Last night, Brad Feld spoke to a packed room of people from Toronto’s tech, social media and entrepreneurial scene at the Toronto Reference Library about building startup communities. Here are my notes from his presentation:
- I moved to Boulder in 1995
- It turns out that when you’re constantly criss-crossing the US, living in the middle of the country works out well
- My wife and there came there because we liked it – we didn’t know anyone there
- I started to get engaged with Boulder entrepreneurial community
- For those of you who aren’t familiar with Boulder, it’s very much a hippie town, with the creative class and counterculture
- University makes for 25 – 30% of the population
- Lots of smarts engineers, no management or sales talent
- Started to reflect on his journey from 95 on
- By 2010, Boulder recognized as a great startup community
- Done without promotion
- Cofounded Techstars in 2006
- Founded Founders Group in 2007
- My book is based on four principles
- My publisher wanted these principles to be given a name, and they suggested “the Boulder Thesis”
- It’s their contribution to the content of the book
The Four Principles:
1. The startup community has to be led by entrepreneurs
- Separate the world into 2 categories: leaders and feeders
- Both are critically important; they’re just different
- Feeders can’t lead
- Leaders don’t have to be entrepreneurs; just a critical mass of them
- Feeders can have individuals who have leadership roles
- It’s the difference between a network and a hierarchy
- Startups are inherently networked
- Feeders tend to be hierarchical organizations
- “The intersection of hierarchies and networks is not very pleasant”
- They can have constructive relationships together, but they are different things
2. You have to make a long-term commitment
- It’s a generational thing: about 20 years
- The generational view continues far into the future
- Most other organizations don’t run on cycles this long
- 2 to 4 years is not long enough for an entrepreneurial company
- In 2008, the global economic crisis was a disaster to many people, but not to entrepreneurs in Boulder
- “Who here watches CNN? Turn that shit off!”
- To an entrepreneur, the US election is just entertainment
3. You have to be inclusive of anyone who wants to engage, at any level
- Yes, it means you’ll let in bad actors
- The startup organism rejects bad actors in the end
- It’s not a zero-sum game – we’re so far from saturating that there’s room for everyone; startups are such a small part of the business ecosystem
4. You have to have activities and events that engage the entire entrepreneurial stack across the board
- Accelerators, Startup Weekend, a regular cadence of activities, all together and continually
- Anyone who wants to participate should be able to
- You don’t have to get permission or a licence: you just start it!
- There’s a philosophy deeply rooted in the Boulder community: “Give before you get”
- It’s the difference between being an advisor and being a mentor
- Advisor: “I will help you in exchange for something”
- Mentor: “How can I help you?”
- Everyone has something to offer…everyone can be a mentor
- In Boulder, people give more than they get in the short run, but they end up getting more than they give
- If you want to build a long-term viable ecosystem, make sure that there’s a critical mass of entrepreneurs leading
- It’s not a zero-sum game; everyone benefits!
