Startup Communities, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER FOURTEENRURAL STARTUP COMMUNITIES

In the 2016 US Presidential election, much was made of the urban–rural divide throughout the country. While each state has its own unique characteristics, suddenly a significant distinction was being made between activity in and around major cities (urban) and everywhere else (non‐urban, or rural). While rural isn't necessarily the correct word for many of the regions being discussed, as some of them were smaller cities, the geographic areas were generalized as rural.

In Colorado, I started exploring this along with several other people, including Stephanie Copeland (then the head of the State of Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade), my Foundry Group partner, Seth Levine, and Marc Nager, whom you met earlier in the book around Startup Weekend and who is now running the Greater Colorado Venture Fund.

Marc lives in Telluride, Seth lives part‐time in Winter Park, and Amy and I live part‐time in Aspen. As a result, we have bases in three different areas of what is considered rural Colorado. While the traffic through these ski resort towns—both from the Colorado Front Range (urban Colorado) and from out of state—is high, there wasn't much focus on the startup communities in the surrounding area.

Mark spent several years developing the startup community in Telluride as the head of the Telluride Venture Accelerator. By using the dynamics of the ski town, Marc attracted a number of entrepreneurs to the region and ...