For some strange reason, I woke up thinking about one of my favorite things to discover in a book or an article . I know there’s deep meaning in the notion that it was the first think that floated up to my consciousness when I awoke this morning. Like any good zen koan, I’m going to let it roll around all day. In the mean time, I look forward to my digital sabbath on Saturday to put the thought into practice and just do nothing. ...
During Boulder Startup Week 2016, Dave Mayer of Technical Integrity moderated a panel on Mental Health and Wellbeing that I was on with Sarah Jane Coffey and Tom Higley . It ended up going 90 minutes and I remember it being powerful for me and the audience. Dave recently put it up on Youtube and wrote a blog post about it . His leadoff in his post sets things up nicely. ...
Greg Avery recently wrote a detailed story in the Denver Business Journal of the origin story of Techstars a decade ago . It’s unfortunately paywalled but comes with a video. For all of you who have participated in or supported Techstars to date, thank you!
I love dreams. Mine are often very detailed, clear, extremely colorful, linger for a while (several hours) after I wake up, and full of strange and complex linkages between things that often cause me to make associations I wouldn’t have otherwise made. Ever since I learned about the concept of garbage collection in 6.001 at MIT in 1984 while using Scheme on HP Chipmunks , I’ve always thought of dreaming as the same as garbage collection for a computer . When I read Minsky’s The Society of the Mind I started referring to dreams as garbage collection for the mind. ...
An annoying thing about Twitter Search is that it’s not good enough to help me find who tweeted at me that Dark Matter by Blake Crouch is something I should read. I scrolled through my @mentions until I was annoyed after trying to search but not being able to figure out how to scope the search so I could only search @mentions = bfeld (or maybe my problem is that it should be @mentions == @bfeld). ...
Dan Caruso (Zayo CEO) is one of Boulder’s remarkable entrepreneurs. Phil Weiser and I will be interviewing him as part of the Silicon Flatirons Entrepreneurs Unplugged series on 3/15. Sign up to join us for what I expect will be a very interesting evening.
The language of startups has become pervasive. It feels like it started with Eric Ries’ great book The Lean Startup when words like MVP and pivot started showing up in all conversations. Back then it was new, fresh, and focusing. Today, there are hundreds of words that people throw around in the context of their startups. Many, like traction, are completely meaningless. If you need a dose of some of the language, just watch a few episodes of Silicon Valley . ...
First off – I’m ok. But here’s the story. “Ouch” “You’re in an ambulance. I’m just putting an IV in your arm,” said a disembodied voice. I had no idea where I was. I had a vague recollection that I had been on a bike. “You’re in ambulance. You are ok. Stay calm.” I realized I was tightly strapped to a board and couldn’t move if I wanted to. My legs hurt. My ribs hurt. My shoulders hurt. ...
Just under two months ago, Occipital launched their new Structure Sensor on Kickstarter. Over the course of 45 days, it raised more than $1.2M to become the 6th most funded tech-category project ever on the site. Kickstarter backers aren’t the only people who are enthusiastic about Occipital’s new creation. Two of the technology world’s biggest names have now added the Structure Sensor to their roster of award-winning new technology products for 2013 and 2014. ...
In my mid-20s I was part of an amazing experience called Birthing of Giants. It was a gathering of 60 entrepreneurs over four days (for three years) who were all under 40 and founders of companies with more than $1m in revenue. It was the first time I discovered my peer group and while I was young (24 years old) and small ($1m in revenue) I felt like I immediately fit in. ...