Next week is the first annual entrepreneurship week at CU Boulder. There is a full schedule of great events for anyone interested in entrepreneurship.
Monday 4/13: 11:30am – 2:00pm: Starting Companies at CU: Technology Entrepreneurship Luncheon @ University Memorial Center
Tuesday 4/14: 10:00am – 11:30am: Panel Discussion on Social Entrepreneurship @ University Memorial Center Room 247
Tuesday 4/14: 5:30pm – 8:30pm: Silicon Flatirons Center’s Entrepreneurial Mash-Up @ Dairy Center for the Arts
Wednesday, 4/15: 5:00pm: Feld-Weiser One-on-One: The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem @ Wittemeyer Courtroom, Wolf Law Building
Wednesday, 4/15: 6:00pm: Entrepreneurs Unplugged featuring Glenn Jones @ Wittemeyer Courtroom, Wolf Law Building
Thursday, 4/16: 3:00pm – 8:00pm: Putting The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Perspective @ Wittemeyer Courtroom, Wolf Law Building
Friday, 4/17: 9:00am – noon: CU New Venture Challenge Semifinals @ Atlas
Friday, 4/17: 2:00pm – 5:00pm: CU New Venture Challenge Finals and Post-Challenge Reception @ University Memorial Center
Also, if you are in Boulder for lunch on Tuesday, come by Spud Bros at the Corner of 10th and Pearl behind Pasta Jay’s between noon and 2:00pm. I’ll be the “guest chef” (more like “guest spud slinger”); 50% of proceeds will go to The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County.
I find trail running to be a magical experience. I live behind Eldorado Canyon State Park just outside of Boulder and have a plethora of trail runs that I can start and finish at my house such as Eldorado Canyon Trail, Walker Ranch, Rattlesnake Gulch, Fowler Trail, Dowdy Draw, Mesa Trail (and all the branches), and South Boulder Creek Trail.
I’ve run them all – many times – in many different permutations. Since Amy and I own a lot of property that is adjacent to Colorado State Park land and Boulder Open Space, I’m very respectful of staying on the trails as it makes me crazy whenever someone comes off of the Eldorado Canyon Trail or Rattlesnake onto our land.
So – it was with great pleasure that I discovered that Goshawk Ridge Trail is now open. I ran it today from the Fowler Trail direction.
I have a standard 60 minute out and back run on Fowler trail. I used to be able to stretch it to 90 minutes if I ran on Denver Water Board land up to the private property boundary. With the opening of Goshawk Ridge I now have a great new 90 minute loop. In addition, the trail system now connects up with the Spring Brook Loop and all the Dowdy Draw improvements. I think I just got another 15 or so miles of trails to play around with, along with links to other trails that I previously had to run on the road to get to!
One of my favorite things about trail running is the serenity. After about five minutes on the trail, I don’t even notice that the world – outside me and the trail – exists. No cars, few people (I saw more deer today than I saw people), occasional wildlife (including – er, eek! – snakes), and periodic magical and mystical surprise moments.
I also don’t ever care about my time or pace on the trail run. I just run. I’ve never met a hill I couldn’t run up, but I’ve met some that I had to walk down because of my “racehorse ankles” (Amy loves to chide me about my thin ankles). I don’t look at my watch – I just pay attention to my breathing and heart rate.
I’ve had a hard time getting in a consistent gear since running the Huntsville Marathon. I had some great runs at the end of 2008, but then twisted my ankle hard in mid January and have been struggling to get in a groove for the last few weeks. After the last few runs, I’ve found that groove. And – I’ve found some great new trails. Thanks Boulder Open Space!
My partner Jason Mendelson – who is also my co-conspirator in writing the blog AsktheVC – is having an open session called Crash Course – Raising Venture Capital. It’s part of the Silicon Flatirons program and is happening on February 24th from 5:15pm to 6:45pm in Room 204 at the Wolf Law Building. Jason says he’s going to cover:
Everything from what makes VCs tick, who are our bosses, what are things that you can do to improve your chances of receiving funding and things that many VCs don’t want to talk about. No question is off limits and I hope that it will be a very interactive forum. Consider this to be a live version of Ask The VC.
Of course, beer goes really well with stuff like this. So BioBeers is hosting a Startup Drinks event at The Foundry starting at 6:30. This isn’t at our office, although we are always amused when “The Foundry” gets confused with “Foundry Group”. Rather, it’s across the street at The Foundry, 1109 Walnut Street. Hoist a few for me as I’ll be in Seattle (more on that in a minute.)
Slice of Lime is looking to for Flash/Flex/PHP designer who is also a programmer at heart. If this is you, apply now!
Are you a VP or C-level exec at a Boulder (or Denver) based startup? Eric Marcoullier, the CEO of Gnip has created a Boulder Startup Exec Email List. It’s open to people that fit the following criteria.
Eric moved to Boulder from San Francisco last month and is getting deep in the startup scene here. He promises that VCs will not be invited to participate in this list – I tried and was solidly rejected.
While the criteria don’t include “profitable companies that never received any financing”, I’d encourage anyone that is self-funded / bootstrapped that is generating over $500k of revenue a year to get involved also.
2008 was a fantastic year for entrepreneurship in Boulder. While the VC firm I’m part of (Foundry Group) invests nationally, the partners have made a deliberate decision to live and work in Boulder. As a result, we believe it is our responsibility to participate actively in Boulder’s entrepreneurial community. I’ve been living here since 1995 and have seen and helped Boulder evolve into a serious entrepreneurial hub, as written about by my friend Ben Casnocha in his article Start-Up Town in The American Magazine.
There are many people that are now engaged in the Boulder entrepreneurial community in a wide variety of ways. I believe that entrepreneurship and innovation are the fundamental drivers of long term economic growth in the United States and have dedicated my work life to this area. Even thought no one really knows what the 2009 holds for us, I’m hopeful that the entrepreneurial energy and momentum that has been generated in Boulder over the past few years will continue strongly in 2009.
To get us started, Andrew Hyde put up two posts that are relevant to all Boulder-based software and Internet entrepreneurs. The first is HackSpace at TechStars. On January 15th at 5pm, the TechStars space (the Bunker) will be opened up for anyone to come hang out and hack together. If you know where the Bunker is, just show up. If you need more info, drop Andrew an email at andrew {at} startupweekend.com.
Also up on the Boulder is for Startups site, Andrew has a post titled Boulder Jobs. If you are a company in Boulder that is hiring, drop Andrew a note (andrew {at} startupweekend.com). If you are looking for a job, drop him a note also. Look for a steady evolution of a local job site that builds off of the very successful Boulder Job Fair event a few months ago.