High Alpha

Foundry is partnering with High Alpha to drive survey responses for the 2025 SaaS Benchmarks Report. Take the survey now at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/YBJXXDQ to contribute to the data and get early access to the 2025 SaaS Benchmarks. Over the years, the SaaS Benchmarks Report has become a trusted resource for early and growth-stage SaaS operators. To make this year’s report as impactful as possible, we need strong participation from the SaaS community — that’s where your support by taking this year’s survey would make a big difference. ...

I’ve been having a lot of fun at public events around the launch of my new book, Give First: The Power of Mentorship . I’ve got a handful of events left in Boulder before Amy and I head to Aspen for the summer. 6/5: Denver: Techstars Workforce Development Demo Day + Give First with Brad Feld 6/10: Boulder: CoinGeek Startup Spotlight: From Entrepreneur to Enterprise 6/12: Boulder: New Tech ft. Give First Fireside Chat w/ Brad Feld For the past two days, I was in Indianapolis at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress 2025 . The last time I was at GEC was in Rio de Janeiro in 2013. Even then, I was talking about Give Before You Get , a concept I had introduced in Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City , which I wrote in 2012. And, I had longer hair. ...

I’m currently at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress 2025 in Indianapolis. Yesterday, at the end of the day, I spent several hours at High Alpha hanging out with my friends and then doing a Give First: The Power of Mentorship book event with them and about 150 people. One of the questions during the book talk was around mental health and entrepreneurship. I talked about my own experiences with anxiety and depression and explained that my core diagnosis, which I was diagnosed with in my 20s, was obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I said that one of my goals for being open was to destigmatize mental health issues, especially in the context of entrepreneurship and mentioned that I periodically hear something like “I’m OCD and it’s my superpower” and dismissed that idea as nonsense, since OCD is an insidious thing that gets in the way of so many things in life. ...

Historically, almost everything I do uses a network model. Foundry Group runs as a network. If you take a look at the Foundry Group partner funds or talk to us about our investment strategy, you’ll immediately see the texture of a network. Techstars is a worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. All of my ideas around Startup Communities incorporate network theory. If you are involved in any organizations I’ve helped create, such as Energize Colorado , you’ll immediately recognize the network model underlying them. ...

Last week I met Max Yoder, the CEO of Lessonly , at the annual High Alpha CEO summit. He was the last speaker in the afternoon and ended a great day on an energized note. He handed out copies of his recent book Do Better Work: Finding Clarity, Camaraderie, and Progress in Work and Life . His talk discussed his journey around writing the book, motivation for doing it, how it is integrated into the mission of Lessonly, and why he decided to self-publish it. ...

Today, Techstars announced a new initiative called Techstars Studio which will allow Techstars to source new company concepts from Techstars alumni founders, community leaders, venture capitalists, mentors, and corporate partners. The Techstars Studio will then build prototypes, test market adoption, and select the most promising concepts for launch. Techstars Studio will then launch new startups and source talent and capital from the Techstars worldwide network to run the new companies. ...

A few weeks ago I was in Atlanta for Techstars Atlanta Demo Day and the Venture Atlanta Conference . I had a great time and it’s fun to see the vibrancy of the Atlanta startup community. My brother Daniel came with me and we had dinner with our cousin Kenny, who lives in Atlanta, so we got some nice, quiet, emotionally intimate family time. My favorite keynote at Venture Atlanta was from Scott Dorsey . While our paths have intersected for more than a decade and I knew him from a distance, I’ve gotten to know Scott pretty well over the past year. I put him in the awesome category. ...