“80% of the decks landing on her desk had AI on slide one.”
This week on Bricks & Bytes we sat down with Jennifer Davis, who recently joined Suffolk Technologies after five years as Managing Director of Techstars Boston, where she reviewed thousands of applications and ran 65+ companies through the program.
She brought the kind of pattern recognition you only get from saying no a few thousand times.
Tune in to find out about:
✅ Why the bar has risen across pre-seed, seed, and Series A — and what VCs now want to see before they write a check
✅ The co-founder mistake that kills more startups than bad ideas (and why 50/50 equity splits are a red flag)
✅ Why “not all money is created equally” — and how founder-unfriendly terms signed early can derail an exit years later
✅ What Jennifer is looking for as she takes the reins on Suffolk’s Boost accelerator, and the founder profile she’d most want to back in 2027
Listen on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube 🎧
#aec #construction #constructiontech #bricksandbytes #bricksbytes #ai #vc
Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:00 Introduction to Jennifer Davis and Transition to Suffolk Tech
04:09 Insights from Techstars Boston
07:01 Key Traits of Successful Founders
10:06 Challenges in the Startup Ecosystem
12:57 The Importance of Problem-Solution Fit
15:57 The Role of AI in Startups
18:51 Generalist vs. Vertical VCs
21:57 Navigating the Built World Space
25:08 The Future of Construction Technology
27:53 Suffolk Tech’s Boost Program
31:03 Advice for Founders in the Current Landscape
33:54 Conclusion and Future Outlook
