What makes a good launch center?

Boston was ranked No. 1 among the top 25 startup hubs in the US according to a recent report by the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation and startup incubator 1776. Here are six factors that I believe allow a startup hub like Boston to be top :

1. Smart, well-educated young people. This – beyond venture capital, incubators or the presence of large, established companies – is the foundation for a rich business ecosystem. And smart, well-educated people, in turn, means the presence of major universities with strong research budgets. students from around the world; and a culture of practice-oriented, problem-solving education that leads to technological advantages (like Northeastern University).
2. Universities that are seen not only as a source of education, but also as a source of interesting, next-generation applications of science and technology. This is the spin-off idea. Evidence of education systems producing startups include active campus incubators and student-friendly technology licensing offices, as well as recent examples of successful ventures started by students or recent graduates. I believe that our universities are our greatest sources of innovation in the coming decades, and work should be done to make them even better seedbeds for the next great ventures. The focus of this work is to create an environment where students can start companies while they are still students. They shouldn't feel compelled to drop out of school to start a company, but participate in classes and incubation programs and receive the mentoring needed to develop an idea, test it, and then launch it after graduation . For example, in ours Business Accelerator by IDEA students at Northeastern, we have over 200 companies in process.
3. A strong local technology industry or scalable service industry. Most entrepreneurs have 5 to 10 years of work experience before starting their own businesses. Strong, growing companies are good and important training grounds for the disciplined business and R&D practices required for successful business development. About half of the founders in our IDEA incubator at Northeastern are recent graduates under the age of 30. And for the IDEA entrepreneurs who are current students, I have no doubt that Northeastern's co-op program prepares students with the maturity and industry wisdom necessary for successful entrepreneurship.
4. A culture of successful entrepreneurship. That means patterns of ventures that have started, scaled, and maybe even exited. It is success based on success. Over the summer, for example, we had a D'Amore-McKim graduate sell his company for nearly $300 million to Cisco and another for nearly $70 million to IBM. And earlier, about 50 ventures launched by IDEA in the past three years have now raised a total of more than $70 million in venture capital. These types of successes inspire young, aspiring entrepreneurs to take the plunge. At a deeper level, a society needs to respect entrepreneurs as innovators and contributors to the health and well-being of society. We take it for granted in the US, but in other countries, the cultural lack of respect for entrepreneurship remains a challenge.
5. Funding readily available for early prototyping for technology-intensive ventures. This can be in the form of angel or early-stage venture capital (where in fact, Northeastern has a number of alumni actively involved in angel and VC groups in the Boston area), government grants (such as our SBIR/STTR programs from the National Science Foundation or National Institutes of Health) or special funds from the universities themselves (we have an Alpha Fund at Northeastern specifically designed for this purpose).
6. A culture of older, successful entrepreneurs helping younger entrepreneurs. “Mentoring” of new entrepreneurs by older entrepreneurs has been, and always will be, an important component of any thriving business ecosystem. Many universities are now setting up their own mentoring groups. Northeastern's Health Sciences Entrepreneurs and the university Venture Mentor Network they collectively have more than 280 mentors involved with Northeastern startups. This is just one of the ways Northeastern has organized itself and its alumni to create one of the hottest and most active university business ecosystems in the country.