Imagine strutting up to a hip underground space right next to the water in the Fort Point neighborhood. As you cross the threshold, the black rubber band on your wrist cues a speaker to play your favorite song, select photos of you and friends spray across the wall and colored lights flash, illuminating a room walled with cutting-edge digital art and filled with mingling creatives and entrepreneurs.
But what sounds like swanky VIP treatment at a trendy nightclub will just be a regular event night at Blade, former KAYAKCo-founder Paul English’s bid to nurture more consumer tech companies and design expertise in Boston.
Friday, in particular, will be a special celebration – the official launch of Blade, and the beginning of a new startup chapter here in the Hub.
“Boston is a city not known for consumer products, which is really sad to me,” English told BostInno.
When the famed entrepreneur first got the idea six months ago, he went around to mentors and thought leaders from all over the country, and asked one question: If I were to fail in building a consumer foundry, why?
“[Y Combinator’s] Paul Graham said I’d fail because I’m in Boston,” admitted English. “That just really motivated me to say that if we want to be serious about building consumer tech brands in Boston ... we need to step up our game in design.”
And one way to get Boston innovators interested in sharpening their design skills is by making experts in the field available, and surrounding them with some high-quality and exciting examples.
The space is part startup hatchery, part artist showroom and part technology-fueled concert hall, complete with stage and D.J. stand. In addition to hosting monthly parties and mixers, Blade will host various seminar series, according to English, that will be open to the public, along with events in which programmers will be able to come in and “hack the space” – in other words, mess around and reprogram the interactive tech that peppers Blade, much of which was created by Robin, a spin-off project by Internet of Things and design startup One Mighty Roar.
“Blade really isn’t your standard office,” the company’s Co-founder and CEO Sam Dunn said, laughing. Much of the tech that Robin installed for Blade was meant for performance – including the aforementioned wristband-powered musical, pictoral entry feature.
Using an app built on top of One Mighty Roar's Robin platform, Blade guests can pre-select their favorite song to play along with a number of photos to be displayed upon entering the space. They can also use the app to declare drinks of choice, so that when they walk up to Blade’s neon bar sporting the band, the bottles of alcohol needed to compose the preferred libation light up in anticipation of the bartender.
Other artful details include a studio that lets people record video to turn into GIFs, which stream on a whitewashed wall in the central room, as well as a tablet featuring an image of rare yellow finch seemingly flitting about a bell jar.
Of course, Blade’s startups won’t exactly be reproducing that style of digital and artistic flair, but rather honing their technology and design to excite, attract and keep millions of users around the world.
Blade will bring in around three consumer-facing companies a year. Around 70 percent of the decisions will be based on founders’ personalities and experience, 20 percent on the market the company is looking to capture and 10 percent of the project that the team is actually working on, English explained of his “investment thesis.”
English, along with Blade co-founders Bill O’Donnell and Paul Schwenk and Brian Kalma, the UX and design superstar behind Zappos and Gilt, will push the fledgling startups along their growth path to a Series A.
Blade, which raised its own round of about $20 million last November, will put in anywhere from a $250,000 to $2 million in seed, getting a portion of equity (yet to be determined, but higher than Y Combinator’s seven percent, said English) and a board seat in return.
As of now, Blade has three startups lined up to move in. English declined to share specifics, but one is in the photo space, another a competitor of eBay and Craigslist and the last a social networking product. In total, the trio of companies will have 12 people working out of the Fort Point hatchery. One of the companies is actually run by a strapping young first-time founder – a Holy Cross dropout who played D1 hockey, according to English. The two other companies are led by a UMass graduate and a seasoned entrepreneur.
Currently, Blade is receiving a handful of pitches from consumer tech companies in Boston daily, said English. While many won’t make the cut, Blade’s eight-person team is nevertheless eager to provide support and mentorship.
“I still want to help them in terms of networking, introducing them to people they should talk to and raise money," shared English. "My main drive is to see more consumer companies in Boston."
