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Friday, May 1, 2009
How I See It
Public service also makes good business sense
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MHT managing editor Rodney Brown on NECN: 22 tech companies give back to community
When I started Sonicbids nearly eight years ago, the last place I expected I would get support from was City Hall. Granted, I was born and raised in Europe where government handouts are de rigueur; but as an entrepreneur in the early 2000’s it had never crossed my mind. (Obviously, today is another story.)
In the early days of Sonicbids I ran the company out of a place called Tech Space in the South End, and one day some City Hall people stopped by for (seemingly) one of those visits that civil servants tend to have: a lot of polite talking, attentive listening, smiling, etc., but of little tangible substance.
I remember saying to one of them, “Here I am, taking all this risk to get a business going, working hard to employ people, paying Boston rents and Boston salaries, but what is City Hall doing for businesses like Sonicbids? I mean, if I have a barbershop, I can get assistance because I have a “storefront”; if I’m Gillette, I have everyone’s ear. Somehow Sonicbids, as an Internet business, falls in no man’s land — but we are the future of this town.”
That forceful comment (along with, I guess, my persistent nature) ended up creating a chain of events that led to City Hall giving us a low-six-figure loan to help us hire three new people in 2005; and a few years later another loan that enabled us to build out and move to our own 15,000 square-foot office space in the South End. (Sonicbids has grown from just about 10 people in 2005 when we got the loan to nearly 50 today, with that early loan serving as the critical tipping point.)
Just as importantly, it sparked a drive within me to engage and educate other entrepreneurs and public officials about the common sense and business sense that public-private alliances make.
I’ve since co-founded a program, along with City Hall, called Boston Young Entrepreneurs to help young people make their business ideas a reality; I co-chaired a city-backed nonprofit called CREATE Boston that helps bolster Boston’s creative economy; I’m the chairman of the Presidential Advisory Council at my alma mater, Berklee College of Music; and I am also on the board of directors of a new initiative by Mayor Menino called Boston World Partnerships, which helps connect companies with Boston’s talent pool.
I do all this mostly because it’s my way of giving back to a city that I feel has given me a lot (To whom much is given, much is expected). But I also do this because it just makes great business sense.
Through my involvement with these initiatives, I have gotten to meet all kinds of people that either directly or tangentially have helped Sonicbids grow in size and stature. I’ve met financiers and venture capitalists; journalists and writers; business partners and future employees; heck, even architects and furniture makers; all of which in one way or another have become part of the Sonicbids story and growth.
As tech entrepreneurs and business people, we are trained to focus on the target — to keep the eye on the prize — and just go for it. We think of life outside of business and family as a distraction, a waste of time, something for someone else. We also tend to think that civic engagement is not suitable for people of our drive and ambition and capitalist leanings — it’s just a bit too mushy, too touchy-feely, too darn lefty.
But the truth is that our businesses are only as good as the people they employ. And nothing shapes people more than the very communities they are a part of, the social systems that support them, the societies they form and sustain. And our businesses don’t function outside of these institutions — rather they shape and are shaped by them and the quality of the people that govern and participate in them.
So go out there and get involved. It will not just make you feel great, it will also help you and your business grow.
Panos Panay is the founder and CEO of Sonicbids, a website he launched in 2001 that helps bands connect with people who book or license music.
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