People often refer to Massachusetts as a B2B town and yet consumer tech seems to be thriving. We asked six prominent consumer tech CEOs – Mohamad Ali of Carbonite, Colin Angle of iRobot, Steve Kaufer of TripAdvisor, Niraj Shah of Wayfair, Sheila Marcelo of Care.com, and Jason Robins of DraftKings – “If you could do it all over again, would you based your company in Massachusetts?” Here’s what they said:
MARCELO: Definitely. I’m consistently encouraged by the degree to which local entrepreneurs support and help one another. We’re all in it together – investing not only in our own companies, but also in building a region that competes on a global scale.
SHAH: Yes – absolutely. Massachusetts has provided the ideal home to build a world class consumer tech company. We have pulled from the best and the brightest in technical areas like engineering, data analytics and marketing automation, as well as in areas like marketing, merchandising and operations to build a tremendous team and ecommerce operation. We benefitted from our uniqueness in a marketplace that had been dominated by B2B companies. People realized early on that we were building something very unique in Massachusetts and that helped us attract top talent who were excited at the prospect of applying their expertise and energy to a consumer brand. We also benefitted from being located in a vibrant city full of young people eager to make an impact. We can’t imagine a better place for Wayfair.
KAUFER: Yes. No doubt about it. Massachusetts is, and has been, a great place for our global headquarters. We have grown here — from a few people to a few thousand — and Massachusetts has been good to us. We support the community, hire local talent and have really enjoyed being one of the first companies to establish a local tech hub within the N2 corridor and to foster the ever-growing tech community here in the Boston area. Despite being a global company, at TripAdvisor we continue to maintain a start-up culture.
ANGLE: Absolutely. The university system and strong base of technology-minded companies has created an environment that breeds success and pushes all of us to be better at what we do every day. I also love the seasons – what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.
ROBINS: Absolutely. Massachusetts is the only place we could have built DraftKings and we wouldn’t be where we are today if we had chosen anywhere else as our home.
ALI: If we could turn back time, Massachusetts would certainly remain our top choice for Carbonite’s headquarters. Between the access to higher education and top talent, in combination with the innovative spirit that drives both the local and global companies in the area, we couldn’t ask for a better tech hub to be our home.
