Feb 8, 2013
Startups & Venture Capital
Harvard student helps spread VC money to entrepreneurs at local colleges
Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal
W. Marc Bernsau
Thanks to Hollywood, we all know that Facebook was born in a Harvard dorm room.
Yet Facebook’s beginnings are not exactly unique: Students at Harvard and other schools across the country are forever tinkering and innovating, coming up with ideas for businesses and sowing the seeds of startups.
It’s Peter Boyce’s goal to draw those ideas out of residence halls and foster them for real-world inception.
The Harvard senior, 22, is a co-founder of RoughDraft.VC, an investment fund run largely by and for students.
“We’re really trying to provide support at the earliest stage,” said Boyce, a New York City native who is studying applied math and computer science. “We’re helping students continue to be students, while also helping them build their products.”
Launched in December, RoughDraft.VC provides initial small investments – convertible loans with no discounts or caps – to projects born from the minds of students at Boston-area colleges. The initiative is funded by Cambridge-based venture capital firm General Catalyst Partners, and was co-founded by General Catalyst principal Bilal Zuberi.
Although Boston students are fortunate to be in a rich and supportive entrepreneurial community, Boyce said, their projects can often get stuck at the earliest stages because they simply don’t have the small amounts of funding they need to get started. The idea is to provide that early push, he said – whether it’s a few hundred dollars or several thousand – so that they can develop their product, and seek further assistance from incubators, accelerators, or more robust investments from larger investment firms. (RoughDraft.VC does not provide follow-up funding.)
“These are serious entrepreneurs,” Zuberi said. “They just happen to be students, broke like I was when I was a student, and a small amount of financial support could help them take their project to the next step.”
It’s something Boyce has wanted to see for years, he said. Describing himself as a “computer geek” who always followed technology trends, his first foray into entrepreneurship came with a computer consulting business he launched as a high school junior. In college, he established HackHarvard, a student-led endeavor now in its third year that provides support, mentorship, and various resources and technical skills – but not monetary support – to students launching their first startups. He also spent a year-and-a-half working at education startup Skillshare.
Ultimately, he said, he’s dedicated to helping student entrepreneurs because they’re in such a unique spot. College provides a “density” of talent and a lends itself to a “special coming together of skills,” he said. Plus, students can be perpetual optimists — they don’t always think about risks, barriers or limits.
“College students are well-placed to continue making some of the biggest technology companies that we’re going to see,” he said.
Which is where RoughDraft.VC hopes to come in. The group — comprised of students from Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Babson College and Tufts University — heard its first group of pitches in late January, and plans to make a funding announcement this month, Boyce said.
But much as he finds inspiration in his fellow students, others are equally admiring of his advocacy and tenacity.
“He has been passionate about entrepreneurship from the day he landed at Harvard, and I think this allows him to finally help create an institution that would continue to serve the student community beyond his stay on campus,” said Zuberi, calling Boyce a “community builder.”
Original story link here.
Yet Facebook’s beginnings are not exactly unique: Students at Harvard and other schools across the country are forever tinkering and innovating, coming up with ideas for businesses and sowing the seeds of startups.
It’s Peter Boyce’s goal to draw those ideas out of residence halls and foster them for real-world inception.
The Harvard senior, 22, is a co-founder of RoughDraft.VC, an investment fund run largely by and for students.
“We’re really trying to provide support at the earliest stage,” said Boyce, a New York City native who is studying applied math and computer science. “We’re helping students continue to be students, while also helping them build their products.”
Launched in December, RoughDraft.VC provides initial small investments – convertible loans with no discounts or caps – to projects born from the minds of students at Boston-area colleges. The initiative is funded by Cambridge-based venture capital firm General Catalyst Partners, and was co-founded by General Catalyst principal Bilal Zuberi.
Although Boston students are fortunate to be in a rich and supportive entrepreneurial community, Boyce said, their projects can often get stuck at the earliest stages because they simply don’t have the small amounts of funding they need to get started. The idea is to provide that early push, he said – whether it’s a few hundred dollars or several thousand – so that they can develop their product, and seek further assistance from incubators, accelerators, or more robust investments from larger investment firms. (RoughDraft.VC does not provide follow-up funding.)
“These are serious entrepreneurs,” Zuberi said. “They just happen to be students, broke like I was when I was a student, and a small amount of financial support could help them take their project to the next step.”
It’s something Boyce has wanted to see for years, he said. Describing himself as a “computer geek” who always followed technology trends, his first foray into entrepreneurship came with a computer consulting business he launched as a high school junior. In college, he established HackHarvard, a student-led endeavor now in its third year that provides support, mentorship, and various resources and technical skills – but not monetary support – to students launching their first startups. He also spent a year-and-a-half working at education startup Skillshare.
Ultimately, he said, he’s dedicated to helping student entrepreneurs because they’re in such a unique spot. College provides a “density” of talent and a lends itself to a “special coming together of skills,” he said. Plus, students can be perpetual optimists — they don’t always think about risks, barriers or limits.
“College students are well-placed to continue making some of the biggest technology companies that we’re going to see,” he said.
Which is where RoughDraft.VC hopes to come in. The group — comprised of students from Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Babson College and Tufts University — heard its first group of pitches in late January, and plans to make a funding announcement this month, Boyce said.
But much as he finds inspiration in his fellow students, others are equally admiring of his advocacy and tenacity.
“He has been passionate about entrepreneurship from the day he landed at Harvard, and I think this allows him to finally help create an institution that would continue to serve the student community beyond his stay on campus,” said Zuberi, calling Boyce a “community builder.”
Original story link here.
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