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04.11
Entrepreneurs’ Network Celebrates 20 Years of Entrepreneurship Education
By Christina Inge and Fausto Molinet
For 20 years now, greater Boston
and eastern New England tech entrepreneurs have
had a local resource to turn to for training,
ideas on how to run a lean, effective startup
business, access to top VCs, and, most
importantly, a sounding board of other startup
founders. It’s a program that its board and
members, many of whom have been serving right
from the beginning, are rightly proud of.
The IEEE Boston Entrepreneur’s
Network, ENET, turns 20 this year with a low-key
celebration that is typical of an organization
that has transformed entrepreneurship with solid
help for a thriving population of entrepreneurs.
Originally funded by the Boston Section, ENET
has become a self sustaining entity and now
supports the Section for membership development,
events, conferences and social gatherings.
At monthly meetings in Foley
Hoag’s Waltham Center for Emerging Enterprise,
participants gather to learn from panel
discussions featuring an ever-changing roster of
seasoned experts in fields of startup law,
marketing, and finance. Last month’s meeting
dove deep into term sheets, an
often-intimidating issue that drew a capacity
crowd eager to understand the financial ins and
outs of running their new startups. Each month’s
panel offers up a crucial, hour-long overview of
a single aspect of running a startup, with
opportunities to network and ask questions of
experts who normally charge $100 an hour or
more. The depth of what the meetings cover is
also unique: “The monthly panels try to provide
almost a year course in entrepreneurship from
startup technology-based entrepreneurs,
beginning with our September panel on “Launching
a Successful Company” to our final panel on
“Exit Strategies” says current ENET Executive
Committee Chairman Robert Adelson, a Boston
attorney who represents startup companies and
has served on ENET’s board since 2002. “I’ve
moderated such panels as “Taking Your Company
from Nothing to Something,” “Licensing
Technology” and “Legal Challenges to the Startup
Company”.
ENET started in 1991 as a
standing committee of the IEEE Boston Section,
and retains its ties to IEEE, which has over
400,000 members worldwide. Yet it maintains its
own character, with its own Advisory Board, many
of whom are not IEEE members, and programming.
It casts a broad net to include innovators in
all areas of technology, from mobile apps to
biotech. ”ENET began based on the need to
educate engineers who had good ideas in the
basics of entrepreneurship. Over the years we
have stayed close to the original intent and
have enjoyed considerable success in doing so,”
says Fausto Molinet, one of the original
founding team. With ten meetings a year and
nearly 100 people at each, ENET has served
approximately 20,000 attendees. Three business
plan competitions awarded nearly $100,000 in
cash and services to winners. Fausto adds, “The
influence of advisors, speakers and members from
outside of IEEE has been critical to developing
and sustaining our programs. They bring
knowledge from beyond the engineering profession
that is critical for ENET and entrepreneurs of
all kinds to know and understand. We also
advertise our meetings in all of the local
publications and web resources we can. This
increases the number of people who learn about
our events.”
Robert Adelson says further,
“Each meeting also offers ample opportunity for
networking for an hour before we start the panel
and then for 45 minutes after we complete, with
a good mix of entrepreneurs, people who want to
join startup companies, service providers and
some funders. I meet different entrepreneurs
each month and many matches are made at our
meetings.” He adds, “We’ve also had networking
events in Cambridge with a single speaker and
have concluded each year in July with a
networking sunset cruise of Boston harbor. Last
year a crowd of over 180 attended our
“EntrepreneurShip 2010”, ENET’s 9th
annual networking boat cruise.”
One of the hallmarks of ENET
meetings is the eMinute, a pitch by a very early
stage startup that actually lasts a more
comfortable 90 seconds. The eMinute affords
pre-funding startups a precious spotlight in a
room full of potential supporters, including
VCs. Recent eMinute presenter Jeffrey Peden,
founder of the social media/restaurant industry
startup CraveLabs, notes the experience can be
an essential catapult: “You're pitching to a
large audience of fellow entrepreneurs,
investors, and startup enthusiasts who may not
be a part of the typical Cambridge networking
event scene. Even if you only come away with one
new high-quality connection it's absolutely
worth the time -- and the odds of at least one
are very good.” Peden, who had a standing-room
only crowd at the March event, notes “it was a
great experience.”
If you would like to learn more
about ENET, visit
http://www.boston-enet.org. If you would
like advice on starting an Entrepreneurs’ group
in your section or region, contact Fausto
Molinet at
f.e.molinet@ieee.org or
Michael S. Chester,
m.chester@ieee.org.
Christina Inge is ENET's marketing
chair and Fausto Molinet is chair of the
Entrepreneurs’ Network Standing Committee.
Comments may be submitted to
todaysengineer@ieee.org.
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