Every scene needs a face — the guy or gal who becomes synonymous with what the community is trying to achieve. That person is normally passionate, and always has conviction to make a difference by articulating complex concepts whilst coming across as someone you could sit and watch sports with.
Cortlandt Johnson of DartBoston is one of those people.
When you meet him, he smiles broadly and shakes your hand, pressing the flesh with as much enthusiasm as he puts into the various factions that make up DartBoston. His community of ambitious entrepreneurs and professionals have become part of the tech networking scene in Boston, putting on events all over town and ensuring that those under thirty have full access to individuals with similar drives and ambitions.
Recently, Johnson was named to the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange (MITX) Future Leaders Group for 2010. It’s the first time the local trade organization and non-profit has assembled a crack team of young entrepreneurs, and they certainly picked a distinguished bunch.
A few days ago, Cort agreed to give me some of his valuable time so that I could get an insight into what makes him tick. We met outside Barnes and Noble, grabbed a coffee and tried to find somewhere quiet for a chinwag — not the easiest thing to do in a mall. Settling into a comfy chair at the Sheraton, he looked the consummate young professional in a button down shirt, slacks, and polished brown shoes. As the sights and sounds of a busy hotel rushed around him, he was fully committed to giving me his complete attention.
Dave Bolton: Firstly, Who Is Cort Johnson?
Cort Johnson: (Laughing) That’s a great question. Just a guy that’s trying to make it in this town, how can I answer that?
I really love the startup community. I am trying to learn as much as I can; I have a ton of energy and optimism but trying to channel that into something where I can create value, create businesses, have fun, and meet a lot of people. I want to make a difference.
DB: What does the word “entrepreneur” mean to you?
CJ: It’s funny to use that word. It seems such an antiquated expression; everyone wants to use the term startup now. So what does it mean? (Brief pause) It depends on what stage you are at in your life.
I made a go at a company straight out of school, so to be an entrepreneur means to put yourself on the line, take a risk, be super passionate about what it is you are doing, put all of your energy into it and work hard for a positive outcome, creating value, creating something that generates revenue that people want to be a part of. The good entrepreneur figures out a way to make that all work together.
DB: How do you create value and how important is value to you?
CJ: The thing that we always talk about within the DartBoston community, but more specifically between me, Jake (Cacciaoaglia), Alexa Scordato, Yifei Zhang and Marissa Lowman is how are we adding value to the people that we want to get involved with what we are doing.
Without value, nobody really cares about your organization, so when we started we picked a target of people that we wanted to help and then we iterated based upon what we thought would be where they got the most value. So that’s exactly what we did. For example, a lot of people see [Dart’s staple event, Pokin’ Holes] as content. A lot of the older guys don’t understand why it is so great, except that people come out. In reality, the value that we created there was that we gave the people who never had the chance to talk a chance to speak.
Nobody asks 20-somethings what are they working on. Nobody asks for their opinion, and more experienced people ask why anybody would want to listen to this stuff and the answer is …they probably don’t. The point is, when you give people the chance to talk and the chance to do something that they aren’t used to, everybody wants to get involved.
Take Pokin’ Holes. As soon as the company is on, they get this adrenaline rush because everybody is talking about what they are doing. They come back the next week and the following week and they tell everybody about it.
The same goes with the panels. They get to talk about what they’re working on and they get to give their opinion. When is a 20-something ever asked their opinion, they’re not domain experts, they haven’t (mostly) had huge successes…..so that was the value that we were creating with Pokin’ Holes, and that’s why so many people got involved — because we gave so many people the chance. We have had over 120 people on the panels, nearly 50 companies on the show.
DB: Where did the inspiration for Pokin’ Holes come from, a desire to give 20-somethings a voice?
CJ: It came from a selfish interest, we were thinking of ways in which one could promote their startup in a more efficient way. Our idea was rather than me try and promote what I’m doing to 10 people, why not get a group of 10 people and we can all help each other out, thereby increasing the number of people that are learning about you and your projects. That was one of the main premises of Pokin’ Holes, if you have something that you are working on, rather than promoting it on your own you can go to PH and you have around 30 people in a room or 50 watching online. The promotion leads to people talking and if they have a quality experience with what you showed them then they will go out and talk to other people about it, it’s a great marketing channel.
The other thing with PH was there such a void in the community for this group of individuals. I would go to so many networking events, and I was always good at talking to people. A lot of friends that I knew wanted to go out and meet successful entrepreneurs, VCs, Angels. They found it hard when they were at networking events and they didn’t know anybody. Really hard to sell yourself in those 10 seconds, the guy might be courteous and say that’s cool and then move on.
What we wanted to do was create a gateway in to that whole community so by going through Pokin’Holes, you get to meet all of the other young people and all of those young people end up at the Web Innovators Group, the MIT tech events, so when you are there you have other people that you can leverage to get introductions to these more experienced investors and entrepreneurs.
Pokin’ Holes was also a great way to meet a ton of people, and I’ve had an awesome time meeting so many people that have given me the time. People that I would never expected in a million years to give me a chance to sit down in their office. It’s been cool.
DB: How do you choose who is going to be poked?
CJ: Coming up with a company every week is never the easiest thing. Especially when we tailor it to the 30 and under community but a lot of people will ask us if we have any openings.
In the beginning I hustled so much, on a Tuesday I would be at a networking event begging someone to be on the panel. It’s worked out very well; we are normally booked out for 6 weeks in advance. Lots of people are doing stuff, they want to promote it, and we are that avenue for them.
DB: Out of the many companies chosen, who stands out?
CJ: (Laughs) Who stands out? This is a controversial question because I see a lot of people that are starting stuff but I want to believe that they are going to follow through. It’s one thing to talk, another thing to act.
We tried to get companies that have started and not focus just on ideas. People will throw up a website, have some consumer webplay but they’re not doing anything to really execute on that. The people who stand out to me are the ones that aren’t just coming to Pokin Holes, but are hustling their [butts] of at other events, someone like Kabir [Hemrajani] from Riotvine, that kid is at everything, that guy wants it bad. Or Josh Bob from Textaurant, same thing. A great guy to talk to as well.
Some of these guys have the eye of the tiger, they are in it to win and those are the guys who stand out for me.
DB: Dart Boston is for people who play hard and work harder. Do we all just need to party?
CJ: We need people with passion who can drink a 20 ounce Narragansett. The parties are not just for a good time but an opportunity to be productive. I see value in that.
And with that our time was up. Cort is a busy young man whose enthusiasm is infectious, and as he strode purposefully off to another meeting, I considered coming up with my own project for a panel of my peers to poke holes in.
But it seems that the Boston scene has more than enough talented individuals who want a piece of the action. I shall have to be content with seeing it all play out from the sidelines.
