Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

LACK OF DIVERSITY

Diversity in a startup community comes in two forms: ethnicity and gender. Although the population of Boulder is roughly split on gender, there’s no denying the fact that the city is primarily Caucasian. Within the startup community, although it’s getting better, there still is a meaningful imbalance among entrepreneurs between men and women.

Let’s start with gender, because, in many ways, it’s easier since the population is already roughly split between men and women. However, when you wander around the Boulder startup community, you see more men than women. This is especially true when you are in a room of founders.

Boulder is extremely inclusive, so it’s nice to see the New Tech Meetups being 25+ percent women and an increasing number of women showing up at other startup events. Women like Krista Marks (Kerpoof co-founder/CEO), Nicole Glaros (TechStars Boulder managing director), Libby Cook (Wild Oats co-founder), and Nancy Pierce (Carrier Access co-founder) play active leadership roles in the startup community. However, we need to do more to include women in the Boulder startup community.

In 2005, I started working with Lucy Sanders, CEO of National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) (http://startuprev.com/a1). NCWIT has become the most knowledgeable organization about engaging women in computer science. Through activities like the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Alliance (http://startuprev.com/c2), NCWIT is working with entrepreneurial companies across ...