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Innovation is stagnant now in the medical device arena
Mike Biselli, CMO and CoFounder, MedPassageenclosure-voice 1469_ 11/25/13 - We are talking with Mike Biselli, Chief Marketing Officer and co-founder of MedPassage. At the very highest level, MedPassage is your 'Amazon.com' specifically built and engineered for the medical device implant industry. As you know, in our country right now, we are going through significant change in healthcare. With that said, Mike and his cofounder have spent 20+ years of direct experience in the medical device industry and they are leveraging that tribal knowledge into purposing and then creating a platform that will help disinter mediate and create more efficiencies within the implant space. Mike said, "As you know we need a reduced cost on all fronts within healthcare and it is our objective and our motive to see that through within the medical device implant space." MedPassage has noticed that innovation is stagnant now in the medical device arena... so we're going to have these technologies that we've been using for the last 10-20 years continue to dominate for the next 5-15 years if this market corrects. The point is why do we continue to march down the road where we have a sales distributor involved with these products that doctors know like the back of their hand? There's more...
RELATED LINKS: MedPassage || Galvanize || Economy Builders || Blog || KEYWORDS: Mike Biselli, MedPassage, Chris Onan, Galvanize, Tech Ecosystem, Entrepreneurs, Colorado, Medical Implant Devices Industry, healthcare, change, sales commissions, bytes=5811203
LISTEN TO: Mike Biselli, CoFounder/CMO, Med Passage

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We first came into this ecosystem back in 2012
Mike Biselli, CMO, MedPassage with Chris Onan, Managing Director, Galvanizeenclosure-voice1463_ 11/18/13 - We are talking with Chris Onan, Co-founder and Managing Director Galvanize, and Mike Biselli, Chief Marketing Officer of MedPassage who has an office suite here at Galvanize, actually one of the first ten clients. Galvanize was built to be a tech ecosystem. So, that is a community of tech companies working in and around one another. We wanted to do that because there is a ton of great tech activity here in Denver. At least in this neck of the woods there wasn't any nexus for great tech companies. Mike Biselli said, "It's been an evolution for our organization, the benefits that Galvanize continually brings to us. When we first came into the ecosystem back in 2012, the first and foremost benefit for us was being around other like minded entrepreneurs. Seeing others going through the same pain problems that you are and not feeling like you're the only one going through those..." Mike said, "that was the first evolution followed by the second - being introduced by folks like Chris and the other founders here at Galvanize and other entrepreneurs... Going back to the capital, had we not been part of Galvanize, we wouldn't have secured part of our funding that just occurred recently. We literally received a six figure plus round of capital because we were based out of Galvanize", said Mike. This huge entrepreneur knowledge share is terrific...
RELATED LINKS: Galvanize || Chris Onan || Venture Capital || Blog || KEYWORDS: Mike Biselli, MedPassage, Chris Onan, Galvanize, Tech Ecosystem, Entrepreneurs, Colorado, Appian Venture Capital, David Cohen, Brad Feld, Funding, Talent > bytes=5811203
LISTEN TO: Chris Onan, & Mike Biselli, Galvanize

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Huge asset to entrepreneurs here in Colorado
Chris Onan, Managing Director, Galvanizeenclosure-voice 1448_ 10/7/2013 - We are talking with Chris Onan, Managing Director of Galvanize, and he's been a venture capitalist and strategy consultant for years. There is so much happening in the marketplace, high tech and everything else, we asked Chris for an overview of what he sees happening. He said one of the exciting things for Colorado is that milennials are moving here in greater numbers than to any city in the country, and that's not per capita, that's aggregate. There are a number of reasons, it's a beautiful place to live, centrally located, we have a major airport. It's relatively cost effective to start a business here, the tax rates are lower and you've got a mid-western ethos where you can get a cup of coffee with just about anyone. Guys like David Cohen and Brad Feld and Steve Halstead will give you a cup of coffee. It doesn't happen in Silicon Valley or New York - and it's a huge asset to entrepreneurs that are here in Colorado. TechStars, literally taking over the world recently opening in London and beyond, headquartered here - all together, it's just drawn a ton of entrepreneurial activity and attention here. And Galvanize, we're kind of drafting on that and we fit right in to the broader trend in Colorado, becoming a very prominent place for entrepreneurial and tech activity. One of the challenges talked about for this area is getting a big company to headquarter here. Chris doesn't agree, saying...
RELATED LINKS: Galvanize || Chris Onan || Venture Capital || Blog || KEYWORDS: Chris Onan, Galvanize, Entrepreneurs, Colorado, Appian Venture Capital, David Cohen, Brad Feld, Steve Halstead, Milennials, > bytes=4160682
LISTEN TO: Chris Onan, Managing Director, Galvanize

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Steve Dine, Founder & Managing Partner, Datasource Consulting The relationship between Business Intelligence and Big Data
enclosure-voice 1459_ 10/21/2013 - Larry had a number of questions about Big Data and Business Intelligence so he corralled Steve Dine, founder and managing partner, of Datasource Consulting. They help companies large and small to identify their data, and help integrate their data across multiple systems. In large companies that data may go into 2 to 300 systems providing information necessary to making the business process decisions. It is vital to identify the valuable data and then have the capabilities to analyze and that turn that data into information. Steve tells us that Business Intelligence, aside from being an oxymoron, is really an umbrella term that identifies different aspects to data analysis. It involves the collection of data, the modeling of data as well as the architecture of how you actually capture data and where you store it, and then accessing your data for analytic tools. So it's really an umbrella term used in the business intelligence industry for all those different areas. Really it's all about helping companies turn data into information. Larry asked Steve if he could define Big Data. Steve said, "I wish I could. One of the things the industry hasn't done a good job at is defining the term of big data. The way it's defined today is through three different areas. One is the velocity of data, that means how often that data changes and how often you actually need to process that data... Listen, there is much more...
RELATED LINKS: Datasource Consulting || Communication Technology Professionals || Communication Technologies || Software || KEYWORDS: Steve Dine, Datasource, Datasolutions, Consulting, Big Data, Integrate, Scalable Maintainable Data-Integration, Business-Intelligence Solutions. bytes=5722595
LISTEN TO: Steve Dine, Founder/Managing Partner, Datasource Consulting

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Steve Dine, Founder, Managing Partner, Datasource Consulting Identify, Integrate Valuable Data Across Multiple Systems
enclosure-voice 1464_ 11/18/13 - We met Steve Dine, managing partner/founder of Datasource Consulting toward the end of October. In the first part of this interview with Steve we talked about how Datasource actually helps companies large and small, identify their data and to integrate that data across multiple systems. You can go back to that first interview - Click HERE
Getting the most out of your data means identifying where the value is, business intelligence initiatives are earned investments and so as companies decide where they're going to invest their money they need to determine what the return on that is going to be. Part of making that determination is understanding where you will get the biggest bang from a buck. So you identify the value, identify who the analysts are and where you can analyze within your organization, who your constituencies are, most often they are internal. But in the financial services industries all their customers are external. Steve's first great success in IT and business intelligence came about when he was working in Boulder, in finance and he was given the opportunity to work with a big manufacturing company who understood the value of BI...listen for more...

RELATED LINKS: Datasource Consulting || Communication Technology Professionals || Communication Technologies || Software || KEYWORDS: Steve Dine, Datasource, Datasolutions, Consulting, Big Data, Integrate, Scalable Maintainable Data Integration, Business-Intelligence Solutions. bytes=5190115
LISTEN TO: Steve Dine, Founder/Managing Partner, Datasource Consulting

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Steve Dine, Managing Partner/Founder, Datasource Consulting They need to determine ROI on their Data
enclosure-voice 1470_ 11/25/13 [Part 3]- We are back with Steve Dine, managing partner/founder of Datasource Consulting. Steve has explained to us how Datasource Consulting actually helps companies large and small, identify their data and to integrate that data across multiple systems. In the second interview we learned that getting the most out of your data means identifying where the value is. Business Intelligence initiatives are earned investments and so as companies decide where they're going to invest their money they need to determine what the return on that is going to be. Now in this last interview with Steve, we get an example of how valuable this information can be with a short case history - a great success story... Listen for more
RELATED LINKS: Datasource Consulting || Communication Technology Professionals || Communication Technologies || Software || Economy Builders || Mastering Change || KEYWORDS: Steve Dine, Datasource, Datasolutions, Consulting, Big Data, Integrate, Scalable Maintainable Data-Integration, Business-Intelligence Solutions, bytes=7539882
LISTEN TO: Steve Dine, Datasource Consulting

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Will they find you or your competition
Ray Hutchins, Denver SEO Services, President, TiE Rockiesenclosure-voice 1451_ 10/7/2013 - We have been hearing a great deal about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as organizations are trying to figure out how to get more individuals and organizations to visit their website and buy more. The 'World Wide Web' offers many opportunities as well as challenges. Larry called Ray Hutchins (a hands-on expert in SEO) to give us another view on Search Engine Optimization because it continues to morph and is becoming a very complex, hard to fathom piece of our Internet business strategy. Making it to the first page of the search engines when you are operating in a competitive keyword environment is not easy. It takes SEO experience, business experience, persistence, and time - and in many ways, it's more of an art than a science. To succeed, a business owner needs an SEO company that knows how to: Identify and target the right keywords; Structure and organize your website so it best accommodates the search engines; Build the right link program for your business needs; Stay on top of the constantly evolving SEO processes, strategies and procedures and make sure YOU stay on top! Ray also brings something else to the table. He owns a Web Development company, Denver Web Services. Ray says, "No use doing a great SEO campaign and getting a customer to visit a site that won't convert them into a sale. Your business needs a site that builds trust and converts leads into sales. But if you are like most business owners, you just cannot afford to spend a fortune to make this happen. ...Listen for more, this is part 1 of 2...
RELATED LINKS: Denver Web Services || Denver Cyber Security || TiE Rockies Network || Innovation Pavilion || Blog || KEYWORDS: Ray Hutchins, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Web Development Company, Denver Web Services, TiE Rockies, Denver, Innovation Pavilion, Entrepreneurs, > Bytes=7117325
LISTEN TO: Ray Hutchins, Denver SEO Services

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Search Engine Optimization continues to morph
Ray Hutchins, Denver SEO Services, President, TiE Rockiesenclosure-voice 1453_ 10/14/2013 - Ray Hutchins, founder of Denver Web Services, goes onto say, "Now days, everyone is trying to get themselves ranked higher - everybody! It used to be just a small number of businesses but now, it's just crazy. Your choices are to get yourself ranked high in the search engines for certain key words in the organic or free search results - or you can play Google's game and buy ads which they are putting on the same page, in positions more prominent than the organic free results. So your options are you can pay money for Search Engine Optimization or you can pay money for pay-for-click ads. The advantage to pay-for-click ads [if you can figure that campaign out] is the results are instantaneous. You can put your ads up today and , conceivably get results today. Although it's pretty complicated and a lot of people don't want to take on the mental challenge, but it's doable. With Search Engine Optimization, it takes time to get ranked. Depending on the keywords and depending on the market you're after it takes, two months best case, to six months to get ranked up there. Search engine optimization is a cross between a science and an art. Ray finds it fascinating as a practitioner and he tries to transmit to his clients, how the web works when you're trying to manipulate the results." Listen for much more...
RELATED LINKS: Denver Web Services || Denver Cyber Security || TiE Rockies Network || Innovation Pavilion || Blog KEYWORDS: Ray Hutchins, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Web Development company, Denver Web Services, TiE Rockies, Denver, Innovation Pavilion, Entrepreneurs, bytes=5722595
LISTEN TO: Ray Hutchins, Denver Web Services

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From ideas to implementation to Apex awards
1441_ 9/23/13 - Designed for creative encounter and collaboration, APEX is the Colorado technology industry’s annual conference to celebrate accomplishment and set the direction for the coming year by gathering the community, recognizing excellence, sparking innovation, introducing disruption and proposing opportunity. In 2012, the Colorado Technology Association paired two of its most important and longest-running events — The Apex Awards and DEMOgala — back-to-back for an exciting two days of celebrating the greatest people, companies and accomplishments of the state’s tech industry and looking ahead to the critical issues facing the industry in the years ahead. This year, they were pleased to launch APEX, the evolution of more than ten years of innovative thinking, engaging speakers, phenomenal energy and industry focus. APEX is more than an awards ceremony, conference and tech challenge. APEX is your opportunity to be a part of the conversations driving innovation and technology in the state. The leaders in 2014 will be the people and companies that show up and participate fully.
RELATED LINKS: APEX Awards || APEX Sessions || Colorado Technology Association || Podcasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Apex Awards, Apex sessions, Colorado Technology Association
See Apex Conference Photos HERE

Seth Godin, Startup Week Luncheon Keynote Speaker
1443_ 9/23/13 - The official kick-off celebration for the week hosted famed keynote speaker, Seth Godin, named the “Ultimate entrepreneur for the information age” by Business week. Seth is an author, entrepreneur, blogger, and marketing guru, above all. He has written 14 bestseller books on various topics, including the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. As an entrepreneur, he’s founded dozens of companies, including his latest internet startup Squidoo.com, ranked among the top 125 sites in the US (by traffic) by Quantcast. The luncheon also boasts vignettes from local Startup leaders, Patrick Quinlan, CEO of Convercent ; Desi McAdam, Managing Director of Thoughbot; Bart Lorang, Co-founder and CEO of Full Contact; and Maddy D’Amato, Founder and Chief Love Officer, Love Grown Foods. This event had over 800 community members attending.
RELATED LINKS: Seth Godin || Denver Startup Week || We Are All Weird Amazon || Denver OED || Mastering Change Amazon || KEYWORDS: Seth Godin, Denver Startup Week, Patrick Quinlan, CEO of Convercent ; Desi McAdam, Managing Director of Thoughbot; Bart Lorang, Co-founder and CEO of Full Contact; and Maddy D’Amato, Founder and Chief Love Officer, Love Grown Foods, Michael B. Hancock

Dr. Arlen Meyers Percolated up to a national agenda item
enclosure-voice 1404_ 7/8/13 - He is involved with so much and he still has time to hear student concerns. We're talking to Dr. Arlen Meyers, about the CU Program of Bio Innovation and Entrepreneurship, basically a certificate program for graduate level, business, science, engineering, law, health professionals, who are interested in getting an idea to a patient. Dr. Meyers, and CU created the program because there was a gap in providing these students with the business skills needed to find a job. The NSF and the graduate school community has recognized the gap, and finally it's percolated up to a national agenda item. "So", says Arlen, "we have created a program to provide the knowledge, skills, abilities, experience and networks that these people need to interact with industry and get a job." It is Arlen's belief that entrepreneurs need four things to be successful: "They need education; they need experience, networks and they need money, We provide all four in the program." Listen for more about the program and the unique legal and regulatory environment for bio science and health innovation and entrepreneurship. It is probably the most regulated industry in the U.S. Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA, is a professor at the CU School of Medicine, Department of Otolaryngology and he is President/CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs. Part 4 of 4...
RELATED LINKS: Society of Physician Entrepreneurs || CU School of Medicine || TiE Rockies Colorado || Economy Builders || Podcast Directory || KEYWORDS: Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA, CU School of Medicine, Bio Integration, Business skills, SoPE, TiE Rockies, Colorado, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs, NSF, Graduate School, Community Invention, Innovation, > bytes=4034040
LISTEN TO: Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA; President/CEO, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs (SoPE)

Powered by Podbean.com Traditional marketing doesn’t work like it used to
Patrice Barber, Taylor Made Emarketingenclosure-voice 1400_ 6/24/13 - Larry interviewed Patrice Barber, CEO of Taylor Made Emarketing, (TME) a national speaker and award winning business automation consultant who has worked with over 35 Fortune 500 corporatPatrice Barberions and hundreds of entrepreneurs. Her areas of expertise include digital marketing strategy, marketing automation, mobile marketing, CRM implementation, as well as operations and business development. She is also COO of TiE Rockies Colorado. Its great that all these digital tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube connect us to lots of people online… But the question is how do we attract online prospects and convert them into long term business relationships and revenue. The answer to that question is what I have asked our guest Patrice Barber to talk with us about today. That includes the market challenges the opportunities, and how digital marketing works. Patrice started out with the Challenges: One of the biggest challenges SMB’s face is that the landscape of marketing is rapidly shifting to online and digital marketing. Traditional marketing doesn’t work like it used to. Many small business owners still don’t quite understand how to leverage the power of the Internet and integrate it into the traditional offline tactics that DO work and tie marketing efforts directly to the sales team. Opportunities: There are at least 5 online marketing channels most businesses can take advantage of to tie into their traditional marketing. Mobile marketing, Online PR, Social media like LinkedIn, Twitter, You tube, Google+, Ads online, Internet marketing - Auto-responder drip campaigns, Content writing – like blog posts and other articles. Provide an example of how digital marketing works. When small businesses focus on relationship marketing, they can warm up leads and enjoy 'inbound or pull marketing' instead of more traditional PUSH-Y marketing. One way we simplify this is to define the digital marketing strategy as - Connect, Convert and Cultivate. The idea is to connect to your target market, convert them to interested prospects and raving fans, and cultivate relationships before during and after the buying process so they buy, rave, refer, and buy some more…Patrice explains more…listen now…
RELATED LINKS: TMEmarketing || Innovation Pavilion || TiE Rockies || Economy Builders || Mastering Change || KEYWORDS: Patrice Barber, Taylor Made Emarketing, TiE Rockies Colorado, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Traditional Marketing. Mobile Marketing, Online PR, Social Media, bytes=6579412
LISTEN TO: Patrice Barber, President/CEO, Taylor Made Emarketing

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Ron McKey, Founder & President, FlyingBeds International Ron McKey, When doing Business Globally
enclosure-voice 1356_ 2/25/13 - Ron McKey is the Founder and President of FlyingBeds International; we're talking about doing business globally. Ron tells us that FlyingBeds is a two way company, he's noticed out in the market place that FlyingBeds is an exclusive, high-end presentation of Murphy beds, the Murphy Bed concept, in America. At Ron's factory here in Denver, he manufactures exquisite, unique Murphy beds. Murphy beds meaning beds that fold up into the wall. When he's out in the market place Ron said, "When I am selling over in Germany, Barcelona, Israel, Egypt; I've run across other companies that are just as unique as me in their concept. So, like the Italian bed that I bring in from the Colombo Company are the narrowest in thickness. Meaning they really fold up in 10" of space - that's amazing. But then over in Germany is a company owned by Karl Warner the Lift Bed Company and they take their beds and put them on the ceiling. They run them up by electric motor. That is cool. Very expensive but cool." Larry asked, "What are the most interesting challenges you face when dealing with these organizations overseas?" Ron replied, "They are always concerned with installation. It's relatively easy to decide on the design with email and the Internet, and we can over-night a sample to them and we can make adjustments and approve it." When asked, "What advice would you give other entrepreneurs wanting to do business overseas?" RM: "Well, you're not going to get any overseas commerce by being the lowest priced guy in the marketplace. This is my opinion, you're going to have to have something unique, either a great service or a product no one else is making. But I also bring back in products that are not available to Americans. I look at it as a fair trade. We're building a relationship with these other countries." Having worked with Ron on his website, Pat asked about the Shoji Bed and room Ron designed and created for a family living in Japan. Her question goes to Ron's background and how he does what he does. He chuckled and referred to his background as a dairy farmer from Oregon and a mechanical drawing class. He doesn't tell us about his work in the military, installing and repairing the electric wiring and cables in airplanes or his experience as a buyer or his university education in business and marketing. Pat's conclusion, there's... Listen, Watch and visit http://www.flyingbeds.com/
RELATED LINKS: FlyingBeds International || Video Library || Economy Builders || Blog || KEYWORDS: Ron McKey, Murphy Beds, FlyingBeds, Wall Beds, Italian Smart Beds, Colombo, Lift Beds, Germany, Barcelona, Israel, Egypt, Shoji Bed, > bytes=8021789
LISTEN TO:Ron McKey, Founder/President, FlyingBeds International

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Bill Flagg, Bootstrapping Video at the Crash Course
enclosure-voice 1358_ 2/25/13 - This Crash Course diagrams bootstrapping strategies for startups. Several area companies in the Front Range – ranging from early startups to more established entities such as SparkFun and Backflip Studios – have achieved financial viability without the assistance of outside financing. Bill Flagg an experienced entrepreneur, shares finding creative ways to fund a startup is important for a range of businesses. Some early stage startups may lack access to institutional financing. They may need to prove up a concept before venture capital or angel options become available. Moreover, established businesses may make a conscious decision not to take on outside financing. A variety of reasons – ranging from low capital intensity to control issues – may militate against a startup taking outside money from sources such as angel investors and venture capitalists. This Crash Course will focus upon strategies associated with bootstrapping a company and will address the following: Best Sources of Funding; Increasing Odds of Success; Freedom to Create and Thrive. Watch this video with Brad Bernthal and Bill Flagg ...Watch Video
RELATED LINKS: Crash Course, Bootstrapping || The Felix Fun || Bill Flagg Blog || Economy Builders || PodCast Directory || KEYWORDS: Bill Flagg, Crash Course Bootstrapping, Silicon Flatiron Center, Brad Bernthal, The Felix Fun, RegOnline, PosterBrain, SnapEngage, StickerGiant, SurveyGizmo, SFC Crash Course
Watch Video: Watch Bill Flagg, Crash Course Bootstrapping, with Brad Bernthal, ...

"Commissioned sales people
may be a thing of the past..."

enclosure-voice 1362_ 3/4/13 - ...Bill Flagg was convinced he needed the service and would probably buy within the next month. But, the commissioned sales person was so motivated to get the sale in by the end of the quarter, that he gave Bill a 30% discount - on the entire contract, a big dollar amount. Not only did Bill not get value from this sales person, he had to go to the tech guy to get his real questions answered - You need a technology partner willing to work for sweat equity - cast a wide net in the beginning... Bootstrapping, more insights, Watch Now Part 2 of 2
Crash Course, Bootstrapping || The Felix Fun || Bill Flagg Blog || Economy Builders || PodCast Directory || KEYWORDS: Bill Flagg, Crash Course Bootstrapping, Silicon Flatiron Center, Brad Bernthal, The Felix Fun, RegOnline, PosterBrain, SnapEngage, StickerGiant, SurveyGizmo, SFC Crash Course
Video - Bill Flagg, The Felix Fun - SFC Crash Course Series, Bootstrapping

Dr. Christine Riordan, Dean, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver Dr. Christine Riordan, Dean, Daniels College of Business, Leadership
enclosure-voice 1348_ 2/11/13 - Most recently Christine was elected to the International Society for Accrediting Business Schools (AACFC) and that was an international election. Since Dean Riordan assumed the leadership role, Daniels has been ranked among the top business schools in the world by Business Week, U.S. News & World Report, The Aspen Institute’s Beyond Grey Pinstripes and the Financial Times. Dr. Riordan, Dean of the Daniels College of Business is also Professor of Management and we're talking about leadership. "Leadership requires mental toughness" Larry asked her to tell us a little about this. Talk about some of the elements and why they exist. Chris went onto explain, "There's a great parallel between business today and sports. A lot of what we do with sports is we train our athletes to have a mental toughness, an attitude and ability to adapt. When we think about what business has been through in the last five years, the same concept applies to business leaders today. Thinking about being an executive in today's business environment is very tough. There's a lot of change that's rapid. There are massive amounts of information. There's a need to think differently. So 'mental toughness' is a concept that business leaders should apply every single day and to their own personal lives as well as their organization. It includes things like flexibility. Are you flexible enough to adapt your plays within your company? To change business as you need to change business? Are you responsive to the demands of the game of business? Do you have the courage to make some pretty tough decisions? Do you have the resilience to get back into the game when things don't go your way? Are you a good sportsman trapping the game of business? So when we talk about mental toughness, it's really taking some of the concepts that they use in sports and applying them in business." They went on to discuss How can leaders avoid making decisions based on overconfidence?...and other leadership issues ...listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: Daniels College Business || Christine Riordan || || Social Entrepreneurship || Mastering Change || KEYWORDS: Christine Riordan, Daniels College Business, DU, Leadership, Mental Toughness, Change, Hiring, Executives, Decision Making, Overconfidence, bytes=7665688
LISTEN TO: Christine Riordan, Dean, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver

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Charles (Chuck) Patti, Sr. Associate Dean, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver Charles Patti, Ph.D., Daniels College of Business, Customer Experience
enclosure-voice 1350_ 2/11/13 - It hasn't been the norm to find universities teaching customer experience courses. At the University of Denver, Daniels College of Business, it is a big deal. We're talking with Charles Patti, Ph.D. and Senior Associate Dean and he tells us "Customer experience is a relatively new idea in the world of business and it is certainly even newer in the university setting. We started, about four years ago, developing a program, at the graduate level, in customer experience, primarily behind the impetus of the Cox family (Cox Cable) in Atlanta, Georgia. But, it has become very important to companies as they begin to see that their businesses depend not just on delivering service, but a total experience for their customers, which ends up translating to an emotional connection between the customer and the brand. Customer service also became very important about 15-20 years ago. But, in our mind, customer experience embraces many more attributes of doing business with a company than just the service component." Asked if and how companies measure customer experience, Dean Patti says, "We've been encouraging companies to do that. Many engage in customer satisfaction surveys. But at least 75% of what they measure in customer satisfaction, is only about the functionality - how well the product performs. Customer experience embraces many other aspects than just the functionality. We've been encouraging companies and working with companies to measure the other important dimensions like how they communicate. If it's a retail place, what the look and feel of the organization, and the culture and quality of the employees. When you look at all four dimensions you begin to measure the entire customer experience." Chuck's advice, "First would be for new employees to understand the difference between customer service and customer experience. To have them completely understand the four dimensions of customer experience and get them committed to measuring the financial return on the investment in a customer experience initiative that a company might take. The ability to measure what is the financial return, off of any kind of investment, is key." Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: Daniels College of Business || Charles Patti || Social Entrepreneurship || Blog || KEYWORDS: Charles Patti, Ph.D., Daniels College of Business, Customer Experience, Customer Service, Cox Cable, Four Dimensions of Functionality, > bytes=5506510
LISTEN TO: Charles Patti, Sr. Associate Dean, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver

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Stephen S. Miller, Daniels College of business Stephen Miller, Sr. Director of Entrepreneurship, Daniels College
enclosure-voice 1351_ 2/18/13 - Stephen Miller, senior director of Entrepreneurship, Daniels College of Business, has been working with entrepreneurs for the last 8-10 years. Working first with the CTEK group and then opening the CTEK Stapleton Incubator Denver Ventures. That entity today is about 35 companies in a broad range of technologies, over the course of about 5 years. Part way through that time frame we started talking to the National Renewable Energy Lab as well as the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce. They were looking at starting an incubator as well as a clean tech open and we're working with the folks out in California to do exactly that, and talking with NREL about being their incubator. So those forces came together and we did exactly that. We were talking about entrepreneurship more generally. This last year the opportunity to join Daniels presented itself. And the opportunity to work with Dean Riordan and her fine team led him here. Stephen said, "I think, entrepreneurship is not only live and well, but it's growing in many ways. Colorado has traditionally been known as a tech hub - and entrepreneurship has been focused more in the technology areas and Boulder to an extent has lead that charge. And of course CU has been very involved in that as has CSU and the Colorado School of Mines as well. A lot of the innovation we've seen out of Mines has been energy related both traditional and renewable. In Denver, we've seen a tremendous kick-start by leaders such as Jim Deters at Galvanize and Vic Ahmed at Innovation Pavilion. We have a former Mayor who was an entrepreneur in the beer business and the current mayor who is very entrepreneurship friendly. And it doesn't hurt that Paul Washington is head of economic development, has a history in startups as well." The University of Denver has looked at entrepreneurship as a focus for ten years or more. A lot of professors, Paul Bauer and others, and now with the leadership of Dean Riordan it's finally come to a critical mass. Alumni who are successful entrepreneurs in their own right and board of trustee members...listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: Daniels College Business || Stephen Miller || Social Entrepreneurship || Mastering Change || KEYWORDS: Stephen Miller, Sr. Director Entrepreneurship, Daniels College of Business, National Renewable Energy Lab, NREL, South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce, Clean Tech, bytes=9156130
LISTEN TO: Stephen S. Miller, Daniels College

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Jim Deters, Founder/Managing Director, Galvanize and Larry Nelson, Founder/Director, w3w3® Media Network Financial capital, angel investors, institutional venture capitalists
enclosure-voice 1472_ 12/2/13 - With a 16 year career - and a lot of startup, building and exiting experience, Jim Deters, the founder / managing director of Galvanize wanted to build a platform that basically solved a lot of the problems he had encountered when building his own companies. The problems really revolved around three things, having a flexible workspace and having like minded people around, it was having and finding more human capital - more software engineers, more great talent to add to his team and of course, finding the financial capital, angel investors or institutional venture capitalists to invest in a new company. So basically, Jim said, "We put all of those under one roof here at Galvanize to coalesce with ecosystems on those three big problems." Summarizing, the three big C's, as they say at Galvanize, are Community, Capital and Curriculum... oh, and they've added Coffee to that list. Larry asked, "How do you recruit companies for this space?" So they opened October 22, 2012 - moved in with 17 companies and from that nucleus they now have about 150 companies... listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: Galvanize || Mastering Change || Entrepreneurs || Podcasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Jim Deters, Galvanize, Entrepreneurs, Financial Capital, Angel Investors, Institutional Venture Capitalists, Community, Capital, Curriculum, bytes=6904166
LISTEN TO: Jim Deters, Founder/Managing Director, Galvanize

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A mobile application for social event planning
Eric Hubbell, CEO/ Founder, My Hub Appenclosure-voice 1474_ 12/2/13 - My Hub is a mobile application for social event planning. The premise is essentially on a daily basis, when we get our friends together, we spend a lot of time doing group text messages, emails, a lot of phone calls and you're constantly on your device trying to coordinate with friends. So we look at that and we see a pretty big opportunity where that whole process can be flushed out and a little more efficient and we can bring almost more creativity to it. With My Hub, the app, allows people to create events very quickly - as well as fund those events through a couple of different ways - and ultimately invite their friends to get people together for fun adventures in the mountains or outside, etc. And, it can be used to plan anything from your next activity to this weekend or something a month in advance. As part of the application you can see what your friends are doing as well as plan your own events. The neat thing about it is I can potentially go into the app and see what my friends are doing across the country in New York or locate...
RELATED LINKS: My Hub App || Galvanize || Economy Builders || PodCasting Directory || Mastering Change || KEYWORDS: Eric Hubbell, MyHubApp, Mobile Application, Chris Onan, Galvanize, Entrepreneurs, Colorado, Create Events, Apps > bytes=3652025
LISTEN TO: Eric Hubbell, CEO/Founder MyHubApp

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Jenna Walker, CoFounder, Artifact Uprising They had the artistic talent but lacked the technology talent
enclosure-voice 1473_ 12/2/13 - Jenna Walker, her sister and husband, all professional photographers and artists in their own right, came to Galvanize last July to start their business, Artifact Uprising. Now they had the artistic talent but lacked the technology talent and startup knowledge necessary to make their dream a reality. They've created Artifact Uprising to bring back the beauty of the tangible. Jenna said, "We live in this amazing digital world, our camera phones are awesome but we all feel we want to leave things behind that are tangible for our families and for ourselves." So they were inspired to start a company where people could go and design beautiful high quality things of their photos and leave them behind for generations to come, in a more tangible form. We asked about the challenges facing new entrepreneurs. Initially it wasn't so challenging because, "We didn't know what we didn't know." Keeping up with the growth of the company has been hard because there are so many things they needed to accomplish that they weren't aware of... Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: Artifact Uprising || Galvanize || Economy Builders || Mastering Change || KEYWORDS: Jenna Walker, Artifact Uprising, Professional Photographers, Artists, Galvanize, Digital World, Technology Company, > bytes=6681812
LISTEN TO: Jenna Walker, CoFounder, Artifact Uprising

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enclosure-voice 1461_ 11/11/13 - Brad Feld and Jerry Colonna ...
Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group & Jerry Colonna, Executive Coach and VC at DefragCon 2013...shared a candid and open discussion of the emotional challenges of entrepreneurship at Defrag 2013. In a remarkable demonstration of openness and bravery, Brad continues to share his own journey with depression over the last year. Both through his personal blog, and again with a live audience at Defrag 2013, Brad openly shares the pain of depression, the importance of support provided by his wife Amy and close friends, and in doing so, attempts to break the barriers and silence surrounding mental illness.
LISTEN TO: The Emotional Challenges of Entrepreneurship Part 1 of 3

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(part 2 of 3, 1360_ 11/11/13 -
All eyes and ears on Brad and Jerry as they share their entreprenurial challenges... The stigma and practice of social silence
surrounding mental health issues prevents many from accessing or even seeking help for what science has long recognized as a common ailment. Depression affects approximately one in every three people, and yet we continue to struggle in our efforts to penetrate the wall behind which many of society's brightest minds suffered in silence. Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein Full house!and astronaut Edwin 'Buz' Aldrin all suffered from clinical depression masked by the carefully chosen monikers of melancholy or the blues.

LISTEN TO: The Emotional Challenges of Entrepreneurship Part 2 of 3

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Larry and Brad Feld at Defrag 2013 Everyone of us experiences
short periods of sadness, loneliness or depression; each of these normal emotions in the course of one's life that arise from troubling times, challenges, loss or the hurtful actions of others. True clinical depression, however, often results in a pervading and deep sense of depression that permeates all aspects of life, which often become overwhelming, and cause the sufferer to experience an inability to cope with or carry out regular activities of daily living, and negatively impact the individual's ability to participate in quality, active life events. Depressive symptoms vary significantly from one individual to the next, but common and recognizable symptoms may include a generalized sense of hopelessness, loss of interest in activities previously found pleasurable, and a generalized sense of sadness and loss that overshadows everything. Join Brad in his efforts to achieve the seemingly impossible and ever important struggle to break the shroud of silence surrounding depression. Listen to all three segments of Brad Feld and Jerry Colonna's open and frank discussion of the emotional challenges of entrepreneurism.
RELATED LINKS: Foundry Group Blog || Foundry Group || Jerry Colonna || Entrepreneurial Depression || Defrag || KEYWORDS: Brad Feld, Jerry Colonna, Defrag, Entrepreneurs, Depression, Foundry Group, VC, Venture Capitalists, Emotional Challenges of Entrepreneurship
LISTEN TO: The Emotional Challenges of Entrepreneurship Part 3 of 3

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Defrag Conference 2013
WHAT IS DEFRAG? Defrag started in 2007 as a forum for exploring information overload and building implicit tools for the web. In years 2-4, Defrag's focus shifted to things like enterprise collaboration, social media and big data. As Defrag entered its 5th year, it firmly established itself as one of the premiere thought leader discussions about "what's coming next" in technology, where Defrag's time horizon is usually looking out 18-24 months. Defrag is now where the influencers gather.

Word-of-Mouth Recommendations, In or Out
Justin Sanger, CEO/Founder, Support Localenclosure-voice 1450_ 10/7/2013 - Larry interviewed Justin Sanger, CEO & Founder of SupportLocal at Galvanize. Justin has seen and done many things in his career, but throughout, his focus has been on local advertising and local search solutions for consumers in the Internet space. He's started four companies, in the local arena, the last was Local Launch, an award winning local search platform for small and medium size businesses. They sold over 200,000 products to small businesses, generated over half-a-billion dollars in revenue and ultimately sold that company in 2006 to R.H. Donnelly and Dex. Today, Justin is more excited than ever about their initiative called, SupportLocal. Put simply, it is a place for friends to recommend local businesses. We're all familiar with word-of-mouth and in fact, people point to it as the leading source for finding new businesses. At the same time businesses point to it as their leading source for new clients / customers. So it is something we're all very accustomed to in our offline world. Today the interesting thing is that only 7% of word-of-mouth activity actually happens online. SupportLocal is trying to solve for this problem and opportunity. Larry asked, "There are search engines out there like Goggle, of course. What is the major difference between what you're doing and them?" Justin said, Yes, great question. Google, Yelp, Facebook, Angie's List, and there are other significant examples out there. The main difference is we're about a network of just your friends. We're talking about your friends within a particular locality. The city you live in and the people you interact with every day, and making it efficient for you to be able to find things to do in your community or to solve for a need that you may have - within your community at any given time. Facebook, Angie's List, Yelp, they do not have those factors within their networks. For one, like Yelp, you're consuming reviews from people you just don't know. If you breakdown 'word-of-mouth' ...Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: SupportLocal || Galvanize || Economy Builders || Mastering Change || KEYWORDS: Justin Sanger, SupportLocal, Galvanize, Word-of-Mouth, Google, Yelp, Facebook, Angie's List, Network, > bytes=5024603
LISTEN TO: Justin Sanger, CEO/Founder, SupportLocal

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Establish collaborative multidisciplinary partnerships and Jill (VanMatre) Dupré, Associate Director, ATLAS, University of Colorado Boulderprograms
enclosure-voice 1407_ 7/15/13 - Larry interviewed Jill (VanMatre) Dupré, Associate Director of the ATLAS Institute. The ATLAS Institute is an innovative campus-wide initiative in education, research, creative work and outreach in which information and communication technology is the enabling force. ATLAS programs bring together students, educators, artists, writers, scholars and leaders from the academy, industry, non-profits and government to create a multidisciplinary environment that contributes to the understanding of the interaction of ICT and human society, and to the realization of the full potential of that interaction. The ATLAS Institute is affiliated with the University of Colorado Graduate School and the College of Engineering & Applied Science. "ATLAS leads discovery and innovation at the intersection of technology and society. We seek to better understand the interaction of people and ICT, and to help realize the full potential of that interaction. ATLAS interdisciplinary programs help develop creative designers, critical thinkers, effective leaders, capable learners, innovative teachers and engaged global citizens. ATLAS teaches students a new way to think about what is possible, and to use the computer as a tool to realize fully that vision. ATLAS teaches students not how to acquire information, but rather how to select, evaluate, integrate and synthesize information into usable knowledge. ATLAS acts as a campus and national resource in the area of technology for teaching and learning."
RELATED LINKS: Atlas Institute || Silicon Flatirons || CU Technology Transfer Office || PodCasting Directory || KEYWORDS: Jill (VanMatre) Dupré, ATLAS Institute, University of Colorado, Collaborative Multidisciplinary Partnerships, Silicon Flatirons, CU Technology Transfer Office - 7/15/13 bytes=8117083
LISTEN TO: Jill VanMatre Dupré, Associate Director, ATLAS Institute,
University of Colorado Boulder


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Larry Nelson with Brad Feld, Author, Startup Communities and 
    Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Startup Communities and Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
enclosure-voice 1287_ 10/1/12 - What does a Startup Community Ecosystem look like? Ask our prolific author and Colorado based VC Brad Feld. Ok, you don't have to, we did. Now you can listen to him. Then you have to read this book. And after digesting all his great advice, one last step, or maybe the first step... "Do it!  Don't wait for permission. Don't wait to talk to someone. Do go to startup events, meetups, tech talks everything you can find and commit to that for at least six months."
      We began, that is w3w3® Media, 14+ years ago on terrestrial radio and one of our earliest interviews was Brad Feld, a relative newcomer to the Boulder area - already making a name for himself. We've watched him and his wife Amy build their home here, making this community - that's the entrepreneurial, technology (even the arts, the university) and VC communities better and stronger. He's been a champion for the community as a whole and now he's working on the young emerging entrepreneurs, his newest book, "Startup Communities - Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City".
      Brad said he's used a lot of the ideas that he's been involved in and participated in, in Boulder, since he moved here in the mid-90s, to form the framework for the book, which we called the "Boulder Thesis". They worked hard on defining on what any city in the world should do if they want to create a long-term, healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem. The key parts of the Boulder Thesis are these four components. The first is the startup community has to be lead by entrepreneurs. We separate the world into leaders and feeders. They're both important, but they're different. In the context of startup communities, the only people that can be effective leaders are the entrepreneurs. If you have the other people involved in the startup community, the feeders playing the role of leader, it doesn't work. So government can't be the leader, university can't be the leader, investors, venture capitalists, big business, those can't be the leaders. The Second is those entrepreneurs have to take a long-term view. Brad likes to say, "It's generational, at least 20 years. You can't start and build a sustainable startup community in two or three years." We're in a cycle where startups are exciting, a lot of people get involved in startups, and that's fine. But if you really want to build, in your city, a long term startup community, you have to be in it for a long time. The Third part of the Boulder Thesis is, you have to be inclusive of anyone who wants to engage at any level. This is leaders and feeders, individuals who want to get involved - it's anyone new, who moves to town, anyone who wants to be involved can and should be - Then you're way ahead of the game. The last part is you have to have a series of activities and events that have a regular cadence and rhythm to them. Things like TechStars an accelerator for 90 days, you're doing something that engages the entire entrepreneurial stack. The essence of it is this idea that... Well, listen to Brad he will tell you so much more - read his book and you'll learn so much more. Get started now!

RELATED LINKS: Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City || Brad Feld Blog || Brad Presenting, SFC Crash Course || Foundry Group || Do More Faster Book || Economy Builders || Venture Capital Channel || NCWIT Sit With Me || KEYWORDS: Brad Feld, Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City, Foundry Group, Venture Capital, Amy Feld, Boulder Thesis, bytes=8827196
LISTEN TO: Brad Feld, Author, Startup Communities, Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

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Education Resources and Networks Around the World
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA, President/CEO, SoPEenclosure-voice 1380_ 5/6/13 - Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA came to Colorado 37 years ago - since we've known him, he has always been a force to deal with. He is a professor at the CU School of Medicine, Department of Otolaryngology and he is President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs. Bottom line is he is involved in so much, if you haven't heard about him yet, you will, as we begin this series ...Arlen tells us, "The Society of Physician Entrepreneurs (SoPE) is a global, non-profit bio-medical and health innovation and entrepreneurship network. Basically our mission is to help doctors and other health professionals get their ideas to patients. We do that by providing them with education resources and networks around the world and we officially launched it as a not-for-profit in January 2011. We've scaled it to several 10s of thousands of people in our community around the world." The focus is on biomedical and health innovation. Biomedical typically means drugs, devices, diagnostics, vaccines, things that require FDA approval for sales and manufacturing in the United States. Health innovation typically has to do with digital health - that is the application of information and communications technologies to health, business process innovation, care delivery innovations, system innovation. So, a lot of community based physicians don't have the interest or wherewithal to develop a drug because it takes so long and costs so much money and usually are the result of research activities in a major research university. But our community is interested in getting their ideas to patients. And most of those ideas have to do with patient portal ideas, iPhone Apps, digital tele medicine, big data, analytics, remote sensing, care delivery, chronic disease management, those sorts of things, with the focus of adding value to the system. We asked if people who are not doctors can get involved with SoPE. Arlen said, "Absolutely, and we intentionally created it that way. Otherwise..." listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: Society of Physician Entrepreneurs || CU School of Medicine || TiE Rockies Colorado || Economy Builders || KEYWORDS: Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA, CU School of Medicine, Otolaryngology, SoPE, TiE Rockies, Colorado, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs, bytes=4462448
LISTEN TO: Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA; President/CEO, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs (SoPE)

Powered by Podbean.com The art of raising money has changed a great deal [2 of 4]
enclosure-voice 1387_ 5/28/13 - Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA, a professor at the CU School of Medicine, Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA, Pres/CEO, SoPEDepartment of Otolaryngology and he is President/CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs. Part 2 of 4...We're talking about money and Arlen says... "The problem is there isn't access to it and from the standpoint of not that there isn't enough of it, because there is. It's just a question of how do Colorado entrepreneurs; particularly in healthcare get their fair share. I think it's useful to provide an overview. What's happening is that because of all the dynamics, venture capital has shrunk in the state. That whole business model is coming into question. Community based innovation is driving innovation. Accelerators have accelerated and it's easier than ever to start a business. Unfortunately it's not as easy to scale and fund a business. For instance, statistics indicate that the number of businesses started in the United States, in terms of reflecting entrepreneurship has dropped. It is now about a-half million businesses created in the U.S. And that's a good news/bad news story because some people interpret that as the economy is improving, as the real estate bubble has broke and now is re-growing, people are actually getting employed and finding jobs and there is no need for them to start their own business. So I don't like it when people are relieved of that sense of urgency whether it's by the economy sense or whatever. Getting back to the money, the issues are; There's not enough of it in Colorado and we need to create ways to get our fair share. I think there are a couple of ways to do that. One is, we need to rethink how the government, that is state government provides incentives to fund new startups. Particularly at the community level - not top down but bottom up. Two, we need to do a better job marketing Colorado as a technology hub and going to the money. The old Louie Sutton. Now he is on the coast, so we need to do a better job of going to the coast to get the money. Three, we need to be more innovative as far as how we create whether it's a fund-to-fund, crowd funding, all of these things that we've talked about over the last 30 years...listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: Society of Physician Entrepreneurs || CU School of Medicine || TiE Rockies Colorado || Economy Builders || KEYWORDS: Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA, CU School of Medicine, Otolaryngology, SoPE, TiE Rockies, Colorado, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs, Myogen Gilead, bytes=4928473
LISTEN TO: Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA; President/CEO, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs (SoPE)

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Michael Hamers, logo design, branding, excellence
Michael Hamers, Lightspeed Design & Branding Groupenclosure-voice 1370_ 4/1/13 - We're talking with Michael Hamers, a long time associate in the Colorado business community and founder of Lightspeed Design & Branding Group. Larry asked, "How did you get your start?" Mike replied, "I Went to commercial arts school and was hired by Harley Davidson based on the strength of my line art. They taught me how to read blueprints. I spent many years as a technical illustrator doing cutaways and exploded views of engines and transmissions. When I moved to Colorado I went to work at Ball Aerospace and moved up to laser communication devices and infrared telescopes and the space station. After working there for about six years, I started my own company, LightSpeed Commercial Arts." Larry said, "It's an interesting name why did you pick that name and what was your business like back then?" Besides thinking it was a cool name, Mike said, "people kept telling me how fast I was compared to the other illustrators and designers working whatever projects I was working on. Back then I was still primarily an illustrator doing work for Xerox, Metronics, working on cold laser and heart catheters, a lot of technical manuals for Mobil Oil, their emergency management plan - how to deal with a terrorist attack or helicopter safety... so very technical back then." Larry asked, "When did you start creating logos and branding?" Mike replied, "Pretty much from the start. My first logo was for a company Calling All Cars, some of the first cell phones for the car - it was about the size of a shoe, had a little antenna on the back window." Then Mike did a logo for Larry - the Institute for Change Research and Mike received his first 'award for excellence', he's been hooked ever since. "What do like most about logo design and branding?" "I just love the story telling aspect. I just love bridging the company name and tag line and the mark [the logo] into a homogenous whole - giving it a stable base. People love stories. So if you're able to get the branding story out, you're more apt to be remembered." So Mike really enjoys helping to do the telling and the selling of the branding message for these companies. Mike also produces a wonderful newsletter - extremely informational, easy to read and it can help you to build your business - the name of it is 'Good Design is Good Business: The business builder update'. Mike said, "It's just a great way for me to express myself, share my opinions about design and marketing." Topics covered in Mike's newsletter to this point, and available on his website newsletter archives are ...listen for more great ideas...
RELATED LINKS: Lightspeed || Economy Builders || Mastering Change || Institute for Change Research || KEYWORDS: Michael Hamers, Branding, Design, Commercial Arts, Logos, 'Good Design is Good Business, Harley Davidson, Ball Aerospace, Xerox, Metronics, Calling All Cars, Institute for Change Research, bytes=6461965
LISTEN TO: Michael Hamers, Lightspeed Design & Branding Group

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Sarah  Schupp, CEO & Founder, UniversityParents Sarah Schupp, aggregating resources so that they're easy to find
enclosure-voice 1367_ 3/18/13 - We are speaking with Sarah Schupp, founder and CEO of UniversityParent. As fate would have it, we first heard of Sarah when we were on the Parents Board at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and Sarah was a bright young student who came to the University with a very good idea and that was the beginning of a successful bootstrapping startup. We've asked Sarah to give our listeners an overview. Basically UniversityParent is the number one destination for college parents to find everything they need to help their students. So it's everything from safe, off-campus student housing to nearby moving and storage facilities, to information on how they can help their student if they're dealing with a challenge on campus. The idea came up because Sarah was an out-of-state student here in Boulder and her parents had all kinds of questions about the local area as well as the university. Not surprisingly their questions were different than those of Sarah's as a student. Almost all of the information the university provided really was directed at the student population and not the parent population. This was crazy - parents are such big stakeholders in the student's education that they really need to be constructively involved and have the right resources available. So Sarah approached the university with "the idea" for a parent guide. They were supportive of the idea the problem was a lack of funding. Sarah's response? "I said, that's great, I'm glad you don't have any money, I'm going to make this into a business." Sarah walked downtown Boulder knocking on doors and asking people to advertise. Parents want to know about the local businesses almost as much as they want to know about the local content. Larry asked, "What resources do you offer to both parents and students?" Sarah replied, "Basically we are aggregating resources so that they're easy to find for families. That's everything from where is the academic advising center on campus; when is tuition due; when is spring break. Some of these questions don't seem to be serious, like when is spring break, but they're important because parents have to book flights and arrange travel." Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: UniversityParent.com || Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship || Economy Builders || Mastering Change || KEYWORDS: Sarah Schupp, UniversityParent, Crash Course Series for Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurs Unplugged, New Tech Meetup, Entrepreneurship, Silicon Flatiron Center, bytes=6915451
LISTEN TO: Sarah Schupp, CEO, UniversityParent

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Brad Bernthal, Associate Clinical Professor & Director Entrepreneur Initiative, Silicon Flatirons Center - University of Colorado Brad Bernthal, Silicon Flatirons Entrepreneurship Initiative
enclosure-voice 1355_ 2/25/13 - Brad Bernthal is Associate Clinical Professor of Law Technology Policy but, he is also the Director of the Silicon Flatirons Center Entrepreneurship Initiative where they are doing so many things impacting entrepreneurs. Brad told us, "With respect to Silicon Flatirons Center, what we do is create conditions where innovation is likely to occur." With a degree of modesty Brad recognizes he is a law professor and not an innovator and what they do at SFC is not the core engine of innovation. But, innovation comes out of certain scenes. "When we're on our game at Silicon Flatirons, we create a scene in which innovators can connect, ideally find some value through a series like our Crash Course Series for Entrepreneurs, with the Entrepreneurs Unplugged Series which brings serial entrepreneurs to campus, and the New Tech Meetup. All of which helps build out networks and helps create a scene that's sticky, where you get the innovators, new technologists, people with big ideas consistently getting together, making connections, sharing information and good things happen." Larry points out, Silicon Flatirons Center brings great speakers and presenters - and we're talking experience here not just people who talk. We are the beneficiaries of the same rich ecosystem here in the front range, it's a world class place to start a business. We are lucky to have a spirit of getting involved and giving back, that is throughout the startup ecosystem. People coming up... Ken Tuchman who has built a billion dollar business in TeleTech is going to be the guest for Entrepreneurs Unplugged [March 7th]. Looking out a little bit further the annual Entrepreneurship Conference on March 21st, taking on the Future of Entrepreneurial Finance. Larry asked Brad what he saw as the biggest challenges entrepreneurs would want to address today? "In terms of interesting challenges that I'm seeing entrepreneurs, especially in the front range, taking on, the 'makers movement' This is something to watch. This pushing software down increasingly into hardware. That plus.." Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: Silicon Flatirons Center for Law, Technology, and Entrepreneurship || Crash Course, Bootstrapping || Integrate || Economy Builders || Mastering Change || KEYWORDS: Silicon Flatiron Center, Brad Bernthal, Crash Course Series for Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurs Unplugged, New Tech Meetup, Entrepreneurship, > bytes=4118050
LISTEN TO: Brad Bernthal, Dir. SFC Entrepreneur Initiative

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Jeremy Bloom, Co-Founder, Integrate SFC / Entrepreneurs Unplugged:
Jeremy Bloom, Co-Founder, Integrate

1353_ 2/18/13 - Jeremy Bloom is the market-facing Co-Founder of Integrate. He focuses on agency and investor relations along strategic technology partnerships. Jeremy launched both the Denver and New York offices. You will remember Jeremy Bloom as he began his career in professional athletics- both as an Olympics Skier and NFL Football Player. While playing with the NFL in Philadelphia for the Eagles, he completed a business entrepreneurship program at Wharton Business School. This led his transition from athletics to business. Jeremy Ryan Bloom is a three-time World Champion, two-time Olympian and ... In April 2010, Bloom co-founded the internet company Integrate.com, online ad marketplace used by Microsoft and Yahoo. In 2008, Jeremy established Wish of a Lifetime - a non-profit foundation that grants wishes to 80, 90 and 100+ year old people across the country. A year later, he launched Mdinfo.com, a health portal creating a dialogue between medical experts and ordinary people throughout the world. And in 2010, Jeremy co-founded Integrate. Most recently, Jeremy was named by Forbes as "30 under 30" in the technology space and as one of Denver's "Forty under 40" business leaders. Entrepreneurs Unplugged is a meeting place where faculty, students and community members with technical backgrounds learn about and get involved in entrepreneurship. In particular, the program offers students and faculty an opportunity to learn how a successful start up is created as well as an opportunity to network. Watch and listen to this video discussion with Jeremy Bloom, Integrate, Brad Feld, Brad Bernthal, Jill Van Matre...
RELATED LINKS: EU: Jeremy Bloom, Co Founder, Integrate || Integrate || Economy Builders || KEYWORDS: Silicon Flatiron Center, Jeremy Bloom, Integrate, Brad Feld, Brad Bernthal, Jill Van Matre, Entrepreneurs Unplugged, Online Ad Marketplace, Microsoft, Yahoo, World Champion, Olympian
YouTube Video: Jeremy Bloom, Entrepreneurs Unplugged @ Silicon Flatirons with Brad Feld & Brad Bernthal

Speaking of Kendall Colman & Molly Hughes
Molly Hughes, Speaking & Media Preparedness Coach, Colman & CompanyKendall Colman, Founder/President, Colman & Companyenclosure-voice 1347_ 2/11/13 - We are here with Molly Hughes and Kendall Colman, discussing one of Larry's favorite subjects, entrepreneurism and the current challenges and opportunities. Colman & Company was founded and started 13 years ago by Kendall. She said, "It was really a result of a passion of hers at a very early age, based on the idea that people really do have potential that lies in them like a seed. With the right skills and talent and encouragement really can be developed." That was her personal experience as a competitive athlete; she found the coaches in her life made the biggest difference of all. Of course we all recognize Molly Hughes from Channel 4 News. After leaving CBS about a year ago, Molly joined forces with Kendall and is handling the speech and media preparedness aspect of Kendall's executive coaching firm. Molly says the Kendall found she was working with a lot of executives who then were doing great on the leadership front but there was still some work that needed to be done on public speaking. That is how their work fits together, Molly works with their clients on speech development and really anything related to communication, whether it is through the lens of a camera, one-on-one or to a large group of people. Larry asked what are the biggest challenges for companies today. Kendall believes most of us have some terrific ideas. "It doesn't take much to notice in our society, areas that can be improved. Gaining support and getting those first few people... It's always those first few people, for an entrepreneur, that make the biggest difference, who jump on board with the idea and say, I see it too. The challenge is putting an organizational structure in place so that the idea can be successful, before the home equity loan runs out." Then Larry sought out the great opportunities. Molly said, "What we're finding in the work we do is the Internet is huge, no matter what your business is. One of the best ways businesses can engage with their clients or consumers is through the use of video. It is one of the ways that all of our sensors are all at play. More and more people are turning to video as a way to really get their product or service out there. There is just explosive growth in this field right now."
RELATED LINKS: Colman & Company || Colman & Company Events || Economy Builders || Podcast Directory || KEYWORDS: Kendall Colman, Molly Hughes, Colman & Company, Speaking, Coaching, Organizational Psychology, Behavioral Sciences, Culture, Channel 4 News, CBS > bytes=7774357
LISTEN TO: Kendall Colman & Molly Hughes, Colman & Company

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spacer graphic Contents: Entrepreneurs 2010; 2009; 2008; 2007

2013 Entrepreneurs
CTA Apex Awards/Conference
Patrice Barber, President, Taylor Made Emarketing
Brad Bernthal, SFC Entrepreneurship Initiative
Mike Biselli, MedPassage, CMO and CoFounder
Jeremy Bloom, Integrate - SFC Crash Course
Colman & Company, Kendall Colman & Molly Hughes
Colman & Company, Part 2 Colman & Molly Hughes
Jim Deters, Founder/Managing Director, Galvanize
Steve Dine, Datasource Consulting [1 of 3]
Steve Dine, Datasource Consulting [2 of 3]
Steve Dine, [3 of 3]
DSW / Denver StartUp Week 2013
Jill VanMaatre Dupré, Associate VP, ATLAS Institute
Brad Feld & Jerry Colonna, The Emotional Challenges of Entrepreneurship [3 parts]
Bill Flagg, Bootstrapping - SFC Crash Course
Bill Flagg, The Felix Fun, Crash Course Videos
Galvanize, Mike Biselli & Chris Onan
Michael Hamers, Lightspeed Design & Branding Group
Eric Hubbell, Founder/CEO, My Hub App
Ray Hutchins, Denver Web Services [Part 1 of 2]
Ray Hutchins, Denver Web Services [Part 2 of 2]
Ron McKey, Doing Business Internationally
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA, SoPE, Series: Resources
Arlen Meyers, Pres/CEO, SoPE, Raising Money
Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA, SoPE, Innovation
Arlen Meyers, MD, Professor CU Medical School,
National Agenda Item
Stephen Miller, Sr. Director Entrepreneurship, Daniels
Chris Onan, Managing Director, Galvanize
Charles Patti, Daniels College of Business
Christine Riordan, Dean, Daniels College of Business
Justin Sanger, Founder/CEO, SupportLocal
Sarah Schoupp, Founder & CEO, UniversityParents
Jenna Walker, Founder, Artifact Uprising

2012 Entrepreneurs
Rustin Banks & Holly Hamann, BlogFrog - Entrepreneurs Unplugged
Nancy Bigley & Ginger Jones, Bottle Bottega Denver 3/5/12
Roy Dimoff, Founder, ViaWest, Success & Sustainability...
Brad Feld, Author, Startup Communities and Building an entrepreneurial ecosystem
Daniel Feld, Colorado Tech Scene
Daniel Feld, An entrepreneurial blitz...
Jim Franklin, CEO Sendgrid, Growing Entrepreneurs Ecosys
Mike Fries, President/CEO, Liberty Global, E&Y 2012 Award
Adam Kaye, Startup Chile
Mike Hamers, Founder/CEO, LightSpeed Commercial Art
Mike Hamers, Startups in Boulder, Biz is a Real Pitch 4/9/12
Dave Jilk, Social Network business opportunity coming to end
Tom Krekel, CEO, Full Sail Strategies 3/19/2012
Wendy Lea, CEO, Get Satisfaction - Entrepreneurs Unplugged
Kelly Manning, CO SBDC Network & Estes Institute 8/27/12
Kirsten Nelson, Founder, C3 Writing 2/13/2012
Larry Nelson, Mastering Change in the Midst of Chaos
Kelly Quann, Exec Director, COIN, 1/9/2012
Melodie Reagan, Serial Entrepreneur 10/22/2012
SFC/Crash Course, Feld-Weiser One-on-One 10/15/2012
SFC/Crash Course, Panel Reaction to the Boulder Thesis
Frank Traylor, Change for big & small companies and government
Brian Tsuchiya, Startup Guru & the JOBS Act 4/9/12
Silicon Flatirons Center, Dr. Weiser, Founder & Executive Director, & Prof Bernthal Help Celebrate 13 Years
Paul Washingtonr, Jump Start 2012 - Denver's Economic Development Strategy Part 1 of 2
Paul Wshington, CDFI Initiative... Part 2 of 2
Robert White, Founder, Extraordinary People - TiE Rockies Executive in Residence

2011 Entrepreneurs
Vic Ahmed, Innovation Pavilion 12/16/11
Vic Ahmed, TiE Rockies, CEO, Plug & Play 11/28/11
Barrett Blank, RVCs Pitch Academy Beginning 4/18/11
Brad Bernthal, Silicon Flatirons Center @ CU 2/21/11
Brad Bernthal, #1 Challenge, Assembling Right Team 3/7/11
Scott Casel, CEO, Startup America Partnership 11/21/11
Aneesh Chopra, Startup Colorado Launch 11/9/11
Brad Feld, Entrepreneurs Unplugged - Video 1 thru 5 Louis Foreman & Tom Frey, where Great Ideas Succeed 11/28/11
Jim Franklin, CEO, SendGrid, Inc. Entrepreneur Unplugged
Jim Franklin, Founder Institute 4/25/11
Tom Frey, Inventors, entrepreenurs & revolutionary thinkers
Tom Frey, Futurist, DaVinci Institute 4/4/11
Francisco Garcia, Klinggon - Consumer Product of the Year!
Josh Jacobson, Co Founder, Viktorian Guitars 7/25/11
Kimberly Lucas, President, Goldstone Partners 8/15/11
Dave Mangum, Executive Director, Startup Colorado
Kelly Manning, Financial Challenges & Solutions
Jana Matthews, Leadership in the New Economy 2/14/11
Ron McKey, FlyingBeds.com 10/24/11
Kirsten Nelson, C 3 Writing, Startup America Nov. 2011
Nancy Phillips, Entrepreneurs Unplugged 11/14/2011
Sam Pitroda, Chairman, WorldTel Ltd 10/24/11
Art Rancis, International Entrepreneur 8/1/11
Mark Seglem, ADSS, Federal Budget Crisis 4/4/11
Brian Tsuchiya, New money source - Crowdfunding 11/21/11
Theresa Szczurek, Radish Systems 6/6/11
Why Boulder - Startup Colorado, Launch in Boulder 11/9/11

2010 Entrepreneurs
Sam Addoms, The ups & downs growing business 6/28/10
Eric Alexander, The entrepreneur & the challenges 12/27/10
Kelly Burton, InvestorAvenue.com - RVC - CCC 5/12/10
David Cohen, Brad Feld, Do More Faster 10/4/10
David Cohen, TechStars Demo Day 8/16/10
David Cohen, CEO and Founder, TechStars 7/19/10
GearBox, Ian Bernstein & Adam Wilson, TechStars 7/26/10
Guy Cook, Myths and realities of innovation 6/14/10
Brad Feld, Replicating Entrepreneurial Community 10/18/10
Brad Feld, TechStars, Entrepreneurial Revival 8/16/10
Tom Frey, At the Inventor Showcase 2010 - Amazing 11/13/10
Michael Hamers, LightSpeed Commercial Arts 6/1/10
Jeff Hoffman, Value of Mentors - RVC - CCC
Jeff Hoffman, Raising Money...5/12/10
J. B. Holston, Newsgator, Colo Companies to Watch 6/1/10
David Jilk, Standing Cloud, Small Business, 7/19/10
Raymond Johnson, Infinite Power Solutions 10/25/10
Dean Kamen, Could be the FIRST step in Child's Innovation
Steve Katsaros, Nokero, Solar powered light... 6/21/10
Steve Knopper, Appetite for Self-Destruction 1/25/10
Greg Maffei, Liberty Media (Entrprs Unplugged) 10/18/10
David Moll, Infield Capital 10/4/10
Krista Marks, Disney Online Kerpoof Studios 3/8/10
Rich Martinez, Young Americans Center 7/19/10
Jason Mendelson, SFC: Crash Course 1/25/10
Larry Nelson, Contradiction of Foucs
Larry Nelson, Super Charge Your Business Now 7/26/10
Jared Polis, Washington - Pay Attention 8/16/10
Rally Software, Entrepreneurs Unplugged 2/1/10
Robert Stoll, Commissioner for Patents, USPTO 11/13/10
Theresa Szczurek, Entrepreneurs - Piece of the Action 5/3/10
Brian Tsuchiya, Coaching, Consulting, Mentorship 10/11/10
Brian Tsuchiya, Crowd Funding 5/17/10
Brian Tsuchiya, Startup Factory 1/11/10
VacationRentalPartner Michael Joseph & Tom Feldhusen 7/10
Mark Weakley, HRO Boulder, Due Diligence 5/3/10
Mark Weakley, Entrepreneurs Raising Capital 3/25/10
David Wolf, Young Americans Ctr for Financial Edu 8/23/10
Michael Zeisser, Liberty Media (Entrps Unplugged) 10/18/10

Ted Turner, Entrepreneurs Unplugged [Part 1 of 4] 11/23/09
Ted Turner, Entrepreneurs Unplugged [Part 2 of 4] 11/30/09
Christopher Lowell, Ben Franklin Live @Angel Cap Summit 09
Louis Foreman, Everyday Edisons @ Inventors Showcase 09
Nir Barkat, Jerusalem Mayor 11/9/09
David DuPont, TeamSnap 11/9/09
Paul Jerde, Larry Jones Deming Center 11/2/09
Brad Feld, David Cohen Entrepreneurs Unplugged 11/2/09
Stan Feld & Larry Nelson Making of an Entrepreneurs
Kevin Johansen By and For Entrepreneurs
Dawn Todd Colorado is the Place to be...
Hunt Lambert Going Global - Changing Markets
Dave Taylor Entrepreneur's Advice
Larry Nelson Ground Swell of Change
Terry Gold Disrupting Conference Call Market
Brian Schultz Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneur
Steve Baker, Pushing Water Uphill...
Larry Nelson, Chaing Rules for Raising Capital
Larry Nelson, The Contradiction of Focus When Building Business
Larry Nelson, Ground Swells of Change & Your Team
Baker & Repplin Sage Advice about Money & Change
Gov. Bill RitterColorado Entrepreneur Ecosystem
Brad Bernthal Putting Ecosystem into Perspective
Tob & Deb Frey Building Bridge to Future
Christine Comaford Rules for Renegades
Larry Nelson Colorado Rising: Mythin-Miracle-Mystery
Mayor John Hickenlooper From Geologist to...
Jay Walker Priceline.com

Serial Entrepreneur Vic Ahmed
Authors offer sage advice...Steve Replin & Steve Baker
Pushing Water Uphill with a Rake - Steve Baker
Entrepreneurs Unplugged: Nir Barkat, Gov. Ritter,
Yoga to High-Tech Gwen Bell
Entrepreneurs Unplugged Bernthal, Reich & Nir Barkat
Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Perspective, Brad Bernthal
Leveraging Technology.. Kelly Burton, Investor Avenue
Startup Capital.. David Cohen, TechStars
Startups.. Mentoring.. Dave Cohen, TechStars
Rules for Renegades Christine Comaford, Might Ventures Inventors Roundtable Colorado - Rita Crompton
Disrupting Conference Call Market - Terry Gold
Hickenlooper: from Geologist to Entrepreneur
   Mayor John Hickenlooper
Ventrue Capital - Getting Involved Jim Franklin, RVC
Building Bridge to Future...l Tom & Deb Frey
DEMOgala Showcase Winner IOUnote.com
Colorado Entrepreneurial Paul Jerde
Angel Capital Summit 2009 Kevin Johansen
Best Practices.. Lee Kennedy
A Borad of Directors? Sue Kunz
Servicing constituents by going global... Hunt Lambert
Global Ambitions, Sales.. Ken Morse, MIT
The Making of an Entrepreneur - Larry Nelson & Stan Feld
Change is not an event - Larry & Pat Nelson
Ground Swell of Change - Tech/Communication L Nelson
Colorado's Entrepreneur Ecosystem & ICT, Gov. Ritter
Change with the Right Team Jagdeep Singh
Angel Capital Summit '09 - Colorado place to be. Dawn Todd
Opportunities for Innovation... Jay Walker, Priceline


Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA, CEO/President, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs (SoPE) What's the difference between an improvement and an innovation
enclosure-voice 1395_ 6/10/13 - Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA, a professor at the CU School of Medicine, Department of Otolaryngology and he is President/CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs.
Part 3 of 4... We're talking about innovation and Arlen says... "So, the issue is what is innovation? If you ask 100 people, you're going to get 100 different answers. So, here is Arlen's two cents..."First of all there is a difference between an idea, an invention and innovation. An idea is something that pops in your mind - that's the end of it. An invention is an idea reduced to practice. You make a sketch, you build a prototype - you actually start conceptualizing how this thing is going to look/taste/feel, it's reduced to practice. It could be a process or service, it doesn't necessarily have to be a product or goods. But innovation is a step further. Innovation is about creating value and value that someone is willing to pay you for, or exchange something of value which is usually money. So an invention doesn't do you any good unless someone is willing to give you money to use it or buy it. That's what innovation is. Now it's usually something new. An argument is what's the difference between an improvement and an innovation? And does that make a difference? Probably not, but an improvement is you take an old way of doing something and you improve it verses an innovation where you take a new way to try to make things better. Arlen said, "In my view the U.S. healthcare system has not been terribly innovative. In fact most of the biomedical industrial complex has not been terribly innovative." He went on to say if you look at the amount of money that goes into the top research and development funnel through NIH... Last year the FDA approved 39 new drugs - total. And that was the highest number in 50 years. So what we get out of the bottom for what we put in the top, are 39 new drugs. And, if you look at what are those drugs, a lot of them are ...listen for more...

RELATED LINKS: Society of Physician Entrepreneurs || CU School of Medicine || TiE Rockies Colorado || Economy Builders || KEYWORDS: Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA, CU School of Medicine, Otolaryngology, SoPE, TiE Rockies, Colorado, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs, Idea, Invention, Innovation, > bytes=4457015
LISTEN TO: Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA, President/CEO, SoPE

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Kendall Colman & Molly Hughes - Authentic ColmanConnection

enclosure-voice 1352_ 2/18/13 - Talk about presentations and getting your message across. We are here with Kendall Colman CEO and founder of Colman & Company and Molly Hughes. These two women are experts in the field of presentations and getting your message across. So we asked for an overview of what they might recommend to a business today. Kendall said, "The place that we first work and coach with people is, first and foremost, how they connect with an audience. So all the things that you've learned through other programs may or may not work. The first real piece is really around connecting, true connecting and authentically connecting with your audience through holding their gaze for a certain amount of time before you move on to the next person. So that's fundamental. And we really think the most important part of speaking is, really two things, one is to be remembered and the other is to be repeated. So if you're speaking to an audience there really shouldn't be any other purpose but that. You want that message to be continued on. So, it's really about connecting, conveying, and then convincing." Molly said, "It is a whole different ball game when you're talking one-on-one with somebody than it is talking to a large group of people or when you get up in a boardroom, or at a big event when you're representing your company. What we've found are these physiological things that happen within a person, whether it be the butterflies, sweaty palms or the nausea or the racing heart, the sweat... So what we work on with people is how to manage that physiology. It really comes down to a couple factors of being present in the moment. We find that when you are really present in that moment, a lot of those self-conscious fears that we have when we're up in front of a group, tend to fall away. We really work with people on the physiology, try to relax them from the core." Larry asked, "When you're taking an executive or their team through this process, what are the most common flaws or areas of lack of strength?" ...get ready to take notes...
RELATED LINKS: Colman & Company || Colman & Company Events || Economy Builders || Blog || KEYWORDS: Kendall Colman, Molly Hughes, Colman & Company, Speaking, Coaching, Networking, Organizational Psychology, Behavioral Sciences, Culture, Channel 4 News, CBS, bytes=5989671
LISTEN TO: Molly Hughes & Kendal Colman, Colman & Company

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Bill Flagg, Bootstrapping, SFC Crash Course
Bill Flagg, The Felix Funenclosure-voice 1357_ 2/25/13 Bill Flagg is an angel partner in four boot-strapped, built-for-life, internet-based companies (PosterBrain, SnapEngage, StickerGiant, and SurveyGizmo). This community of businesses, The Felix Fun, delivers value to over 20,000 customers, with the help of 100 co-workers, generating $15 million in revenue per year, and growing. Prior to this Bill Flagg helped build RegOnline which he sold in 2007. As part of the Silicon Flatirons Center, Crash Course Series for Entrepreneurs, Bill spoke about his experience in bootstrapping his company. Bill tells us he started bootstrapping in high school and then college - he didn't know he could get someone to actually give him money to go out and start a business. So it was really out of his own naiveté that he became a bootstrapper. Bill was co-owner of RegOnline, which was sold to The Active Network in 2007 (he hopes to never sell another great company). In 2008, Bill started The Felix Fun to be an angel partner in helping other entrepreneurs grow great companies and thrive through organic growth. He's always had this thought in mind, 'is this extra dollar going to provide more than a dollar of value to my customers?' Because, if it wasn't going to return the value, then he knew he couldn't sustain the business. That really is the premise he uses in building and helping to build companies he works with over the last 20+ years. There are different strategies that he employs, one is, , using your capital in the most efficient way. When bootstrapping there isn't that much capital - that forces the question very acutely. The second is to really know who your core customers are. Bill says, "A lot of businesses..." Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: Crash Course, Bootstrapping || The Felix Fun || Bill Flagg Blog || Software Channel || 2012 Software Chnl ||
KEYWORDS: Bill Flagg, Bootstrapping, The Felix Fun, RegOnline, PosterBrain, SnapEngage, StickerGiant, SurveyGizmo, World Champion, Olympian, SFC Crash Course, Brad Bernthal, > bytes=6946798
LISTEN TO: Bill Flagg, Bootstrapping, SFC Crash Course

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Startup Communities and Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
enclosure-voice 1287_ 10/1/12 - What does a Startup Community Ecosystem look like? Ask our prolific author and Colorado based VC Brad Feld. Ok, you don't have to, we did. Now you can listen to him. Then you have to read this book. And after digesting all his great advice, one last step, or maybe the first step... "Do it!  Don't wait for permission. Don't wait to talk to someone. Do go to startup events, meetups, tech talks everything you can find and commit to that for at least six months."
      We began, that is w3w3® Media, 14+ years ago on terrestrial radio and one of our earliest interviews was Brad Feld, a relative newcomer to the Boulder area - already making a name for himself. We've watched him and his wife Amy build their home here, making this community - that's the entrepreneurial, technology (even the arts, the university) and VC communities better and stronger. He's been a champion for the community as a whole and now he's working on the young emerging entrepreneurs, his newest book, "Startup Communities - Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City".
      Brad said he's used a lot of the ideas that he's been involved in and participated in, in Boulder, since he moved here in the mid-90s, to form the framework for the book, which we called the "Boulder Thesis". They worked hard on defining on what any city in the world should do if they want to create a long-term, healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem. The key parts of the Boulder Thesis are these four components. The first is the startup community has to be lead by entrepreneurs. We separate the world into leaders and feeders. They're both important, but they're different. In the context of startup communities, the only people that can be effective leaders are the entrepreneurs. If you have the other people involved in the startup community, the feeders playing the role of leader, it doesn't work. So government can't be the leader, university can't be the leader, investors, venture capitalists, big business, those can't be the leaders. The Second is those entrepreneurs have to take a long-term view. Brad likes to say, "It's generational, at least 20 years. You can't start and build a sustainable startup community in two or three years." We're in a cycle where startups are exciting, a lot of people get involved in startups, and that's fine. But if you really want to build, in your city, a long term startup community, you have to be in it for a long time. The Third part of the Boulder Thesis is, you have to be inclusive of anyone who wants to engage at any level. This is leaders and feeders, individuals who want to get involved - it's anyone new, who moves to town, anyone who wants to be involved can and should be - Then you're way ahead of the game. The last part is you have to have a series of activities and events that have a regular cadence and rhythm to them. Things like TechStars an accelerator for 90 days, you're doing something that engages the entire entrepreneurial stack. The essence of it is this idea that... Well, listen to Brad he will tell you so much more - read his book and you'll learn so much more. Get started now!

RELATED LINKS: Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City || Brad Feld Blog || Brad Presenting, SFC Crash Course || Foundry Group || Do More Faster Book || Economy Builders || Venture Capital Channel || NCWIT Sit With Me || KEYWORDS: Brad Feld, Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City, Foundry Group, Venture Capital, Amy Feld, Boulder Thesis, bytes=8827196
LISTEN TO: Brad Feld, Author, Startup Communities, Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

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