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About Bay Area VMS

Based on its successful track record of serving aspiring MIT entrepreneurs in the Boston area, VMS was established in the Bay Area in 2008 to serve the large community of MIT alumni in Northern California. 

As the result of a March, 2008 meeting with the current VMS Director, Sherwin Greenblatt, Rolf Brauchler ’69 set about creating a Northern California counterpart to the Cambridge organization.  As a first step, several other Bay Area alums were recruited to serve on the VMS Executive Committee and participated in the planning and launch of the program in the fall. An early indication of VMS’ likely success was the strong response to a survey sent out in May to over 7000 Northern California MIT alums: over 230 potential entrepreneurs (“mentees”) and 130 volunteer mentors expressed interest in the program. 

Since the kickoff of VMS/ Bay Area in the Fall of 2008, four mentor/ mentee matching sessions have been held. At these sessions, ventures were each paired with several seasoned executives from the current pool of about 35 mentors. In its first year of operation, VMS/ Bay Area has served 23 emerging ventures, spanning business concepts from social networking and interactive Web services to medical devices, healthcare IT and energy efficiency. Teams meet monthly for several hours for as many months as the mentees feel they can benefit. 

A team mentoring approach is used, with groups of 3 to 4 mentors sitting with fledgling entrepreneurs in sessions that provide practical, day-to-day professional advice and coaching. VMS mentors are selected for their experience in areas relevant to the needs of new entrepreneurs and for their enthusiasm for the program.  Relationships between entrepreneurs and mentors are formed primarily on the basis of entrepreneurs’ needs.

VMS assistance is given across a broad range of business functions, including company strategy, product development, marketing, intellectual property law, finance, human resources, and funding/ownership issues. VMS services are offered without charge to MIT alumni and other affiliates in the Bay Area. As an all volunteer-based program and given its charter as an extension of MIT’s educational mission, VMS stipulates that mentors may not be compensated by or invest in ventures they are actively mentoring.

VMS/ Bay Area expects to grow significantly (but at a measured rate) from this base during the coming years, following closely the successful model of VMS/ Cambridge. The next round of mentor/mentee matching is targeted for February of 2010. 

If you’re interested in being involved as either entrepreneur or mentor, please contact Rolf Brauchler ‘69 at vmsbayarea@gmail.com.