Well-known faces in Buffalo’s startup community have formed an entity to support a new generation of grassroots technologists and entrepreneurs.
BootSector – whose board includes Clark Dever, Jordan Walbesser and Jack Greco – will get to work soon on reinvigorating some popular events that were shelved because of the pandemic.
More broadly, they are building a model that seeks to support grassroots entrepreneurial energy through events. Potential organizers will be able to tap into a corporate sponsorship program and services ranging from location to insurance to ticketing.
“We’re trying to promote the development of startup communities in economically depressed areas like Buffalo by giving founders open access to resources and education,” said Walbesser, who is in-house counsel at Mattel Inc. (working out of its Fisher-Price campus in East Aurora).
“Clark and I have been talking about this for a long time now, creating a nonprofit that can be a steward of resources, contracts, processes and services in the community,” said Walbesser, a longtime participant in Buffalo’s startup scene. “It’s putting some structure behind grassroots efforts to make it easier for people who want to start something.”
For instance, Walbesser said, the organization will give people of color from poor communities in Buffalo the chance to build their entrepreneurship programs.
In the short-term, BootSector will reinvigorate Buffalo OpenCoffee Club, a popular weekly gathering that was put on hiatus during Covid-19. An in-person BOCC event is expected in June.
The entity will also oversee a Buffalo Startup Week in late September. Buffalo Startup Weeks have taken place with different organizers, sponsors and scopes for years.
The nonprofit is about breaking down the barriers to entry in Buffalo’s growth-stage tech economy by supporting people who want to run events or other programs.
“This is about being open and inclusive,” Dever said.”There’s no gatekeeping. When the OpenCoffee Club was at its peak, with 150 people showing up every week, it was because everyone was welcome.”
BootCamp will not seek government subsidies, but instead support its operations through corporate sponsors and membership dues.
It is an extension of sorts of the ideals in the now-defunct TechStars Buffalo program, which was led by Greco, an ACV Auctions co-founder and angel investor; and Dever, who is now a senior product manager in the broader Techstars company.
Kamal Patel, Kanishka Wanninayaka and Madonna Spitler are involved as well. They hope to fill out the board this year and to be writing grants by 2022.
One programmatic idea is to provide financial support to people who want to run their own events. As a hypothetical, someone who wants to create a subject-specific group might get $1,000 to run five events, with the stipulation they have to charge $5 at the door.
That reduces the risk of someone starting a new event, while ensuring that it has a chance to become self-sustaining, Dever said.
“We want to reduce friction for organizers to do events,” he said. “If we can create this institutional layer that connects corporations to grassroots startups, then we transfer that capital to the most organic level of the startup community.”
