HAVING A BIAS AGAINST NEWCOMERS
A key principle of startup communities that I discussed earlier is the importance of welcoming anyone new who shows up in the community, either temporarily or permanently. Historically, many cities ran as hierarchies and newcomers had to earn their way into the hierarchy. This is dumb, and the exact opposite of what you want to do with a startup community.
In Boulder, when someone new shows up in town, the entrepreneurs swarm them. It doesn’t matter if it’s someone looking for a job, someone who has previously started a great company, or someone who is well known throughout the entrepreneurial world. Our goal, as a community, is to make the person feel welcome and immediately get integrated into anything they want to be involved in.
If someone sends me an e-mail saying they are coming to Boulder to visit, I immediately introduce them to a bunch of entrepreneurs. I tune these introductions based on the person and their background, looking to introduce them to people who I think they will be most interested in. I’ve heard regularly that, within an hour, their schedule for the trip is completely full, showing the responsiveness of the Boulder entrepreneurs to anyone coming to visit.
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