What makes Boulder a great tech city

A few months ago I read Brad Feld’s The Startup Community: Building an entrepreneurial ecosystem in your city.

As I read Feld I couldn’t help but make the connections to what an ecosystem for church startups would look like. Church planters are the entrepreneurs of the kingdom. On a Spirit-led whim, equipped only with vision and mustard seed faith, they have left the security and predictability of steady employment to build something that doesn’t exist with resources they don’t currently have. They follow in the footsteps of Paul, Timothy, Epaphras, Titus, Francis, Columba, Patrick, and the thousands of kingdom entrepreneurs who have responded to God’s call.

Feld develops what he calls “The Boulder Thesis.” To see an animation of this thesis click here. Boulder is indeed a thriving tech community or as one author calls it, an “innovation district.” There is one tech launch every 72 hours in Boulder.

“Feld cites four ingredients as essential to startup communities:

• Entrepreneurs as leaders – Feld divides a startup community into two groups: Leaders (entrepreneurs) and feeders (everyone else). “The feeders have very important roles,” he says. “They become part of the fabric of the startup community. But the feeders can’t be leaders. The leaders have to be entrepreneurs.”
• A long-term view – A successful startup community must be filled with people who are making a long-term commitment of 20-plus years and are able to weather the successes and failures of entrepreneurs in the community, Feld says.
• Foster a community of inclusiveness. The startup community must be inclusive of anyone who wants to participate in it. The only condition is that they come to give before they get. Current entrepreneurs welcome other entrepreneurs and introduce them to their network. They hold wakes for enterprises that fail and throw parties for those that succeed. Little wonder Inc. Magazine recently named Boulder as “America’s start-up capital.” Bloomberg’s Businessweek named Boulder the best city for startups.
• The startup community must have continual activities that engage the entire entrepreneurial stack—hackathons, new tech meetups, mixers, open coffee clubs, startup weekends, start-up weeks, conferences, etc. “It’s just this sort of network chaos of entrepreneurs doing what entrepreneurs do, which is create things. That force of the entrepreneurs to build something bigger than just themselves and their company is so incredibly powerful”

Today Jackie Myrose, here at Tango / Gloo put out this months start-up events calendar  / meetups. Now imagine a community with as many opportunities for kingdom-minded people to connect:

• Unreasonable Institute–June 13 – Unreasonable Launchpad (company pitches), Macky Auditorium (CU campus), http://launchpad.unreasonableinstitute.org
• Techstars–June 13 – Werewolf Night, Techstars, http://werewolfnight3.splashthat.com
• Boulder Independent Business Alliance–June 12 – BIBA BASH Community Party: Meet Local Business Leaders & Politicians, Hotel Boulderado, https://www.eventbrite.com/e/biba-bash-community-party-meet-local-business-leaders-politicians-tickets-11515371787
• Ignite Denver —June 13 – Ignite Denver 17, The Oriental Theater, http://www.eventbrite.com/e/ignite-denver-17-tickets-1137682338
• TEDx MileHigh–June 14 – TEDx MileHigh 2014, Ellie Caulkins Opera House, http://www.eventbrite.com/e/tedxmilehigh-2014-emergence-tickets-9883259094
• Digital Summit Denver–June 17-18 – Digital Summit Denver, Denver Performing Arts Complex, http://www.eventbrite.com/e/digital-summit-denver-wwwdigitalsummitdenvercom-registration-11301877219
• Startup Enablers–June 17 – Secrets to Scaling from Angels, Accelerators, and VC’s, Galvanize Boulder, http://www.eventbrite.com/e/startup-enablers-secrets-to-scaling-from-angels-accelerators-and-vcs-tickets-1180697999
• Built in Brews–June 26 – Built in Brews at Simple Energy, Simple Energy, http://www.eventbrite.com/e/built-in-brews-at-simple-energy-tickets-11604157347
• Denver Startup Weekend–June 27-29 – Startup Weekend Denver, Galvanize Denver, http://denver.startupweekend.org

Meetups: