Today, we’re excited to unveil the official Hitchhiker’s Guide to Boston Tech — a comprehensive overview of what tech entrepreneurs and professionals need to navigate and succeed in our local community. Special thanks goes to Jay Acunzo (director of platform here at NextView), Ariel Simon (senior designer, SapientNitro), and Keith Frankel (Chief Digital Officer, Tablelist) for creating this bigger, more comprehensive, and more beautiful edition of my long-running blog series.

In case you’re new to the Hitchhiker’s Guide, there’s a bit of history behind it. In 2009, I published a simple link roundup titled A “To-Do” List for New Entrepreneurs Arriving in Boston. It contained the basics like who to follow on Twitter, where to meet people for coffee, and what events to attend. In 2010, I coined a name that stuck — Hitchhiker’s Guide to Boston Tech — and published every six months since. It focuses specifically on the web and mobile startup ecosystem locally (though it’s worth noting the great work in biotech, robotics, healthcare, and energy here in town too).

Fortunately, the community response to these blog posts has been positive. It’s been great to see entrepreneurially minded newcomers to Boston turn to these posts as a go-to resource. Even other VC’s, angels, and prominent local entrepreneurs have referenced the guide or pointed their friends towards it, which is exciting.  As always, the Boston ecosystem has been really friendly and open to navigate, and I’m glad that these guides have been helpful.

But Boston is a transient and dynamic town, and can feel somewhat intimidating to newcomers.  Even for locals, the startup world has exploded since 2009, making it increasingly difficult to navigate.

So when Jay approached me a couple months ago with the idea of turning this into something more substantial — something that would stand alone as a more beautifully designed “front door” to our ecosystem — I was instantly on board. Historically, the link roundup has been very useful, but this would be a chance to design something that felt more special, more worthy of our amazing local ecosystem. It’s also a good reminder that while there’s a lot listed on the guide, there could be a lot more. We’ve got a lot more work to do in Boston tech.

I’m also excited that we’re now able to crowdsource additional submissions to grow this over time and keep it as fresh as possible — to participate, look for the links to submit new items beneath the various sections of the Hitchhiker’s site.

Boston has grown an amazing startup ecosystem over the last decade, and we want to help both new and existing community members better navigate and succeed right here in town. So, without further ado, I invite you to explore, expand on, and share the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Boston Tech.