Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

PARALLEL UNIVERSES

Although Boulder has an incredible entrepreneurial density, it actually has five startup communities. I’m involved in the tech community, which I often refer to as software/Internet for clarity. The other four are biotech, cleantech, natural foods, and lifestyles of health and sustainability (LOHAS).

Let’s focus on the natural-foods startup community. Celestial Seasonings, started in the 1960s, is one of Boulder’s favorite natural foods companies, but did you know that two companies—Alfalfa’s and Wild Oats—which make up about a third of Whole Foods, were started in Boulder? Or Izze? Or White Wave? Or Horizon Dairy? The list is long, and it keeps going since there is a robust contemporary natural-foods startup community spawning new companies every year like Justin’s Nut Butter.

I’m a personal investor in Justin’s, and I like Justin Gold a lot. I know Libby Cook, the founder of Wild Oats. I know Hass Hassan and Barney Feinblum, the founders of Alfalfas and am an investor in their VC fund, Greenmont Capital, which is dedicated to investing in natural-foods companies. We are friends and say hello from across the room whenever we run into each other at a restaurant or an occasional event, usually of the entrepreneur-of-the year variety.

However, the Boulder natural-foods startup community runs in a parallel universe to the Boulder tech startup community. To date, the intersection points have been weak and are artificial. The same can be said for biotech, cleantech, ...