Rise Of The Mincubator

We’ve moved – just down the street, not far from our previous hosts (LocaModa) on Sidney. We are now at 84 Hamilton St, still in Central Sq (which is absolutely fabo-licious), right across the street from the Myerson Tooth Corporation and just down from the Good News Garage (of Car Talk fame).

84 Hamilton
Our new hosts are CityVoter, client and friend to the startup. The story goes like this. One day, after looking at a potential sublet space, we happened to bump into Josh Walker from CityVoter at Starbucks. “What up?”, sez Josh. “Looking for space”, sez us. “You should check out our space”, sez Josh. “Can we bring our friends?”, sez us. “Sure!”, sez Josh. And so, our Mini-incubator (or Mincubator as it’s commonly known), consisting of Rocket Farm, Noteflight, and MedicalRecords.com, moved, en-masse, from LocaModa down the street to CityVoter.
The lessons here? 2 biggies.
1) As an entrepreneur you have to dream for what you want and never stop asking. When LocaModa informed us (Rocket Farm, NoteFlight, and MedicalRecords.com) that they were expanding and needed their space back we set a goal: “let’s keep all three companies together and find another place where we can keep the magic going.” All three companies have been hosted, gratis, by LocaModa for almost 2 years. Thanks LocaModa, we wrote back in August. And the Mincubator has been great. We (RocketFarm) are working with Noteflight on a project to bring their amazing music technology to the iPad; we brainstorm all the time with Ace from MedicalRecords. So keeping the companies together was obvious. Bumping into Josh from CityVoter was happenstance. Asking about space was not! You have to dream about what you want and never stop asking and trying for it. Determination rules all in startup land.
2) The second lesson is the miracle of Mincubators. Stephen Randall from LocaModa blessed us with internet and a ceiling, and a collaborative environment for almost 2 years. Now Josh Walker from CityVoter comes along and does the same thing. Is this a characteristic of Dace portfolio companies? Not sure. But we are sure that we love it. It’s amazing as a startup to have that kind of sponsorship from bigger companies.
Word is that the Mincubator concept is active and growing throughout Cambridge and the Boston area. David Cancel from Performable is rumored to be interviewing startups to help fill out their new space in Central Sq. From the intrepid Dan Stevenson from T3 Advisors: “As far as mini-incubators, here is a list of companies and/or clients that really support the ecosystem by helping give start ups a home:”