Valley Venture Mentors co-founder Paul Silva is ‘rock star’ of entrepreneurship in Western Mass.: Outlook 2018
As a senior at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2000, Silva cofounded the Entreclub because he needed help building his start-up Zform. That’s where his duck tie first made its appearance as a silly way to make his fellow students feel less nervous when pitching their ideas. Since then, the ducks have been on quite a ride. They’ve accompanied Silva from college competitions to his work in angel investment to the co-founding of Valley Venture Mentors, the region’s leading start-up accelerator, and now to his two latest endeavors, Launch413 and the Lean Innovation Institute.