So let me start with the easy part. Colorado is going to be in good hands regardless of who wins the Democratic primary on June 30th. Whoever wins is highly likely to be our next governor, and they’ll be a smart, decent, and hardworking person in the job. I’ve spent real time with both Phil and Michael over many years. I’d be glad to have either one as governor of Colorado.

That said, I’m supporting Phil.

Not because Michael isn’t excellent. He is. It’s because of what I’ve learned about Phil from working alongside him for the past 25 years.

I met Phil in 1999, when he founded the Silicon Flatirons Center at CU Boulder. (The name is terrible, and I’ve teased him about it for over two decades.) That’s where I first saw how he works. Over the years we collaborated on Startup Colorado, Governor Bill Ritter’s Innovation Council, and a long list of other projects. But the part that stuck with me was never really about any of the work we did together. It was watching how Phil shows up and engages with people around complex issues.

He listens. He acknowledges when he’s wrong, and he changes his mind when he gets new and compelling data. He can get people who see things very differently to work on something together.

He asks “how can I help,” and then he does the actual work. That’s rare. My experience is that a lot of people in government say “how can I help” as a throwaway line. Phil means it, and he’s been doing it in Colorado for a long time.

Phil has never done this for just one kind of Coloradan. As a law school dean, he put young lawyers into rural district attorney offices that couldn’t fill the jobs. He helped start CareerWise, which builds apprenticeships and real careers for kids who aren’t going to college. He fought to get broadband to the parts of the state people on the Front Range often forget about, except when driving west on I-70. For the last seven years, as our Attorney General, he’s been the people’s lawyer - going after the scams that prey on seniors, the companies that cheat working families, and the opioid epidemic that hit small Colorado towns the hardest.

The next four years are going to be challenging ones for Colorado. People across the whole state - in Denver, on the Eastern Plains, and on the Western Slope - are worried about the cost of living, whether their kids can afford to stay here, and whether the next generation gets the same opportunities they did. I want a governor who has spent his whole career working for the Coloradans who usually get overlooked, not just the ones who were always going to be fine. That’s Phil.

Michael is one of the most thoughtful people in American public life. If he wins, I’ll support him, cheer him on, and help him in any way I can. I just think Phil is the right fit for this particular moment.

Because Foundry is a registered investment advisor, I’m only allowed to give “a nominal amount” to Phil’s campaign. So I’m doing the thing I’m allowed to do, which is use my voice. My partner Seth wrote a terrific post laying out more of the specifics, especially around policy. Go read his post. Then go look at philforcolorado.com.

Ballots are out now. The primary is June 30th. Please vote.

We’ve learned many things in the last six months that help slow the spread of the Covid, such as social distancing, outdoor vs. indoor activity, and mask-wearing. We’ve also learned a lot about how to treat the disease.

But, regardless of what you think of the severity or impact of Covid, the transmission characteristics of the disease remain unchanged.

Many people worldwide, and in Colorado, are working tirelessly on controlling and mitigating the disease. Technology-based solutions around exposure notifications have been under discussion since April (here’s a post of mine from 4/23/20 titled Names Matter: Exposure Alerting vs. Digital Contact Tracing.)

Last week, the State of Colorado rolled out an exposure notification application built on and integrated into the Apple/Google approach. It’s privacy-first – completely anonymous, confidential – and extremely simple to turn on and use. In one week, over 10% of Colorado residents have enabled it.

The team at the State, led by Sarah Tuneberg, have been working intensely on this for many months. They’ve evaluated many different approaches, made privacy a critical feature, along with ease of implementation and use.

I’ve also been deep in this with several other initiatives, including a national Covid Tech Taskforce led by John Borthwick and Andrew McLaughlin. After seeing many different tech approaches, I’m confident Colorado has chosen the right one and built an application that can help mitigate the spread of Covid.

If you have an iPhone or Android phone, please enable the Colorado exposure notification. The FAQ covers all this in detail, especially around privacy and data.

Coloradans – please help each other keep each other safe from Covid!

$135 million.

That is the amount that over 5,600 Colorado small businesses requested from the Energize Colorado Gap Fund in our first three weeks of open applications. 

According to the SBA, small businesses in Colorado employ more than 1.1 million Coloradans, almost half of the state’s private workforce. 90% of the applicant pool came from one or more of the Gap Fund’s priority groups: BIPOC, women, veteran-owned, or companies in rural Colorado. 

We anticipated that the demand for the Gap Fund would be massive and that we needed to provide a model that could offer a sustainable path through the post-Covid economic recovery. To that end, the Gap Fund provides a combination of grant and loan funds to recipients. We are using a Program Related Investment (PRI) model to offer ultra low-interest loans and guarantee repayment to our loan partners. We pair the PRI with philanthropic donations to cover the overhead and expected losses from running the ultra low-interest loan program. As a result, our financial model creates a 5x multiplier on grant dollars.

We need your help to meet the need and to maintain our commitment to rebuilding a statewide economy that is more inclusive and more resilient. On October 8th at 5:30 pm MST, I’m co-hosting a virtual fundraiser with my good friends Governor Jared Polis, Gap Fund Chair Kent Thiry, and Energize Colorado’s CEO, Wendy Lea. While we’ve raised over $25 million to date, we are looking to raise another $25 million. While we have a PRI contribution minimum of $50K, we accept donations at any level to help fuel our ability to provide loans to small businesses in need.  

If you’re available, please register here to join us as part of the effort to help small businesses in Colorado navigate and emerge stronger from the Covid crisis.

If you are a business or nonprofit with less than 25 full-time employees (including sole proprietors) you can apply for up to a $15,000 grant and a $20,000 loan for a possible combined total of $35,000 in financial assistance.

The applications and awards will be done in rounds to allow the Energize Colorado Gap Fund to provide assistance through December 2020. This is not a first-come-first-serve process, but rather one that will be focused on helping those in need receive priority access to assistance.

A detailed FAQ for the Energize Colorado Gap Fund is available, but here are a few summary points around eligibility and priority.

Who is Eligible?

• Small Businesses/Enterprises – Colorado sole proprietors and registered small businesses including LLCs, S-Corps and other business types.
• Nonprofits – Colorado nonprofits whose mission and/or programs directly support economic development, small businesses, or tourism.
• Fewer than 25 employees – Applicants must have fewer than 25 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees. An employer may use its off-season employee count.
• Impacted by COVID-19 – Applicants must be able to show the economic hardship their business is facing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The business’s story of hardship plus documents such as bank records, point of sale receipts, profit and loss statements, or other documents can be used to show economic harm.

Priority Will Be Given to the Following:

• Any eligible Colorado small enterprise is welcome to apply. Priority will be given to applicants:
  • Who are majority-owned by Black, Indigenous, People of Color, Veterans, or Women
  • In rural areas with a population of less than 50,000 people
  • In the tourism sector
  • With limited or no access to capital financing or other federal, state or local grants/loans

I’m incredibly proud of the hard work of the many volunteers at Energize Colorado and the leadership of Wendy Lea who helped get this up and running. And, the Energize Colorado Gap Fund Executive Committee, under the leadership of Kent Thiry, is amazing to see in action.

Manufacturing, agriculture, retail, and tech. These are just a few of the many industries in Colorado led and supported by local businesses. But what are we doing to support them through the current health and economic crisis?

West Slope Startup Week (WSSW) launched last week (this year in a virtual format) — a full month of online programming open to businesses across the state. Programming includes sessions from people such as Energize Colorado (EC) CEO Wendy Lea and myself.

Equally innovative is the new element of digital mentorship. Led by Energize Colorado’s Mentorship team, we have brought together more than 45 mentors with expertise in finance, tech, sales, and more. This mentorship program is an opportunity for organizations, including EC and Techstars, to nurture Colorado’s rapidly growing talent on the Western Slope and throughout all of Colorado. 

Helping Colorado’s economy recover is about more than just a return to normal – it’s preparing for a fundamental transformation. Our future economy is one driven by a belief that equity and empathy are key strategies for inclusivity and long-term success.

Energize Colorado, a non-profit founded by many of Colorado’s business leaders, including myself, is here to lead this transformation. There are three key steps in Energize Colorado’s plan for economic recovery and growth:

1. Foundational Support: Access to mentorship, mental health resources, and research about reopening a business in the time of Covid.
2. Financial Access: EC’s Gap Fund (launching at the end of July) is a $25m+ fund that mixes grants and low-interest loans to assist rural, women, and BIPOC-owned businesses.
3. Fortitude: Providing the thought leadership Colorado needs to increase inclusivity, help small businesses remain competitive, and lead the nation in innovation.

During times like this, I am reminded why I, and many others, became entrepreneurs –  to satisfy a never-ending curiosity and drive to learn. This is, in part, why mentorship is so valuable to me and integral to EC and Techstars’ startup week programming.

Regardless of your age or expertise, there is always something to be learned and gained. Now more than ever, we have to come together across the state to support each other and lead this transformation. I am calling on all of you to recognize the value mentorship has had on your journey and participate.

The Covid crisis has generated, or amplified, a number of separate crises. One of them is a mental health (or mental wellness) crisis. As humans, our entire way of living has been dramatically impacted by Covid. We are isolated from each other, many of us are afraid of being in public, and we are feeling enormous weight from economic, social, familial, and organization pressure.

One of our goals with Energize Colorado is to create a non-profit for the extended business community of “Coloradans helping Coloradans”. We decided to make providing Mental Health Resources one of the primary initiatives.

The Energize Colorado website has a comprehensive list of mental health resources that are available, but here are two new ones.

Free or low-cost therapy or mental health support with a licensed therapist: As of the other day, we currently have therapists in Colorado who have donated a total of up to 1,000 free hours. If you are a therapist and you are open to donating up to five hours of free therapy, please sign up on the Therapist Volunteer page.

3 Free months of Simple Habit: Sign up to access meditations, sleep content, and movement exercises, designed to help you care for your mind — all free for 3 months.

Also, Energize Colorado now has a mailing list so you can stay informed on upcoming webinars as well as information from Energize Colorado.

These templates are based on OEDIT’s recommendations along with input from Kroger who has been a leader in evolving better practices as an essential business.

Next week, WorkBright and Energize Colorado are doing a four-part webinar series on Reopening Your Business.

• Part One: Let’s Keep COVID-19 Out of Your Workplace: Best practices in screening your workers and customers and how they need to be balanced with privacy and HIPAA concerns.
• Part Two: Let’s Not Pass it Along: Learn the underlying principles of social distancing to support creation of specific guidelines for your business and industry.
• Part Three: Let’s Plan for When it Does Happen: COVID-19 will come to virtually every business. Learn how to limit the impact and spread through your workforce.
• Part Four: Let’s Care for Our People: Special programs to check in frequently with workers and tools to respond to what you learn.

As businesses start opening up in Colorado, we are entering a very tricky phase of the Covid crisis. I appreciate the work that the 200+ volunteers at Energize Colorado are doing to help the companies with less than 500 employees navigate things.

GivingTuesday usually happens the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Amy and I have been involved in Boulder for many years, going back to the first year when the yellow Culture of Giving squeezy balls were part of the campaign.

This year it’s happening today. Globally.

The Covid crisis has created unprecedented stress and devastation on many people. The Governor’s Colorado COVID Relief Fund is raising and allocating funds based on prevention, impact, and recovery needs of community-based organizations in Colorado.

• Children from families living on low income who are impacted by school or childcare closures
• Communities of color
• Healthcare, hospitality, service industry and gig economy workers
• Immigrant and refugee communities
• Minimum or low-wage employees displaced by business closures
• Older adults living on low income
• People who are immuno-compromised or medically fragile
• People with limited English proficiency
• People with disabilities
• People without health insurance
• Victims of domestic violence or child abuse
• People living on low income
• People experiencing homelessness
• Tribal governments
• Workers without access to paid sick leave

To date, the fund has allocated $8.4 million to 371 organizations serving all 64 counties in Colorado.

We’ve all been working from home for the past 30 days (so, about 20 work days). Contemplate what your random out of pocket spending on food (coffee, snacks) is during the work day. $3? $5? $10? $20?

Consider contributing a day, a week (* 5), or a month (* 20) of whatever that number is to the Colorado COVID Relief Fund. Whatever number you contribute will be multiplied by 2 in the match.

Coloradans helping Coloradans. Because that’s what we do.

https://www.slideshare.net/bfeld/colorado-governor-polis-doingmypartco-presentation-03272020

The basic message is that unless it is absolutely necessary for you, please stay at home to prevent the spread of the virus. While it is frustrating and constraining in the short term, if you stay at home, your actions will contribute to saving many lives. If not, your actions will contribute to killing people. I know that’s a harsh statement, but the data shows that we are clearly in the middle of a relatively short period where our collective action of staying at home can have a huge positive impact.

There is a new, private-sector volunteer organization (and a non-profit) called Citizen Software Engineers (CSE) run by Tim Miller (you may know Tim as the Rally Software CEO from near inception through their acquisition by CA) that is part of my Innovation Response Team. CSE has a data team that is generating significant data around Covid-19 and wiring up publicly available data in a system for rapid feedback, analysis and response.

The actual data is extremely fast-moving and anyone familiar with complex systems or system dynamics knows that today’s inputs generate tomorrow’s outputs which are the new inputs. So, the action we take immediately can have profound positive or negative effects on what happens next.

Jared completely understands this and is using all the data he has to make decisions that have both short-term and medium-term impact. Right now we are in the middle of what I am calling “the surge” to help people I’m working with understand that the next 30 days (through the end of April) is a critical/urgent time to act since we didn’t act as a country 60 days ago.

While many things are setting the groundwork for dealing with Covid19 over a longer period of time, I’m not counting us a magical solution to this. Consequently, our actions every minute, every hour, and every day will make an impact on the magnitude of the surge, and whether we can flatten the curve enough so that we can handle it in Colorado.

Please do your part and stay at home. I know it’s tempting to go outside today, especially given the beautiful weather. I know it’s natural to say “fuck it” after a cooped up week and go for a hike. Understand the constraints of the stay at home order and follow them. Please. You will be saving lives.

Following is a joint statement that a bunch of us have signed on to. A group of us are working quickly to create more mechanisms for a coordinated response, collective action, funding for critical resources, and ideas for things to do that will have a positive impact.

Huge kudos to Bryan Leach at iBotta and Rachel Carlson at Guild Education for providing urgent and effective leadership here.

We are leaders of 35 different technology companies with headquarters or offices in the Denver and Boulder metro areas. This week, our companies stepped up efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 here in Colorado and beyond. Reflecting the spirit of collaboration that characterizes our startup community, we all came together as a group, shared best practices, and agreed to take the following decisive actions in the interest of protecting the most vulnerable members of our community:

• First​, we are strongly encouraging the majority of our workers to work from home as soon as possible, leaving behind the minimum possible in-office presence.

• Second​, we are restricting work travel by our employees, both domestically and internationally. We are also strongly advising our employees to be thoughtful about all personal travel, particularly where they would be congregating in larger groups.

• Third​, we ​are moving all clients, visitors, and interviews to remote only meetings and not currently welcoming onsite visitors.

• Fourth​, wherever possible we are strongly encouraging our vendors, service providers and partner businesses to take similar precautions.

• Fifth​, we are each consulting with our teams to find ways of supporting our local healthcare workers by helping to purchase critical medical resources, such as additional tests and protective equipment, and supporting the work of​ local nonprofit organizations that are helping at-risk communities who will be severely impacted by this pandemic.

• Finally​, we are calling on government officials and other business leaders to restrict large group gatherings, including in the largest entertainment venues along the Front Range.

Why are we taking these unprecedented steps? The spread of COVID-19 is past the point of containment. Without​ swift action, we may soon witness the failure of our healthcare system’s capacity to deal with the virus’s complications. Our healthcare system is not built to handle enormous loads of critically ill people all at once. Therefore, we urgently need to flatten the curve of disease transmission to prevent unnecessary deaths. Wuhan City had 4.3 hospital beds per thousand people. In the United States, we have 2.8. There are not enough health care providers to care for all the sick. There are fewer than 100,000 full ventilators in the US. We are already seeing this play out with tragic consequences in Italy, where the mortality rate is shockingly high, as their healthcare system has struggled to keep pace with the sudden crushing load of hospitalized patients, leading to otherwise preventable deaths.

Our actions alone will not be enough, and we cannot wait for our government agencies and elected officials to mandate these restrictions. Every hour counts. We therefore call on others in Colorado — and in other startup communities across the country — to follow our lead and implement these procedures, effective immediately.

Signed:

Bryan Leach, Founder and CEO, Ibotta
Brad Feld, Partner, Foundry Group
David Brown, CEO, Techstars
Sameer Dholakia, CEO, Twilio SendGrid
Ben Wright, CEO, Velocity Global
Jake Bolling, CEO, Skupos
Bart Lorang, CEO, FullContact
Conor Swanson, Co-Founder, Code-Talent
John Levisay, Founder & CEO, Bluprint
Matt Talbot, CEO, GoSpotCheck
Joni Klippert, CEO, StackHawk
Rajat Bhargava, CEO, JumpCloud
Fred Kneip, CEO, CyberGRX
Brent Handler, CEO, Inspirato
Lee Mayer, CEO, Havenly
Brett Jurgens, CEO, Notion
Walter Knapp, CEO, Sovrn
Brian Egan, CEO, Evolve Vacation Rental
Chris Cabrera, Founder & CEO, Xactly Corporation
David Levin, Co-Founder & CEO, Four Winds Interactive
Matthew Glotzbach, CEO, Quizlet
Nick Martin, CEO, The Pro’s Closet
Seth Levine, Partner, Foundry Group
Stewart McGrath, CEO, Section
Matthew Klein, CEO, Backbone
Carm Huntress, CEO, RxRevu
Mike Gionfriddo, CTO, Pie Insurance
Paul Berberian, CEO, Sphero
Joshua Reeves, CEO, Gusto
Chris Klein, CEO, Rachio
Mark Frank, CEO, SonderMind
Pete Holst, CEO, Oblong
Rachel Carlson, CEO, Guild Education
Josh Dorsey, Managing Director, Silicon Valley Bank
Amit Shah, VP Operations, Virta Health

So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that one of Jared Polis’ relatively early new initiatives as Governor is the Colorado Digitial Service.

The founding team includes several entrepreneurial friends along with extremely capable technologists around Colorado. The idea is to do “civic service tours of duty” to rapidly improve a number of citizen-facing applications that millions of Coloradian’s use on a regular basis.

I much prefer this approach, with a highly functional agile team of experts, rather than yet another $100 million contract with a large consulting firm, government contractor, or legacy technology company that will result in a three-year build and deployment of a system that never actually sees the light of day.

If you have deep technical, designer, or application development skills and are interested in a civic tour of duty helping improve the software that Coloradian’s use to interact with our state government, go apply to help out.

Street Level Startups: The New Gold Rush

Street Level Startups: When an Idea Strikes – Stories of Inspiration

Street Level Startups: Three Phases of a Startup

Street Level Startups: Mentorship & Integration

Street Level Startups: Startups to Watch

The first episode, which is above, includes me and Jared Polis reflecting on some fun Techstars founding history, Dan Caruso talking about Zayo and the bridge between Boulder / Denver, and a great segment at the end with Brad Bernthal talking about fundraising and #GiveFirst. And, plenty of other stuff.

It was fun to watch a bunch of the old video from the last dozen years in one place. I love living and working here.

From June 5 to June 8, Techstars Startup Week West Slope will be happening on the western slope in Colorado, with the main event in Grand Junction.

I’m doing a Keynote at on Thursday, June 6 from 11:30am – 1:00pm at Colorado Mesa University. I’ll be talking about building startup communities outside Colorado’s front range in a fireside chat / AMA format.

Startup communities in Colorado that are outside the front range (Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs, and Fort Collins) have become something that my partner Seth Levine and I have been very involved in the past few years. Seth’s providing a lot of on the ground leadership, through his work with Startup Colorado and the Greater Colorado Venture Fund. I try to show up or help remotely whenever I can and Amy and I have been writing plenty of checks from our Anchor Point Foundation to support various initiatives.

We have family in Hotchkiss, a house in Aspen, and have spent a lot of time in Summit County over the past decade when we had a house in Keystone. There are magical things going on all over Colorado, especially on the western slope. I have a strong belief that startup communities should exist everywhere and can have a meaningful impact on cities outside the large urban concentrations that we have in many parts of the U.S.

What’s happening in Colorado’s Western Slope is powerful and an example that can be used through the U.S. and the world. If you are interested, come join us at Techstars Startup Week West Slope to learn more.

At the time there were 108 projects that fit the profile. Our hope was that our match would fund these projects, encourage more teachers to put their projects up on DonorsChoose.org, and get more new donors involved.

We ended up funding 394 projects, helping 40,404 students, 246 schools, and 380 teachers in Colorado.

At the time, we didn’t announce the size of our matching gift, but it was $100,000. So, through Donorschoose.org we’ve helped fund $200,000 of direct purchases for classrooms in Colorado.

Thank you to everyone who supported these teachers. We love supporting Donorschoose.org because the projects are initiated by teachers who know what they need in their classroom to best serve their students’ educational needs.

There are currently 108 projects that fit this profile. We launched yesterday and nine have already been fully funded (and 330 students have been helped.) The criteria for our match is that these are projects put up by new teachers on the DonorsChoose.org platform.

Our hope is that two things will happen before the end of the year.

First, if you want to support a teacher and students in Colorado, go make a contribution of any amount on DonorsChoose.org from this link and we’ll automatically match it. Or, you can also click this link if you want to do a search on the active projects that Anchor Point Foundation is matching. You’ll notice a mention of the Anchor Point Foundation next to the projects we match – it’ll look like the following.

Clicking through will show a page like the following where you actually make the contribution.

Second, we hope any teacher in Colorado who has never had a fully funded project on DonorsChoose.org before, submits a project before the end of the year. We’ll match those projects as well, so getting more online is an awesome thing.

We believe DonorsChoose.org is an outstanding platform for getting additional funding into classrooms. Please help us support education in Colorado.

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.

Next up is a fun article by my co-author of Startup Communities Way (my new Startup Communities book – coming up mid-year 2019) Ian Hathaway. A few days ago he cranked out a post titled Colorado is for Founders. I love that phrase and he led off the post with this great tweet from Phil Weiser.

Excited to work with our new Governor and my client to be, @jaredpolis. pic.twitter.com/5jOv1K0gDL

— Phil Weiser (@pweiser) December 5, 2018

He goes on to explain Jared and Phil’s huge accomplishments and impacts around startups and the startup community. The punch line in the post is:

“By many measures, Colorado is the most entrepreneurial state in the country, a fact that I discovered in 2013 when studying high-technology business formation around the United States. I was struck by just how many places across the state had a high proportion of startup activity occurring—a finding that has been extended to looking across other types of high-growth entrepreneurship as well. Something special is happening there, and it has been for many years.”

I’ll end with the Holiday Gift Guide from Techstars. If you want to give someone you know the gift of something from a Techstars company this holiday season, here are the choices all in one place.

Happy Friday Colorado. See you in a week.

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.

I’ve now lived in Colorado longer than anywhere else (22.5 years). But, I’m occasionally told by people who have lived in Boulder for over 25 years that I’m still a newbie. So, maybe I’m a Texas for a few more years, although Amy says definitively, “You are not.”

Announcing the Greater Colorado Venture Fund!

I am proud to share that the Colorado Venture Capital Authority (VCA), in conjunction with the Office of Economic Growth and International Trade (OEDIT), has selected the Greater Colorado Venture Fund to steward the state’s rural venture capital allocation.

Following a competitive application process, the state will be funding an initial $9.1 million of a target $15 million venture fund to be invested in startups across 54 eligible Colorado counties. This fund will be a cornerstone in the state’s larger initiative to support entrepreneurs in smaller communities in Colorado, an effort I have been heavily involved in.

Led by Marc Nager, former CEO of Startup Weekend and UP Global (where I was on the board, now part of Techstars), the GCVF team members are already leaders in Colorado’s Rural Startup Community. Since joining the Telluride Venture Accelerator in 2016, Marc has already led many initiatives for entrepreneurs outside of the Front Range. Marc is joined by Cory Finney, the fund’s full-time Fund Director, and Jamie Finney, Venture Partner. The Finney brothers, originally from Durango, are sixth-generation Coloradans and partners at Kokopelli Capital. Together, this team is already at the center of Rural Colorado’s rising startup.

Having worked with the team throughout the application process, the GCVF’s application embraces this fund’s national spotlight, while remaining grounded in rural Colorado communities. They have earned endorsements from local leaders across the state, as well as national players such as the Kauffman Foundation, the Economic Innovation Group, Village Capital, Seth Levine and myself.

As I first documented in 2012 in my book Startup Communities, Colorado has become a leader in building entrepreneurial ecosystems. In selecting the GCVF to invest its funds, the state is showing its commitment to building healthy communities by empowering entrepreneurs first. I look forward to collaborating with the GCVF team to redefine venture capital in small and rural communities.

Colorado, specifically Denver, is in the final 20 cities bidding on Amazon’s HQ2. This open bid process is an absolutely brilliant move by Amazon for a variety of reasons.

• Enormous branding: Everyone, everywhere, is talking about Amazon. Amazon Amazon Amazon. We love Amazon.
• Absurd market information: The amount of data about each city that Amazon is getting out of this is incredible.
• Visibility into what cities are willing to offer: Amazon knows where its future leverage points are when negotiating with individual cities.

While I’m glad Denver approached it the way they did, focusing on strength and resources of the community rather than by throwing dollars at Amazon, our state government still provided plenty of financial incentives.

Amazon HQ2 could qualify for huge Colorado tax incentives. From the article:

“Colorado’s main tax incentive used to lure “Amazon HQ2” could add up to at least $458.9 million rebated back to the Seattle-based retail giant over several years and could top $860 million if the company’s HQ2 campus were to grow fast enough. The figures are based on the pay scale Amazon predicts at HQ2 and the formula for Colorado’s “Job Growth Incentive Tax Credit” program.”

Since I think the chance of Amazon actually choosing Denver is 0.0001%, I have a suggestion for the Colorado state government for when Amazon chooses someplace else.

Give 100% of the benefit (economic and otherwise) you are offering to the Denver-based business community, with special focus on high growth scaleup companies.

Steve Case has a brilliant Memo to the Cities Amazon Passed Over. Julie Lenzer explains how everyone can have a trophy, or how to make the most of NOT getting Amazon HQ2.

In the context of be careful of what you wish for some economists are now weighing in: Amazon HQ2 finalists should refuse tax breaks, say nearly 100 economists, professors. There is only going to be one city that ends up with Amazon’s HQ2. For everyone else, especially Denver, use what you were willing to do to drive real long-term economic growth and health for your city, rather than retreat in defeat.