Jeff: You are right that a lot of us have been pushing for changes like these for years. My sense is that now there is a real opening for legislation to be passed: there is a noticeable difference in the tenor of the discussion.

Here is a bit of backstory: the lead-up to this Senate session was a Startup America national meeting last December at the White House. The Massachusetts delegation (a whole bunch of us from around the community) put together the above 5-point list of recommendations. These were inspired of course by the work of many of us on these issues for years. One of these (crowd-funding), in particular, was inspired by MA Senator Scott Brown’s bill legalizing it.

Local Mass. entrepreneur Nick Tomarello, inspired by this crowd-funding bill, independently went ahead and built wefunder.com (which garners millions of dollars of commitments to do crowdfunding literally overnight).

The next we knew, many of these ideas showed up in the President’s State of the Union address, and the President followed that up with this really seminal White House blog post, outlining his agenda for startups: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/02/02/happy-b….

Shortly after that, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) called and invited me (a democrat) and others to DC to present to the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, underscoring the non-partisan nature of these issues. After the meeting, the Committee Chair, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) pulled me into her office afterward and expressed her strong support for these initiatives. On the same morning that we were presenting, Brookings held a round-table with many stakeholders on an emerging omnibus act, called the Startup Act, which is seeking to roll a lot of these changes in together into one Bill. Kauffman’s fingerprints are on all of this (and thank heavens for that), as they have done a really terrific job bringing both data and vision to the table to motivate the policymaking.

In short, we’re in a great place, and I’m optimistic.

Tim

When corporations enter into these backroom “gentlemen’s agreements”, it presents a huge risk to startups. What if I created an innovative new startup, and wanted to bring a buddy of mine who worked at Apple, someone who could really make that project come to life, on board? He would be risking a lot by leaving Apple, because, if the startup failed, then who’s to say that he’s not already on a tech industry black-list? Now we have a talented individual who can’t contribute at all to the industry.

Mr. Rowe is right when he stated that these said “gentlemen’s agreements” stifle innovation. The non-compete agreements, naturally, artificially create low salaries and I’m inclined to think that these low salaries don’t really inspire employees to come up with a “killer-app” that could change the industry forever.

Startups, especially tech startups, need an atmosphere of inspired competition along with an environment where employees can feel confident that their great ideas have a place to go.

Washington is certainly the best place to start ensuring this can happen, but what’s the best way to go about it? Considering that these non-compete agreements were more like verbal, backroom agreements, how can Washington enforce new non-compete laws without “going too far”?

I consider the visa issue critical. That presents a constant challenge not only to foreign students hoping to launch businesses in the US but also to existing startups in the US seeking to hire uniquely qualified talent that may be hard to find locally.

Also, for those interested in supporting crowdfunding, check out Cambridge startup wefunder and sign the petition they're submitting to encourage Congress to act:

http://wefunder.com/petition

For startups seeking support to find funding and mentors, consider entering MassChallenge. We open for applications on March 1: http://www.MassChallenge.org

John Harthorne

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