2.0 (see related story, page 4).

Silva joked that he was ‘getting the band back together,’ a reference to some of the mentors involved with the original VVM who will be participating with this version as well. But Innovate413 will go a step or two further.

Indeed, fueled by $250,000 in seed money from the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation and the MassMutual Foundation, the new nonprofit will seek to link entrepreneurs with mentors, but also catalysts in the form of access to potential customers (employers with problems that need solving) and access to the latest artificial intelligence and product-development technology from groups such as the Center for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (CDS) at the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences at UMass Amherst.

The broad goal, said Silva, is to provide teach-based startups with what he called “an unfair advantage,” meaning direct access to businesses looking for solutions. This will enable entrepreneurs to problem-solve and develop technology for which there is a recognized need, rather than developing a product or service and hope that a market for it will develop.

It sounds good on paper. Whether Innovate413 will succeed with this mission remains to be seen, but we are encouraged that the band is coming back together and that there is a concerted effort to fill this hole in the entrepreneurship ecosystem.

That’s because the need that was apparent back in 2009, is still painfully evident. The region is not attracting large employers, the pace of mergers and acquisitions is only accelerating, and, while there is a strong wave of entrepreneurship sweeping the region, there remains a need for new tech-based companies that will stay in the 413 and potentially become large sources of jobs.

We hope VVM 2.0 can generate some momentum on this front and become a Difference Maker in its own right.

Innovate413 Looks to Take Its Mission to a Higher Level

By
Robyn Caody, left, and Samalid Hogan are working to take Innovate413 to the next level as a resource to the region.
Entrepreneurship

Becoming a Resource

Robyn Caody, left, and Samalid Hogan are working to take Innovate413 to the next level as a resource to the region.

Robyn Caody, left, and Samalid Hogan are working to take Innovate413 to the next level as a resource to the region.

Samalid Hogan says that, when the website Innovate413 was launched roughly four years ago, it was with a desire to not only promote entrepreneurship and innovation in the region, but to inspire more of both.

And when she agreed to essentially take over the initiative early last year, she admitted the original goal was just to “keep it going,” as she put it, because she could clearly see the value it represented.

But rather than just keep it going, she has committed herself to taking its mission, and its offerings, to a much higher level. And with the help of a growing team that includes Robyn Caody, a business-culture and brand strategist who relocated to the region from New York City, Hogan, best known as director of the Western Mass. Small Business Development Center and winner of BusinessWest’s Continued Excellence Award last year, is doing just that.

Indeed, Innovate 413, or Inno413, for short, has become a multi-platform initiative, with a website (www.innovate413) as well as a monthly newsletter and comprehensive calendar of events related to entrepreneurship, professional development, and business management.

In addition to publishing original content, Innovate413 also aggregates and links to entrepreneurial news from outside sources, provides resources for entrepreneurs in the Pioneer Valley, and encourages its partner organizations to submit their own content highlighting innovative trends within their businesses.

The broad goals, said Hogan, are to educate and motivate the audience and also promote the region and all that’s happening within it, especially when it comes to a steadily growing startup community.

“There’s a big start-up culture here, a culture of creativity — I could sense that. But since I moved here, it’s been hard to find these people; I know they’re here, but where’s the community hub? How can I find out what people are doing? Innovate413 is a way to make that more obvious.”

“When I took it over, the goal was to just keep it alive and post items on the site,” she explained. “But now we’re actively engaged in taking this to the next level and making it much more of a resource.”

Caody agreed. She said she relocated to this region partly because of the large amounts of creativity and entrepreneurial spirit that exist here, and a desire to be part of all that. She joined Innovate413 to help shed some light on all that’s going on.

“There’s a big startup culture here, a culture of creativity — I could sense that,” she explained. “But since I moved here, it’s been hard to find these people; I know they’re here, but where’s the community hub? How can I find out what people are doing? Innovate413 is a way to make that more obvious.”

The content currently on the site provides an effective snapshot of the mission and how it’s carried out. There are several stories from the pages of BusinessWest — including those highlighting agencies such as TechSpring, Valley Venture Mentors, the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship at UMass Amherst, 1Berkshire, and others — and other media outlets. But there is more original content, such as a piece on the upcoming Demo Day, written by Paul Silva, president of Launch413, and short stories on individual businesses.

The site prints articles from agencies like TechSpring (one of the original founders of the site, along with Click Workspace and PixelEdge), Greentown Labs, and others, and submissions from individual entrepreneurs looking to help educate others or just tell their own story.

Headlines on educational stories currently on the site range from “Five Signs You Might Have Second-stage Business” to “Should You Get a Business Certification?” Meanwhile, there are profiles (again, many from BusinessWest) on agencies and businesses ranging from Happier Valley Comedy to Central Rock Gym.

The team at Innovate413 now includes Hogan; Caody, serving as chief Development officer; and Mychal Connolly Sr., an entrepreneur (he founded the venture Stinky Cakes), author, and speaker who serves as chief Marketing officer.

Together, they’re working to make the initiative more of a resource for area entrepreneurs — and the region as a whole — and an ever-more-important part of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Western Mass.

“There’s a lot of opportunity here because a lot of organizations that are not really innovative have found themselves wanting to innovate. And we can really be a resource to these agencies.”

The goal moving forward, said Hogan, is to create more original content, build a subscriber base for the monthly newsletter — there are currently a few hundred, and the goal is 1,000 — and continually build the calendar, which is becoming a popular and valuable resource,

Indeed, the calendar posts events being staged by 16 different area organizations within the ecosystem, and organizers do the hard work by pulling the items off those agencies’ websites.

“We post anything that helps entrepreneurs,” said Hogan. “That includes training and educational programs such as those on how to start a business, networking events, pitch competitions, leadership programs, things like Demo Day, blockchain-technology meetups … anything that helps educate entrepreneurs.”

And, looking down the road, those at Innovate413 have a vision of perhaps creating events to help promote entrepreneurship. As with the startups it spotlights, the initiative’s business plan is evolving, said Caody.

“Ultimately, we want to create a community of entrepreneurs and small-business owners,” she said, adding that there is a considerable amount of momentum building within the startup community and the ecosystem that supports it, and Innovate413 wants to tap that energy and use it to fuel additional growth.

Like any business in this region, Innovate413 has the broad goal to be sustainable, said both Hogan and Caody, adding that the initiative is laying a solid foundation that will enable it to do just that.

“There’s a gap when it comes to this kind of service in this region, and we’re filling it, slowly but surely,” said Hogan. “We’re getting there.”

Caody agreed. “There’s a lot of opportunity here because a lot of organizations that are not really innovative have found themselves wanting to innovate,” she explained. “And we can really be a resource to these agencies.”

—George O’Brien