Community

I love to experiment with new things. Some of the experiments work. Many don’t. When they work, I do more of them. When they don’t, I adjust my hypothesis and try a different experiment. When I published The Startup Community Way: Evolving an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem , I ran an online community with it for a year (2020), which overlapped with COVID, so it was weird on multiple dimensions. The software I used was good, but it evolved into a “monetize your community” type of thing, which wasn’t my goal. I learned a lot from this experience (good and bad). ...

When Amy and I had life dinner on March 1st, we were both tired after a three-week trip to Boston, Miami, and Atlanta. As we discussed the potential impact of Covid, we talked about the current state of things in the US. The stock market had already had a 15% or so drop but there were less than 10 deaths (all in Seattle) from Covid in the US. I remember us having an anxious evening that included the statement “I’m really glad February is over and we are back home in Boulder.” Prescient, but not really what we meant. ...

This week’s The Founders is awesome. It reminds us that there are real people and real families behind every startup. I’ve experienced this over and over again in my 17 years in Boulder and it’s reflected in both the Startup Communities book that is out and the Startup Life book that Amy and I are in the final copyedit phase of and will be out by January. Take a few minute break from your day to enjoy the lives of some great entrepreneurs in a dynamite startup community that are part of an extended family that I’m proud to be associated with.

I’m a huge admirer of Hacker News – it’s one of the sites I look at every day in my Daily reading routine. I scan the links, often click through to articles, and occasionally comment. I’ve decided to try a similar approach for the Startup Revolution community that I’m calling the Startup Revolution Hub. Rather than reblog a bunch of stuff that I get from the world about Startup Communities, I’m going to open up the ability to put this up on the Hub to anyone who wants to contribute, starting now. I’ve built the Hub on top of SocialEngine , which is rapidly evolving as an amazing tool for building and managing communities. ...

There are many things I love about Boulder. One of them is the powerful sense of community that exists. Talking about this is fine, but examples are better. Here’s one: On the first Tuesday of every month is the Boulder New Tech Meetup . It’s one of the largest regular tech meetups in the world and is orchestrated by a bunch of folks, most notably Robert Reich of OneRiot who is the founder and ringleader. Given my travel, I can’t make it regularly but I try to go a couple of times a year. Each time is fascinating – I’ve always learned something, met some interesting folks, and had fun. ...