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In the Startup Communities, I talk extensively about leaders and feeders. I assert than anyone in the startup community should be able to start / create / do anything that is helpful to the startup community. They don’t have to ask permission – there is no VP Activities in a startup community. I also talk about how the students are the precious and most valuable resource of a university.
This morning I got the following email from Fletcher Richman, a student at CU. It’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about and it is immediately actionable for every entrepreneur in Boulder and Denver.
Dear Founders and Friends,
As students at CU Boulder, we have noticed that there are many startups that would love hire more interns and full time employees from the university, and lots of students would love to work at a startup. However, there seems to be a disconnect between the two.
We would like to fix this issue. We have created a simple form to get a better idea of the positions available for students at startups that we would greatly appreciate if you could fill out:
I’d like to hire some CU Students!
The data from this form will be used for two things:
1) To help start an online startup jobs and internships board for students that we are currently building.
2) To build a contact list of companies for the Students2Startups fair early next year, which will be bigger and better than ever before!
Thank you so much for your help! Please let us know if you have any questions.Sincerely,
So – what are you waiting for. Go sign up to hire some CU Students!
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Please ask Boulder City Council to vote NO on proceeding with inadequate decision criteria November 15.
There is a critical vote in Boulder City Council on this Thursday, 11/15, about the “Off Ramps” in the exploration to explore the municipalization of Boulder’s power system. My understanding was that this was still in an exploration phase. Apparently, this particular vote is to effectively eliminate the “off ramps” that would potentially cause Boulder not to municipalize in case it wasn’t economically feasible.
My partner Jason wrote an important post yesterday titled Boulder It’s Time to Get Serious About Our Energy Situation – Call City Council. His key finding in his early exploration was:
This Thursday, on November 15, 2012 the City Council will vote on these off ramp metrics. In other words, this is the framework they will rely on to determine whether or not Boulder is going to go-it-alone on power. And I feel these metrics are very flawed and bias the decision to separate, rather than unbiased to get us to the correct decision. I’ve spent time with several folks in the community who are experts on these matters and who are spending their own time and money analyzing these metrics. They are convinced they are flawed and I’m convinced their scientific method is sound.
Please send an email to Boulder City Council immediately (send the email to council@bouldercolorado.gov) that you do not support a vote for adequacy of the “off-ramp” decision metrics proposed by Heather Bailey (which are the current metrics). They do not represent our risks of greatly increased electric rates, reduced reliability, and unsupportable bond debt due to creating a Boulder municipal power enterprise.
Please vote NO on proceeding with inadequate decision criteria November 15.
For more detail, take a look at the thorough presentation by Roger Koenig.
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.
Today I read the following headline in the Boulder Daily Camera: “Phillips 66 to sell 432-acre campus in Louisville.” This was quite a reversal from the headline in the Denver Post 4.5 years ago titled “Conoco deal fuels optimism.” For anyone who drives up and down Highway 36 between Boulder and Denver (or from Boulder to DIA) we regularly see this huge, empty, relatively ugly former StorageTek headquarters site which has been sitting “about ready to be developed any day we promise” by Conoco Phillips. As of today, this is no ambiguity that Conoco Phillips (now Phillips 66) won’t be developing anything on the site.
Here are some snippets from the article in the Denver Post on 2/21/08.
“Touting his vision for a new energy economy and ending months of speculation, Gov. Bill Ritter on Wednesday revealed that ConocoPhillips has purchased the former StorageTek campus in Louisville.”
“This will push the new energy economy for Colorado,” Ritter said. “This will provide economic security, environmental security and energy security.”
“While the number of jobs the region will gain is still in question, the company will bring thousands of employees to the training center each year.”
“It’s a perfect example of Colorado’s new energy economy, and we are very much looking forward to welcoming ConocoPhillips to Colorado,” said Matt Cheroutes, director of communications and external affairs for the state Office of Economic Development and International Trade. “This will lend to our ability to attract companies to Colorado’s new energy economy. This certainly could mean opportunities for significant job growth in the state.”
“It certainly reinforces the great work that Gov. Ritter has been doing to grow this renewable-energy cluster,” said Joe Blake, president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. “This just signals to me that Colorado is at the center of this right now on a worldwide basis.”
There’s plenty more but the summary is that in 2008 government leaders declared victory when the land was purchased and asserted all kinds of validation and economic development as a result of it. Of course, we now know that none of it happened and the land – which was supposed to be fully developed by 2012 – is still vacant.
I see this all the time in my travels around the US with regard to economic development activities. There is this incredible focus by government on attracting big business projects, headquarters projects, and speculative development projects. Sometimes major financial incentives, usually in the form of tax relief, is offered as a sweeter. In the situations where this works, I can imagine a long term economic benefit to a region.
However, the sale of a piece of property doesn’t signal anything. And, like many other economic development victories, it’s a total non-event until something is done. Yet politicians and their economic development folks assert that amazing things will happen as a result. These aren’t hypotheses (e.g. “if they actually develop this project amazing things will happen”) they are statement of facts about how they will happen. If you read the article as well as look at the development that has occurred immediately adjacent to the site (apartments and a hotel) you can see how the speculators show up right away.
It’s all very arbitrary feeling to me and doesn’t surprise me at all. When the land was purchased and everyone in state and local government raved about how amazing it would be for the Boulder area, most of the entrepreneurs I know barely noticed it. And four years later it hasn’t had any impact on the Boulder startup scene, positive or negative, that I’m aware of.
It’s another example of what I talk about in Startup Communities as the disconnect between government and the startup community.
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My friends Phil Weiser and Brad Bernthal at Silicon Flatirons (who are a big part of the book Startup Communities) are hosting me in Boulder on Monday for a “Crash Course: Startup Communities – Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City.”) It’s happening at CU Boulder from 6:15pm – 7:45pm and Lesa Mitchell from the Kauffman Foundation will be joining us for a discussion. Lesa and her colleague Paul Kedrosky has also been a big supporter and influencer on my thinking in this area.
If you want a preview of what I’ll be talking about, Steve Blank, the successful entrepreneur and brilliant brain behind the Customer Development idea, has an outstanding and thorough (like everything Steve does) review of Startup Communities up on his site.
This is the first public session in Boulder about Startup Communities. I’m in Chicago today at the Startup America Regional Summit where I’m talking about Startup Communities with leaders of about 35 regions that have embraced the Startup America movement. I’ve been having a lot of fun talking about the book, getting feedback from entrepreneurial leaders around the country, and meeting with some new and interesting entrepreneurs who are working on super cool businesses. But it’s always fun to have home court advantage and I’m very much looking forward to spending time talking about Startup Communities with a bunch of people in Boulder who helped me figure all this stuff out.
If you are in Boulder on Monday 10/15 and want to come hang out, register for the event now (it’s free) and come join us.
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