Startups: How I Got There

Abstract

William Crawford will talk about his experience starting his company Beacon 16. Beacon 16 designs and develops web applications for healthcare and life sciences. Topics will include:

1. Incorporation / LLC 2. Protecting your IP (if any in your case) 3. Term sheets (if any in your case) 4. Financing 5. Hiring your first person 6. The first customer 7. Technology issues

Will has been developing web-based enterprise applications since 1995, including one of the first web-based electronic medical record systems and some of the first enterprise-level uses of Java. Somewhat more recently, he was the Director of the Informatics Solutions Group at Children’s Hospital Boston, where he and his team developed a wide variety of eHealth applications, from personal health records to EHR interfaces to research and collaboration tools.

Before returning to Children’s Hospital, Will was a policy staff member for eHealth issues at the US Department of Health and Human Services. He continues to be a thought leader in Personal Health Records, and has been involved with several high profile initiatives, advising Fortune 500 companies, the Federal Government, and launching the highly successful PCHRI conference series. Prior to his government career, Will was Principal Software Architect at Perceptive Informatics, Inc., and Chief Technology Officer of Invantage, Inc.

Will is the co-author of Java Servlet Programming, 2nd Edition, Java Enterprise in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition, and J2EE Design Patterns. He has a degree in history from Yale, an MBA from MIT and an MS from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology - none of which prevents him from rolling up his sleeves when required.