Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

WHY THEY DON’T WORK IN ISOLATION

Like most universities, CU has many activities around entrepreneurship spread throughout the entire campus. In isolation, each is interesting and occasionally does something that is additive to the startup community. However, these activities are fragmented, often opaque to outsiders, and difficult to engage with. Furthermore, hierarchies tend to dominate; within each department the resources available, people involved, and academic structure tend to follow a classic hierarchy.

Because the Boulder startup community uses a strong network approach, the leaders tend to engage in places in which it’s easy to engage. Silicon Flatirons created this type of environment and, as a result, many of the leaders in the Boulder startup community have engaged deeply with Silicon Flatirons and CU Law. If you did a survey of the 500 or so people at any random Boulder New Tech Meetup and asked if they had ever been to the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, my guess is that fewer than 20 percent of the people in attendance would have been.

Fortunately, the leaders at CU, including Phil and Brad, are taking a long-term view. They recognize that the university is a feeder and needs to be a key resource for the startup community, rather than a leader. As a result, they’ve adopted a network view, both within the startup community, by opening their doors wide and being a convener for any activity that someone in the startup community wants to initiate. They’ve done the ...