Luke Beatty

One of the podcasts in my regular rotation is Turnpikers. Luke Beatty and Danny Newman – both long time friends – are doing an awesome job interviewing interesting people in the Boulder – Denver startup community. If you don’t know the area, Turnpikers stands for U.S. Route 36 (known locally as “36” or sometimes “Highway 36”). But the locals call it the Boulder Turnpike . So, those of us who travel up and down 36 between Boulder and Denver are known – at least to Luke and Danny – as Turnpikers. ...

I got to work closely with Luke Beatty this summer while he was running the Techstars Boulder program. In one word, he’s “awesome.” Deeply, truly awesome. I knew Luke from a distance – we’d crossed paths a few times but never worked together. I watched him build a real company with Associated Content and sell it to Yahoo for $100 million. When David Cohen asked me what I thought of him for Managing Director of Techstars Boulder, I responded “Awesome if you can get him.” ...

The roster at TechStars continues to grow with awesome people. In the past month, TechStars has announced Mark Solon as a general partner, Luke Beatty as managing director for Boulder and Ari Newman as Network Catalyst. I’m proud to claim all three as close colleagues. Mark is a long time friend – we’ve invested in a number of companies together over the years including SendGrid , Orbotix , and Lijit . He’s been involved as a mentor to TechStars since the beginning and his endless positive energy and attitude was a huge inspiration for my Boulder Thesis . When he announced that he wasn’t raising another fund at Highway 12 Ventures , David Cohen started talking to him about taking a more active role with TechStars. Voila! ...