Places

My partner Chris Moody came up with a great idea he’s calling #BoulderStrongTableMesa . This is in response to the mass murder that happened at the King Soopers in Table Mesa on Monday, March 22nd. What if the Boulder community doubled down on #BoulderStrong to show support for the small businesses located in the Table Mesa Shopping Center directly impacted by this tragedy? After an extremely challenging year trying to keep their businesses running through a global pandemic, the small shops and restaurants of the Table Mesa Shopping Center are now facing the near impossible task of trying to return to business-as-usual. I visited a few of these shops this week and have heard stories of employees hearing gunshots and being forced to shelter-in-place. The parking lots adjacent to King Soopers are occupied by police vehicles and mourners visiting the site. “Trying to hang in there, was a response I heard from one store owner when I asked how things were going. He looked exhausted. ...

Just foreshadowing. We are going to the edge of the United States to see them. Experiencing this puts a lot of things in perspective for me. And, happy birthday mom .

Amy and I have been in Homer, Alaska for the last ten days. Above is the view from the parking lot at the ocean in Anchor Point, which is literally “the end of the road on the western side of the US.” Amy grew up here and it’s one of the places I go when I want to get some distance from everything. When we started coming here in the mid-1990s together, we’d literally have to disconnect in a lot of the places we hung out at. Today, you can only figuratively disconnect, as the internet will find you almost everywhere. ...

I’m lazy blogging this week as I get ready to go on vacation for the July 4th holiday. So, here’s another set of videos to watch, which is the entire Street Level Startups series from Colorado Public Television. I’ve watched them all now and they are a great history of how the entrepreneurship scene in Colorado has evolved recently, along with a bunch of fun highlights of people and companies. ...

The level of histrionics yesterday about the weather on the front range that is coming has been epic. I’ve lived here since 1995 and the amount of fear, anxiety, discussion, preparation, and public commentary is higher than I can ever recall (and yes – I’m now contributing to it.) As I sit here at my computer looking out my window in Longmont, it’s cloudy and raising episodically (hard a few minutes ago, but it has now stopped.) The clouds are dark and heavy to the east, low and snowy to the west, and light to the south. It’s just weird and made me think of what the eye of a hurricane must feel like. ...

I’ve been in San Diego with Amy for a while but we are returning to Boulder in a week. San Diego has been great, but I miss my dogs, my friends, and the Colorado vibe. When people ask me about the Colorado vibe, I often talk about GiveFirst. Soon there will be a book (by me) on this, but for now there’s an increasing amount of content on the web building up to explain it. This article in the Colorado Sun – How Techstars’ “GiveFirst” mantra became a road map for the startup community in Colorado and beyond – was excellent and had numerous short examples of how GiveFirst works and influences a startup community. ...

I had dinner with Ian Hathaway a few weeks ago when I was in London. It was a delight to see him in person. While we’ve been collaborating on Startup Communities 2 (which we are now calling The Startup Community Way), which will come out at the “end-of-the-year-ish,” having dinner was a delight and reminded me how much I like him. A few months ago he wrote a post on Waterloo, and activity in Canada in general, titled The North Star . It’s a good post worth reading but reminded me of a concept that we are weaving into The Startup Community Way. ...

Did you know that 28.5714% of the partners at Foundry Group are Texans? Recently, I was asked if I consider myself a Texan. I answered that I grew up in Texas, live in Colorado, was born in Arkansas, and went to school in Massachusetts. While I have a house in Alaska, I never lived there (that’s where Amy grew up.) I hadn’t really thought about this before I answered the question. While Massachusetts was very good to me, I never felt at home living in Boston or Cambridge. I left Dallas 35 years ago (although my parents still live there.) I only lived in Blytheville for a year, although I just visited it with my dad a few months ago. ...

Bobby Schnabel has returned to CU Boulder as the College of Engineering and Applied Science faculty director for entrepreneurial leadership , external chair of computer science, and campus thought-leader on computing. I first met and worked with Bobby in the mid-2000s at the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), where he was a co-founder and on the board with me. Bobby is awesome and I’m really psyched he’s back in Boulder at CU. ...

I was in Atlanta yesterday for Techstars Atlanta Demo Day. I’ll be here again today for Venture Atlanta and then I’m on to Kansas City for Techstars Kansas City Demo Day. Rule #1: Don’t eat the bugs on the window of the 23rd floor of your hotel. I’m being a lot more deliberate about my travel these days. I’m also being more careful about how I do it. I’m eating a lot smarter, not drinking at all, and making sure I get at least seven hours of sleep a night. While I hate shaking hands, I’ve given up trying to do fist bumps because I end up with numerous awkward semi-handshake-hand-grab moments. And I’ve stopped staying up late trying to get all my email from the day responded to like I did for 20 years. ...