Wednesday, April 11, 2012

The Betaspring Difference

On Monday, April 9th we presented our company to the world for the first time at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce's annual Congressional Breakfast with the entire Rhode Island Congressional Delegation: Senator Reed, Senator Whitehouse, Rep. Langevin and Rep. Cicilline. The opportunity came to us from Laurie White, the President of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce. I met Laurie at the Betaspring open house on March 8th and just a month later she had me in front of the not only Rhode Island's Congressional Delegation, but also 500 members of the business community. That leads me to the Betaspring difference and why we're excited to be building our company in Providence.

Betaspring is the start up accelerator that brought us to Providence. We were selected along with 15 other teams to participate out of nearly 250 applicants. Getting accepted into Betaspring has been game-changing for us. As I said when I was interviewed for this blog post, “We found a lot of champions here in Providence that helped us get connected and we did in Providence in 12 weeks what it took us 12 months to do alone in Boston. We were a snowflake and now we are an avalanche. It’s fun to build a company when you are excited about what you are working on and you can do it in an environment like Betaspring."

The 15 other teams here are all great. We are constantly collaborating with one another on our projects. We are all focused on our individual success but we also want to see our colleagues succeed as well. Being in Betaspring is like being in a fraternity where everyone is super bright and motivated (note: we do in fact have a ping-pong table and a kegerator at Betaspring HQ).

For anyone starting up a company I would invite them to do it in Providence. People here will be rooting for you and you can join an emerging entrepreneurial community that I'm proud to be a part of.