Hello, I’m Jay Neely. I create cool things, help grow the Boston startup community, and do some business as a consultant.
Boston Entrepreneur
My first two startups were News Armada in early 2008 and EasyImpress from 2009-2010 (links are to post-mortems). News Armada was a news commentary community intended to take social news out of its infancy. And EasyImpress was a websites-for-realtors creator focused on simplicity and effectiveness. My role in each was primarily product management, marketing, operations, front-end design & development, sales, support, and customer relationship management, but I pitched in on a few other things, too.
More recently I’m a cofounder of RiverInsights, where I’ve gained LAMP-stack development experience while continuing my product / marketing role.
Marketing Consultant
I find marketing a fascinating discipline that mixes soft skills (writing, psychology, creativity) with hard (data-based analysis, logistics, finance). I work as a freelance consultant providing services including social media strategy, content strategy, search engine optimization, and general business / marketing consulting. I’ve previously consulted for Netherlands-based Floorplanner.com, VC-funded imVOX.com, and global enterprise software company SDL.
Background
My self-made cardboard desks from when I first moved to Boston.
I had computer access early in my life (around 8 years old) — ‘digital native’ is an apt if buzzword-y term. I had my first glimpse into startup life during high school as a customer evangelist & sometime-assistant for MindSay, Mashable Editor-in-Chief Adam Ostrow’s first startup. But in college, studying Information Technology & Sociology at Georgia Southern University, I felt unchallenged and uninspired by the behind-the-curve state of academic technology instruction.
I left and moved to Boston in 2007, drawn by Boston’s reputation as a major startup hub. Attending BarCamp Boston 2 shortly after I arrived, the connections I started making drew me in. Since then, I’ve been working on startups and honing my online marketing and web development skills. Now I live in Somerville, MA, and you can find me in Diesel Cafe (in Davis Square) or the Cambridge Coworking Center (in Kendall Square).
