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Startups at 351 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, MA
Scott Kirsner had a fun article in Boston.com today titled The Red Line Tour of Innovation in Boston. Several of the stops were regularly hang outs of mine between 1983 and 1995 most notably #10 (Miracle of Science) and #11 (Toscanini’s) but also including #5 (MIT Media Lab), #6 (Muddy Charles Pub), #7 (MIT Lobby 7), and #8 (Central Square and the Necco Factory – back when they made Necco wafers.)
I lived at ADP at 351 Massachusetts Avenue for four years as an undergraduate at MIT. It was the first frat I went to when the freshman picnic ended (Mark Dodson grabbed me, shoved me in a white van, and said “you are coming with me.”) I stayed the first night and never left. Yes – it was a fraternity.
But we were also nerds. There was something in the water and a lot of companies were created. Scott got a few of them such as Colin Angle of iRobot, Jeet Singh and Joe Chung of ATG, and Frank van Mierlo of Bluefin Robotics, but I thought I’d add a few more. While the founders of Harmonix (the guys that brought us Rock Band and Guitar Hero) came from the Media Lab, one of them (Eran Egozy) also lived at ADP. As did my first business partner Dave Jilk, who is now CEO of Standing Cloud. And two of the founders of Oblong – John Underkoffler and Kevin Parent. Let’s not forget two well known VCs – Sameer Gandhi (Accel) and Mark Siegel (Menlo). Oh – and Carl Dietrich’s flying car from Terrafugia. We also lived next door (WILG – 355 Mass Ave) to some other impressive entrepreneurs including Megan Smith (Google and PlanetOut). There have been plenty of others through the years – these are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. If you should be on the ADP entrepreneur list, please comment on this blog and add your name for posterity (and Google searches).
My first company (Feld Technologies) used 351 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139 as my office address for the first few years of its life (I officially started the company as a sophomore, although my partner Dave Jilk joined me shortly after I got my undergraduate degree.) But Feld Technologies wasn’t the first company I started at 351 Massachusetts Avenue – that honor went to Martingale Software and my partners Dave Jilk, Sameer Gandhi, Andy Mina, and Jeff Pierick. We raised $10k, bought a Lisa and a Compaq luggable, earned about $7k, and eventually folded the company and sent the $7k back to our investors.
During the four years I lived there and the two years I had an office at 875 Main Street, I ate an enormous amount of ice cream at Toscanini’s. To this day, Cocoa Pudding with chocolate fudge syrup on top rates as the best ice cream choice I’ve ever had on planet Earth.
One fall, after Feld Technologies had moved to Boston, we hired a recent graduate from Brown named Jonathan Lutes. While interviewing him I asked what he had done over the summer. He mumbled something like “screwed around a lot and built a bar called Miracle of Science with my brother Eric.” Yup – same bar – this was 1990-ish – and it was at 321 Massachusetts Avenue.
Sometimes I actually miss the smell of Necco wafers in the morning. It smells like ADP.
Can't forget Jeet Singh and Joe Chung at ATG. Or Colin Angle of iRobot. And Pehr Anderson and Chris Gadda who started and sold NBX. Or Hien An at Locamoda.
For a fraternity chapter that hasn't hit 35 years old yet, we've got an amazing set of alumni.
Yup – Jeet, Joe (ATG) and Colin (iRobot) were in the article. But I forgot Pehr and Chris and didn’t know about Hien. Yes – pretty amazing gang.
"There was something in the water and a lot of companies were created." This sounds like an amazing time, Brad. Is the atmosphere then something like the atmosphere of TechStars?
Cool post!
You see this alot in the Bay Area. If it were not for my family and friends over the years helping me to live the life of an entrepreneur then I would not be where im at today. It truly is atmosphere and local culture. In many parts of the world and even USA people are encouraged to get a "job" and rarely do we see a culture motivated to help entrepreneurs.
That party looks fun!
One thing I don't like about the life of an entrepreneur is I don't get excited about much these days. I get excited after the check is in the bank
Too many broken deals and the days before a big deal has a stress buildup that forces you to relax.
On second thought…..I get excited seeing others happy. Especially seeing children experience something exciting for the first time…..that is fun
What I will never lose is passion, that I can be sure of…..
Bubble party…hmmm never did that
Nice post! Although the NECCO factory has become a pharmaceutical company, you can still smell the delicious aroma of chocolate and mint from the Junior Mints being made in Central Square on some days, over near Royal East.
While there are some similarities, there are plenty of differences. However, one similarity is that bounds are formed for life.
Love this post, brings back all kinds of great memories.
I was a member of one of the Boston-side fraternities, which became the launchpad for a few companies, the most well-known of which are Dropbox and Xobni.
If it weren’t for the weather, I’d really miss MIT.
Steve Gordon has started a couple of successful businesses; I'm not positive but I believe Geoff Gardner started his investment firm; Joe D'Ambrosio has Ibis (investments). That's just the pledge class of 1977, and I'm sure I'm missing some.
Also Mark Stiffler started Synygy, a hugely successful software company.
My opinion is that Kevin Ossler had a lot of influence on this. Although as far as I know Kevin never started a business, he, we, and everybody talked about it constantly. There was a feeling of "what are we waiting for," and a few years later, brothers stopped waiting. Once that ball was rolling, a certain kind of person was rushed.
Inspired thought on Kevin's influence. I hadn't thought of that, but it's a biggie. And I can't believe I forgot Steve Gordon (we were in YEO together) and Stiffler – oh well, my memory is getting enhanced by the crowd.
I can't imagine that the alcohol consumption at TechStars could be comparable to that of the house.
In addition to the people who founded startups, there are a large number of us who've been involved in significant, other roles.
And Tosci's Cocoa Pudding with Hot Peppermint Fudge is responsible for at least 10 pounds that I'm carrying around to this day.
Hi guys. Mike Curley also has a couple of medical device companies he started. My first company, IAS (Intelligent Automation Systems), was sold to Brooks Automation (NASD:BRKS) in 2002. My current company, IBS (Intelligent Bio-Systems), has developed a new DNA sequencing technology, which is a really hot area. I suppose that means I better quickly find the next thing that starts with a "C" (ICS).
Wasn't Dave Hoch constantly trying to sell people LED gizmos? At one point, it was guests at house parties…then a few years ago I read about Hoch Spokes, something to generate patterns on spinning bike wheels.
Bernie Chen runs (or did) an investment consulting house, Madison Group, or something like that.
Entrepeneurial in an academic sense, if that's not too much a contradiction, Jay Walsh is Vice President for Research at Northwestern University.
[...] arriving here that go back to 1994. I personally have stories going back to 1984 when I first met John, but we’ll save those for another [...]
[...] origins: arriving here that go back to 1994. I personally have stories going back to 1984 when I first met John, but we’ll save those for another [...]
[...] businesses were born with entrepreneurial genes. VC and former entrepreneur Brad Feld also blogged about how many of his frat buddies at MIT had become successful entrepreneurs. Were all of these [...]
[...] businesses were born with entrepreneurial genes. VC and former entrepreneur Brad Feld also blogged about how many of his frat buddies at MIT had become successful entrepreneurs. Were all of these [...]
[...] businesses were born with entrepreneurial genes. VC and former entrepreneur Brad Feld also blogged about how many of his frat buddies at MIT had become successful entrepreneurs. Were all of these [...]
[...] businesses were born with entrepreneurial genes. VC and former entrepreneur Brad Feld also blogged about how many of his frat buddies at MIT had become successful entrepreneurs. Were all of these [...]
[...] businesses were born with entrepreneurial genes. VC and former entrepreneur Brad Feld also blogged about how many of his frat buddies at MIT had become successful entrepreneurs. Were all of these [...]
[...] businesses were born with entrepreneurial genes. VC and former entrepreneur Brad Feld also blogged about how many of his frat buddies at MIT had become successful entrepreneurs. Were all of these [...]
[...] businesses were born with entrepreneurial genes. VC and former entrepreneur Brad Feld also blogged about how many of his frat buddies at MIT had become successful entrepreneurs. Were all of these [...]
[...] businesses were born with entrepreneurial genes. VC and former entrepreneur Brad Feld also blogged about how many of his frat buddies at MIT had become successful entrepreneurs. Were all of these [...]
[...] businesses were born with entrepreneurial genes. VC and former entrepreneur Brad Feld also blogged about how many of his frat buddies at MIT had become successful entrepreneurs. Were all of these [...]
[...] and former entrepreneur Brad Feld also blogged about how many of his frat buddies at MIT had become successful entrepreneurs. Were all of these [...]
[...] businesses were born with entrepreneurial genes. VC and former entrepreneur Brad Feld also blogged about how many of his frat buddies at MIT had become successful entrepreneurs. Were all of these [...]
[...] story is repeated over and over again. There’s the Google Mafia (another article), 351 Massachusetts Mafia in Boston, and our very own About.com Mafia in New [...]
[...] businesses were born with entrepreneurial genes. VC and former entrepreneur Brad Feld also blogged about how many of his frat buddies at MIT had become successful entrepreneurs. Were all of these [...]
[...] businesses were born with entrepreneurial genes. VC and former entrepreneur Brad Feld also blogged about how many of his frat buddies at MIT had become successful entrepreneurs. Were all of these [...]
While there are some similarities, there are plenty of differences. However, one similarity is that bounds are formed for life.
[...] businesses were born with entrepreneurial genes. VC and former entrepreneur Brad Feld also blogged about how many of his frat buddies at MIT had become successful entrepreneurs. Were all of these [...]
waw..
thats amazing..
wow… it seems that its a great party
Nice.. Thanks