Tag: events
I’ve been having a lot of fun at public events around the launch of my new book, Give First: The Power of Mentorship. I’ve got a handful of events left in Boulder before Amy and I head to Aspen for the summer.
- 6/5: Denver: Techstars Workforce Development Demo Day + Give First with Brad Feld
- 6/10: Boulder: CoinGeek Startup Spotlight: From Entrepreneur to Enterprise
- 6/12: Boulder: New Tech ft. Give First Fireside Chat w/ Brad Feld
For the past two days, I was in Indianapolis at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress 2025. The last time I was at GEC was in Rio de Janeiro in 2013. Even then, I was talking about Give Before You Get, a concept I had introduced in Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City, which I wrote in 2012. And, I had longer hair.
In addition to a panel and a keynote, I reconnected with many people around the world who work on startup communities, some of whom have been long-time friends (Andy, Victor, and Lesa – I’m looking at you). I had several great conversations with Jonathan Ortmans, the CEO of GEN, and I’m incredibly proud to be associated with the fantastic work he has done over the past 20+ years. I recorded several podcasts in the recording studio that Silver Foxx Media set up, which will soon be dropping on the Give First Podcast.
And, I spent a wonderful evening at High Alpha with Scott Dorsey and 150 of their closest friends. Mollie Kuramoto on their team wrote a lovely long-form post about our fireside chat: Give First: Insights from Our Fireside Chat with Brad Feld. I loved Molly’s final words on our discussion, which included:
Brad closed the evening with reflections on life’s finite nature and the importance of living with intention. “This is the moment,” he shared. “Life is full of challenges, heartbreak, and failure, but it’s also filled with opportunity. Focus on what matters to you. Define your own meaning. And don’t miss the chance to contribute to something greater.”
I’ve decided to mix metaphors and turn into a pumpkin at midnight on Halloween and go back into hibernation for an indeterminate amount of time on November 1st. I turn 60 on December 1st, and I want to spend at least a few months experiencing that and fully embracing my entrance into what Amy and I call “the third third of life.” Until then, I’m having a great time being out and about in the world again.
Now that I’m out of hibernation for a while and back in Boulder for a month, I’m doing a bunch of public events.
My approach, in general, is fireside chats or AMAs, so that’ll be the rhythm rather than me getting up in front of a crowd and blathering about something for 30 to 45 minutes. While my new book, Give First: The Power of Mentorship, is part of the content (and a giveaway that I’ll be signing at some of the events), I’m planning on staying around, talking to whomever is there, and just enjoying a month of the Boulder and Denver startup communities.
The following is what is currently scheduled. I expect there will be a few more things.
5/12 @ 8am: 2025 Boulder Startup Week: Welcome Breakfast and Kickoff to Boulder Startup Week: There will be lots of socializing as Boulder Startup Week gets started. Join me for breakfast and a short talk on the roof of Rosetta Hall. The rumor is that the weather is going to be awesome.
5/13 @ 3pm: 2025 Boulder Startup Week: Startup Communities – The Next Generation: My partner Jaclyn Hester and I will have a fireside chat about the evolution of a startup community. We’ll talk about the importance of existing leaders (e.g. me) to hand off the torch to the next generation (e.g. Jaclyn), why the development of the startup community is not a straight line up and to the right, and how to incorporate concepts from my upcoming book Give First: The Power of Mentorship into your daily activities in the startup community.
5/16 @ 10am: 2025 Boulder Startup Week: Building and Managing Your Board: I’ve been on a zillion boards. This panel includes several people with whom I’ve been on great boards (Tim Miller, Todd Vernon), along with Walter Knapp (my partner Seth is on his board). I’m also been on a lot of mediocre boards and several crappy ones, so I’ll bring those experiences to the discussion also.
5/28 @ 11am – 6pm: Random Day at Composition Shop: I’ll spend the day at Greeley Sachs’ new bookstore in Longmont doing a Random Day (where I have 15-minute meetings with anyone who wants to meet). Look for a separate post with an online calendar to reserve spots soon.
5/29 @ 2pm: 2025 Conscious Entrepreneur Summit: I’ll share my perspective on mentorship, community, and how Give First applies not just to business but also to the way we live and lead.
6/5 @ 5pm: Techstars Workforce Development Demo Day featuring a Book Launch with Brad Feld: I used to go to every Techstars Demo Day. I think this might be the first one I’m going to post-COVID, and I’m excited to experience its energy.
Startup Community Trailblazer Brad Feld to Release New Book at GEC 2025
“Startup Community Trailblazer” is a fancy title for me, but I’ll take it. I’ve decided to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Congress 2025 in Indianapolis to launch Give First: The Power of Mentorship.
I’ll be there from mid-Monday (June 2) through the end of Tuesday (June 3), and my presentation will be the closing keynote on Tuesday from 4:15 to 5:00 on the main stage.
I attended GEC in Rio in 2013 and have been friends with Jonathan Ortmans, the founder and president, for many years. Jonathan and his team have had an enormous impact on spreading and democratizing entrepreneurship worldwide, along with his board members, several of whom (Jeff Hoffman and Donna Harris) are friends from whom I’ve learned a lot.
If you are interested, register and join us. I’ll be hanging out all day Tuesday and hope to meet many new folks interested in entrepreneurship worldwide.
I’m at the Authors and Innovations Business Ideas Festival in Boston put on by Larry Gennari. It’s a neat collection of people who are interested in entrepreneurship, innovation, and books, three topics that I love so I’m having a lot of fun.
I ran into Bobbie Carlton, who I met a number of years ago around Startup America stuff and then again at an event at 1871 in Chicago when I released my book Startup Communities.
Bobbie is running an organization called Innovation Women which is an online speaker’s bureau for entrepreneurial and technical women. In addition to being an entrepreneur herself, she’s helping women get more visibility as entrepreneurs through her business.
There’s something that gives me great joy about the random connections with people over a long period of time. While I haven’t worked closely with Bobbie, running into her for a third time in around a decade at different in contexts that are interesting to me, causes me to want to put some effort into finding ways to work together.
I’m personally done with being on ManPanels so if you are a conference organizer looking to get more women involved as speakers at your conference, take a look at the speakers at Innovation Women.
This week is Denver Startup Week 2014. Seth, Ryan, and I are spending all day Thursday in Denver doing startup week stuff.
If you are looking for me, I’ll be hanging out all day at Basecamp, which is sponsored by Chase.
Following are the events I’m participating in.
8:00 – 9:00: Building Great Entrepreneurial Communities
1:00 – 2:00: Feld and Friends
2:00 – 4:00: Mentor Hours (special Foundry/Galvanize/Techstars Edition). People can sign up here (sorry – they don’t have this organized by day, just by mentor).
4:00 – 5:30: Practice Pitch with Techstars
5:30 – 7:30: Beers at Basecamp, Foundry/Galvanize/Techstars edition (Seth and Ryan only – I’ll be doing a talk at Condit about creating innovation spaces.)
I hope to see you sometime during the day.
Join the Application Developers Alliance at a Boulder Developer Patent Summit August 28 at 6 PM at FUSE Coworking. The event is a chance to share stories of demand letters and lawsuits from trolls, discuss legal strategies and litigation costs, and share ideas for software patent reform.
DATE: August 28th | FREE | 6pm
LOCATION: The Riverside (FUSE Coworking) | 1724 Broadway | Boulder, CO 80302
AGENDA:
6:00pm Welcome (registration, drinks, food, and mingling)
6:30-8:00pm Brief Presentation, Panel Discussion, and Q&A
8:00pm Enjoy food and drinks, meet the panel, and network
Though it may seem as if politicians in Washington, D.C. have a hard time agreeing on anything, those on both sides of the aisle seem increasingly keen to support entrepreneurs and their communities. Some recent examples include the passage of legislation expanding crowdfunding under the JOBS Act and meetings similar to one hosted last month by the Global Accelerator Network in which we worked with the Small Business Administration to gather 16 accelerators to demo their programs for the White House and SBA funders.
Much progress has been made to ensure that those in Washington are hearing entrepreneurs’ concerns, but we still have a long way to go – especially with connecting politicians to those in the seed-stage technology sector. Politicians in our federal government are listening to entrepreneurs, but we very rarely see congressmen personally sit across the table from early-stage tech investors and their founders. When this does occur, however, representatives learn much more about what startups really want and need than they would hearing feedback through second or third parties, and they’re much more likely to take supportive action.
That is why the Global Accelerator Network is thrilled to support the first ever Startup Day Across America on August 29. This one-day bipartisan event, led by the U.S. House of Representatives Caucus on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, will connect members of Congress with startups and accelerators in their respective districts. We believe this is a great opportunity for startup communities to connect with their congressional representatives – both to highlight the positive contributions startups bring to their communities, as well as raise awareness about startups’ needs on a local and national level.
If you are interested in learning more about the Startup Day Across America, please contact Eve Lieberman in Congressman Jared Polis’ office who will connect you with the person leading the charge in your district.
I’m going to be doing the first public Startup Life: Surviving and Thriving in a Relationship with an Entrepreneur talk tonight at Riverside at 7pm. If you don’t know Riverside, it’s a new co-working, event, and cafe space on 1724 Broadway in Boulder. It’s a beautiful old building that’s been a fixture in Boulder for a very long time. There’s a nice article about what Christian Macy and Richard Moser are working on with Riverside in the Boulder iJournal.
If you want to attend tonights event, please sign up. I’ll be there with a bunch of copies of Startup Life that I’ll be selling thanks to the magic of Square, my green pen to sign books, and to talk and hang out.
And, as the Startup Life marketing machine kicks into gear, don’t forget to enter Operation Win A Dinner with Us. It’s going on through Saturday, 2/2/13 at 11:59pm EDT.
My friends Phil Weiser and Brad Bernthal at Silicon Flatirons (who are a big part of the book Startup Communities) are hosting me in Boulder on Monday for a “Crash Course: Startup Communities – Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City.”) It’s happening at CU Boulder from 6:15pm – 7:45pm and Lesa Mitchell from the Kauffman Foundation will be joining us for a discussion. Lesa and her colleague Paul Kedrosky has also been a big supporter and influencer on my thinking in this area.
If you want a preview of what I’ll be talking about, Steve Blank, the successful entrepreneur and brilliant brain behind the Customer Development idea, has an outstanding and thorough (like everything Steve does) review of Startup Communities up on his site.
This is the first public session in Boulder about Startup Communities. I’m in Chicago today at the Startup America Regional Summit where I’m talking about Startup Communities with leaders of about 35 regions that have embraced the Startup America movement. I’ve been having a lot of fun talking about the book, getting feedback from entrepreneurial leaders around the country, and meeting with some new and interesting entrepreneurs who are working on super cool businesses. But it’s always fun to have home court advantage and I’m very much looking forward to spending time talking about Startup Communities with a bunch of people in Boulder who helped me figure all this stuff out.
If you are in Boulder on Monday 10/15 and want to come hang out, register for the event now (it’s free) and come join us.