On a daily basis I get an email from someone, either in Boulder, or considering a move to Boulder, who asks how they can best get involved in the Boulder entrepreneurial community. My response is simple – get involved, show up, and participate. I then list a set of regular activities that exist, with my favorites being:

• Boulder Open Coffee Club
• Boulder New Tech Meetup
• Silicon Flatirons Events
• Boulder Beta
• Ignite Boulder

There are also a handful of sites that help you figure out how to plug in and list other events. The two I recommend are Boulder.me and Boulder Startup Digest.

One of the awesome things about the Boulder entrepreneurial community is that it operates on a “give before you get” approach – it’s super easy to engage as the existing entrepreneurs are happy to give help and support with no specific expectations. But you have to “give” to become involved – don’t just show up once and hope magic will happen. Keep coming back. Volunteer to help out, with no expectations of compensation. Build a reputation for what you can do. Then magic will happen.

For job seekers, I point them at the Foundry Group Jobs page and the TechStars Jobs page as well as encourage them to email me a resume that I’ll send to a CEO list I co-manage, which consists of about 100 local entrepreneurial CEOs (if you are a CEO and want to be on the list, just email me.)

It’s all remarkably low infrastructure and overhead, but very high velocity. When I reflect on what makes it work, its the “give before you get” mentality of the entrepreneurial community, which I’m proud to be a part of.

Oh – and if you run a Boulder entrepreneurial event that’s not included in the list, or have suggestions about what you’d like to see, feel free to leave info about it in the comments.

On November 9th, I’ll be helping launch Startup Colorado. We’ll be having a kickoff event at CU Boulder from 6:30pm – 8:35pm.

Startup Colorado will be one of the regional initiatives under the umbrella of the Startup America Partnership. Startup Colorado is an initiative to make a meaningful impact on entrepreneurship and new company creation in the Front Range. We want to expand the breadth and depth of entrepreneurial networks from Fort Collins to Boulder to Denver to Colorado Springs and lower barriers for people who want to build high-growth businesses.

At the launch event, our agenda will include talking specifically about what our plans and goals are for 2012. We’ll be operating under my first principle of entrepreneurial communities – that an entrepreneurial community must be lead by entrepreneurs. We have a panel discussing what has happened in Boulder over the past decade and one about the power of mentorship.

We’ll also be joined by several special guests, including Scott Case (Startup America Partnership CEO) and Aneesh Chopra (United States Chief Technology Officer).

If you are an entrepreneur in Colorado, we’d love to have you join us. Please register at the Silicon Flatirons site. The event will be at the Wittemyer Courtroom, Wolf Law Building, University of Colorado on Wednesday, November 9, 2011; 6:30 – 8:35 PM.

I’m in San Francisco right now and then New York later this week. When I look at my schedule, and where I’m hanging out, I realize that even though I’m in two very big cities, I’m going to spending most of my time in a very small area.

When asked why Boulder is such a vibrant entrepreneurial community, I talk about a concept I call entrepreneurial density. Boulder is a small town – the city itself is only 100,000 people. Yet the number of entrepreneurs in Boulder is significant. And the number of people working for startups is off the charts. Start with the definition:

entrepreneurial density = ((# entrepreneurs + # people working for startups or high growth companies)) / adult population

My guess is that Boulder’s entrepreneurial density is one of the highest in the United States. I don’t have any empirical data to back this up – it’s a qualitative assessment based on my experience traveling around and investing in different parts of the US.

While population is one measure, I’ve also started thinking about geography as another. In the case of Boulder, the core of the entrepreneurial community is in downtown, which is a 10 x 4 block area. Even though downtown Boulder is small, it has different personalities (yes – we have an east side and a west side), yet you can walk from one end to the other in ten minutes. And, inevitably, when I walk across town I always bump into people I know.

The geography index matters even in places like New York. When I stay in New York, I generally stay within walking distance of Union Square. Sure, I end up in midtown or downtown occasionally, but most of my time is spent in a 20 x 8 block area. The bay area splits similarly – I’m in San Francisco within walking distance or a short drive of many of our bay area companies, but I’m on the other end of the planet from Palo Alto.

As I think more about entrepreneurial communities, I’m starting to expand my definition of entrepreneurial density to include by population and geography. This seems to matter a lot, even in very large entrepreneurial communities like New York and San Francisco.

I’m curious about experiences in other parts of the country, especially entrepreneurial communities that are growing or trying to reinvigorate themselves. How does entrepreneurial density (either geo or population) impact you?

We all love The Onion, right? It’s the best news right after Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert.

We also all love Boulder. Those of us that live here love making fun of ourselves and our town because, well, there’s a lot to make fun of.

The Prairie Dog is Boulder’s home grown version of The Onion. And it is hilarious. Some sample headlines follow:

• Oklahoma lashes out, accuses Colorado of being “anorexic”
• Republican spotted on Pearl street, children alerted
• Local venture capitalist raises alarm when magic 8 ball goes missing from desk
• After years of derision, gluten declares intolerance for Boulder

You get the idea. The posts are still short but artfully (and sharply) worded. I love it. Thanks @djilk for the tip.

And where’s my fucking magic 8 ball – who took it? Give it back please.

When developers come through Boulder, I regularly get asked if I know a place for them to camp out and work for the day. There’s now a great solution – Codespace – hosted by Trada.

Boulderites know the local coffee shop / sushi scene where wifi is abundant. However, you now have a dedicated, free co-working space for developers on Walnut Street right in the middle of downtown (in the old Daily Camera building, now home to Trada). The Codespace philosophy is a simple one:

Code is free, so should be the space you create it in. If you’re in the neighborhood, come over and hang out – for an hour or the whole day. Enjoy some free wireless, scrawl on the whiteboards, rack up on endless caffeine, and enjoy hanging out and working with the smartest development talent in Boulder.

In addition to daily free options, there are a few dedicated spaces that you can apply for. Go check out the Codespace page or my partner Seth Levine’s longer description about Codespace. Most importantly, go check out Codespace. And please thank the gang at Trada for providing this for the Boulder entrepreneurial community.

The Glue Conference is next week – 5/25 and 5/26 – in Boulder.  When Eric Norlin and my partner Seth Levine first cooked up the idea for glue, they built it around our Glue theme – namely integrating (or “glueing”) together web applications.

We’ve invested heavily in the area with great success, but have only just begun. Our activity around Glue + AdTech generated our Adhesive theme. We’ve been thinking a lot lately about “ecommerce glue” and expect to learn some things at Gluecon on this front.

To get a feel for Gluecon, take a look at the Agenda. The concentration of companies and executives around this topic is awesome. The format is short keynotes surrounded by lots of networking, a hackathon, and a few short, interactive panels. Having been to and participated in many of Eric’s conferences, they are an extremely high concentration of relevant people talking real tech and product – no marketing garbage allowed. Eric has worked hard this year to bring Gluecon to a new level and set a new bar for all tech conferences – I believe he’s got it wired.

If you want to spent two days with 500 of your best friends talking about technology that integrates web services, APIs, web meta-data, and the rapidly evolving new data economy, there is still time to register for Glue. I’ll be there along with my partners, a few other VCs like Mark Suster, and a whole bunch of key tech entrepreneurs hanging out and talking with you.

One of my favorite times for me in the life of a company is when it finds its sweet spot and really turns on the juice. Over the past year, we’ve had a number of our Boulder-based investments find this magic moment, including Trada and SendGrid. The most recent Boulder-based company to really hit its stride is Gnip.

Gnip is around three years old and is a testament to our belief at Foundry Group that it often takes several years for a brand new company to really find its mojo. While Gnip is building a business based on the idea that led to its creation, like most firms breaking new ground it has had its share of bumps along the way.

The first version of the product was based on an architectural approach that didn’t aptly satisfy all players in the ecosystem and wasn’t flexible enough. This led to a reset of the business, including a layoff of almost half the team (who were quickly absorbed into a number of other local Boulder companies, including several that we funded) and a different approach to the product. This approach worked much better, but by this point one of the co-founders was frustrated with the customer dynamics (all business facing) and decided to leave to start a new consumer-facing business (he left on good terms, we are still good friends, and he’s much happier today).

At this point, the other co-founder, Jud Valeski, stepped up to be the CEO. Jud is an extremely experienced CTO / technical product manager and developer, but had never been a CEO. The investors in Gnip committed to supporting Jud in any way he needed and he’s done a spectacular job of building the product, growing the team, negotiating several significant deals including the first Twitter data resyndication deal, and unleashing a very compelling set of products on the world. His one-year CEO anniversary is approaching, and things are going great.

The last three months have been pleasantly insane. Gnip has been adding customers at rate that any investor would be proud of, is executing flawlessly on the product and operations side as it scales up, and is posting month over month growth numbers that put it in the “they are killing it” category. Oh, and they are hiring as fast as they can find great people; across the spectrum (business, sales, & engineering).

I’m super proud of Jud and the team he’s built at Gnip. I expect we’ll look back on 2011 as the year that Gnip went from a highly product development focused company to a company that was firing on all cylinders. And Boulder will have another substantial software / Internet company in the mix.

Boulder is full of software engineers, but we need more. A lot more. So, several local companies pitched in some bucks and the organizers of Boulder Startup Week are buying plane tickets for five people to come out between May 18th and May 22nd. If you don’t know about Boulder Startup Week, take a look at the killer agenda.

If you are a software engineer, send ryanwanger at gmail a note containing the following:

1. An answer to why you are interested in coming out to Boulder.

2. A resume or examples of your work.

3. Your phone number.

The deadline for applying is 12pm MST on May 9th. Please don’t apply unless you are available to fly out to Boulder May 18th – 22nd (with a little +/- flexibility). Also, you have to be in the US already as the organizers can’t afford to fly you from outside the US. And, they’ll help you find a place to stay as long as you aren’t allergic to couches.

On April 11th, I’ll be the interviewee at CU Silicon Flatirons Entrepreneurs Unplugged. The event will be held at ATLAS Room 100 from 6:15pm to 7:30pm; Brad Bernthal and Jill Van Matre will be interviewing me.

If you’ve come to an Entrepreneurs Unplugged event in the past, you know that I’m usually the interviewer with help from Brad Bernthal. I’ve loved playing the part of a very amateur Charlie Rose with some great Boulder (and Denver) entrepreneurs. It’ll be fun to be on the receiving end this time. I promise I’ll tell at least one new story that’s never been heard before.

My friends at Orbotix are hiring. Following is the list of open positions. If you fit the description, like playing with robots, want free beer all day, and live in Boulder, email them a note with a resume.

- Game Designer: Are you passionate about gaming and have a deep understanding of game design and game mechanics? This isn’t a programming job but you will need to be able to create wireframes and rough graphics for games that bridge the gap between the virtual world on your phone with the physical gameplay aspects of Sphero.

- iPhone Game Developer: Build amazing and crazy iPhone games that integrate with the Sphero API.

- Android Game Developer: Same as the iPhone developer but on the Android side.

- Social Media & Marketing Manager: Do you love robots, toys, and games and can think of nothing better to do than talk to people about them – both in person and on Twitter, Facebook, and a blog? If yes, then this is you!

- PHP Developer Internship: This paid internship is for someone fluent in PHP development who can help manage the Orbotix web sites.

- Marketing Internship: This paid internship is for someone who will be working with our marketing manager to promote Sphero.

Orbotix has some exciting announcements happening in the next 30 days; if you’ve been waiting for the right time to join a hot startup in Boulder, now is the time. And, if you are at SXSW, go hunt down the Orbotix gang and participate in their “Where are my balls?” contest to win a free Sphero.