Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

PRE-INTERNET BUBBLE (1995–2000)

When I first arrived in Boulder, I had no work expectations. At the time I was investing my own money, which I made from the sale of my first company, in startups around the country, and I was spending my time in Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle. Because I was already crisscrossing the country, I figured that having a home base in the middle of the country would make my life easier. Amy and I found Boulder to be beautiful, and, within six months of moving there from Boston, we bought a house just outside of Boulder behind Eldorado Springs State Park, where we still live today.

As I got to know Boulder better, I realized it was perfectly configured for the entrepreneurial revolution that took place around the first wave of the commercial Internet. It was a college town, full of smart, independently minded, and intellectually curious people. As I sat in a bar talking to the one person I knew in town, waiting for Amy to join us for dinner, the guy sitting next to me overheard our conversation and said, “I have a friend who is starting an Internet company. Would you like to meet him?” I did! That person ended up being Andrew Currie, a local entrepreneur who was starting a business with Brian Makare that became Email Publishing, my first Boulder investment. Andrew introduced me to a few of his entrepreneurial friends, and before long I was getting to know the local scene.

I discovered that there was a big divide in Boulder between the entrepreneurs ...