Having just gotten home from Ignite Boulder 11, I feel compelled to borrow a line from one of my daughter’s favorite books: “Wow!  That is all I can say.  Wow!’” (Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, if you must know).  Shortly after IB 10, Andrew Hyde, the driving force behind the event’s huge growth, felt that Ignite Boulder had plateaued, despite the fact that it had become the largest Ignite in the world.  After tonight, I feel confident that he has changed his mind.  I sure have.

When Andrew wrote that post, I agreed – it felt like Ignite Boulder was leveling off.  I wrote a lengthly comment, carefully outlining all of the things from prior Ignites that were now missing from the last two and suggesting ways to recreate them.  I never did publish it.  At the end of the day, I just couldn’t write anything that didn’t sound like a “I knew the band before they became popular” kind of a thing.

Tonight’s event wasn’t awesome because it was like the early Ignites (nor was it awesome because the presenters use the word “awesome” so many times), it had an awesomeness (it’s contagious) all its own.

First of all, there’s the change in venue.  Chautauqua and what it offered was amazing.  There was the pre-show barbecue next to the auditorium and the families picnicking out on the grass.  My wife and I chose to sit on the porch of the Dining Hall, which is always a treat.  Throw in a little sunshine, free beer, and the Flatirons as a backdrop, and you’ve already got yourself a winner.  The auditorium itself was beautiful, an all-wood building with giant doors opened to a nice breeze.  When it got darker, a bit of light peaked through the slats in the walls.  I really look forward to TEDxBoulder, if for no other reason than to be in that building again.

The speakers…yes, the speakers – the best bunch from top to bottom that I’ve seen.  Ef Rodriguez warmed things up with his usual charm, and Anna Sawyer immediately followed with the crowd pleasing How to Marry the Rich, a practical guide to marrying up.  My personal favorite Spark of the night was Josh Fraser’s Snakes and Staircases, which taught me that vending machine deaths are a very real risk and that Scottish accents are very persuasive.  The 14th and final slide deck of the evening, Justin Crowe‘s Modulate Your Life: High Fives & Livin’ On A Prayer, had 1,300+ of us high fiving and belting out the Bon Jovi chorus together to end things just so.

Andrew and I were wrong.  Ignite Boulder just keeps getting better, and there’s plenty of room to grow from here.

I had the pleasure of meeting with John and Josh from ADstruc last week. Their company is a Boulder Summer 2010 TechStars team hailing from New York City. We talked about their experience so far in Boulder this summer, what’s been happening at TechStars, and some other general tidbits.

The Team

Both John and Josh are Midwesterners born and raised. John grew up in Michigan and attended college in Maryland. A prolific amateur ping-pong player, he recently won a tournament while back in NYC and will be playing in France sometime this summer. Josh is an Ohioan turned big city guy. He went to undergrad in Ohio and law school in Florida after a stint as a professional drummer. What little free time he has these days is spent prepping for his wedding later this summer.

The Business

ADstruc is an online buying platform in the form of an auction and listing based marketplace with the goal of improving the profitability of buying and selling outdoor advertising. John and Josh recently worked together at a large brand licensing agency and John got involved in outdoor advertising while running his own consulting gig on the side. Outdoor advertising, also known as OOH (out of home) advertising to industry professionals, is a massive market at around $6B annually. In terms of competition, both John and Josh acknowledged that it exists but view it in a very healthy way – as validation of their market and a benchmark to improve upon.

The Moves

We touched on two specific topics during the discussion that relate to their potential for success. They were timing and customer development. After developing ADstruc and speaking with customers for a few months, coupled with the TechStars opportunity, John and Josh realized it was time to quit their jobs and pursue ADstruc full time. By working with customers from the beginning, they were assured that they were building a product that the outdoor advertising industry wanted and would pay for.

On Techstars and Mentors

So far, they have both been blown away by their whirlwind experience at TechStars, especially in terms of the “invaluable mentor feedback” and interaction between teams. During the mentor dating period, ADstruc was working along with the other teams to find people who have useful input and connections to help their companies grow. One of the best mentor presentations for them was by Eric Ries on customer development as it related so much to what they were already doing.

As far as the environment in the Bunker goes, John and Josh both attribute a lot of their progress so far this summer to the wealth of knowledge being shared between teams. They’re helping people out with their sales experience and getting tons of knowledge drops from others on solving technical and user interface problems and questions.

On Boulder

According to them, being in Boulder this summer has helped them immeasurably. Getting away from the go-go-go atmosphere of the Big Apple has allowed them time to focus as well as “… given us the opportunity to relax, take a break from our usual responsibilities, and think about the answer to questions twice. Not to mention the relatively cheap rent, comfortable lifestyle, and clean air.”

Some Other Quotes And Tidbits

• “Without a program such as TechStars, starting a company as a first time entrepreneur, even in New York City, is like starting a company in Alaska” – John
• “We’d be crazy to not try to bring some of the community aspect of TechStars and Boulder back to NYC” – Josh
• Everlater has been really inspirational to them as they go through TechStars and learn what they should be capitalizing on while in the program
• “Josh and I are the only two people in TechStars this summer with Blackberries” – John
• Blue is both John and Josh’s favorite color

If you get a chance to meet these guys this summer in Boulder or later in New York, take it. They’re funny, skilled, and out there making waves.

Earlier this week Ryan Cook did a great job of mapping out the Boulder entrepreneurial community to give us an idea of the breadth and depth of the resources that are available to it.  I thought I’d highlight one or two of them every now and then in a series we’ll call Resource Roundup.

I’ll get us started with the Boulder Small Business Development Center (SBDC).  DISCLOSURE: I’m employed by the Boulder SBDC.  Hey, start with what you know (and I’m a little short on time this week).  It’s a non-profit economic development organization backed by the SBA, Boulder Chamber, City of Boulder, and slew of other sponsors, designed to help plan, launch, and grow businesses throughout Boulder County.  Clients include your favorite retailer on Pearl Street to the nanotechnology startup you’ve never heard of.

The Boulder SBDC offers inexpensive workshops, free and confidential one-on-one consultations, and connections to other valuable resources to entrepreneurs and businesses.  This organization is a great place for general business needs: understanding financials, developing a business plan, conducting market research, pursuing loans, and more.  This is especially the case for any of you who don’t quite feel ready to go out to pitch to investors or want to learn more about business fundementals.  One of its strengths is that most of its employees, instructors, and consultants are or have been entrepreneurs themselves (100% of them these days).

The key to getting the most out of the Boulder SBDC is to be proactive and to understand that it can’t do the heavy lifting for you.  The center handles a huge volume of requests for one-on-one consulting and serves the needs of a wide variety of businesses, so expect the burden to be on you to get things done.   Another thing to note is that while many of its instructors and consultants are experienced attorneys, CPAs, and the like, the Boulder SBDC is not designed to be a replacement for hiring professional services providers.

By the way, if you’re looking for some pointers on how to land your first investor, you may want to check out How to Pitch an Angel, which is coming up next Tuesday the 22nd.  At the end of the event, a few brave souls will be pitching to a panel of angels to get feedback for all to see and learn from.

With that said, the Boulder SBDC has quite a bit to offer.  To find out how they may help address your specific needs:

Boulder SBDC
2440 Pearl St
Boulder, CO 80302
(303) 442-1475 x2
bouldersbdc.com | @BoulderSBDC

In future Resource Roundups, I’ll highlight some of the other events and organizations that support the Boulder entrepreneurial community.

Fiona Schlachter had the excellent idea of coming up with a map of Boulder’s entrepreneurial community to show relations and give some context to events, foundations, groups, etc. that we may have heard about but not known what they were.

Check it out and comment if you have any updates/changes or additions. Also, if you feel compelled to style this to look a little bit better, let us know that as well!

If you haven’t watched them, The Founders video series is a collection of webisodes about the TechStars teams and their experiences. A healthy combination of funny, inspiring, and straight-up knowledge, I’d recommend you keep an eye on them.

“The Innovation Lab” The Founders | TechStars Boulder | Episode 2 from TechStars on Vimeo.

“The Question is Why” The Founders | TechStars Boulder | Episode 1 from TechStars on Vimeo.

The videos are produced by Megan Leigh Sweeney. This summer’s videos are here (check out the teasers!) and you can find last summer’s videos over here.

I don’t quite remember the exact wording, or even who said it, but the idea that Boulder is the most inclusive tight-knit community on Earth is something that has resonated with me since I first heard it.

This is the only community I’ve come to know in which inclusive and tight-knit aren’t characteristics that are at odds with each other. There is something inherent in the Boulder culture that says “join us in the fun”. There is also a conscious effort by a handful of people to ensure that Boulder’s most valuable resources are available to the rest of us, by the way.

Though I’ve lived here since moving from the Boston area in 2001, I’ve just begun to discover what the Boulder tech community has to offer in the past few months. In that short time, I’ve gone from a quiet wallflower to an active (though still quiet) participant:

• Boulder Lean Startup Circle: Just a week after asking to join this group, I had the good fortune to hear Eric Ries, one of the leading thinkers in this field, present and lead a discussion on the methodology while he was in town.
• Snap Impact: I was welcomed by the group, volunteers with the motto “Making doing good easy”, for a weekend event to help lay groundwork for the development of the backend for Serve.gov, despite having little more to offer than a willingness to contribute.
• Blogging for boulder.me: After expressing interest in writing for this blog, I was offered a spot in the weekly rotation after a brief e-mail exchange to work out a few details.
• Presenting at Ignite Boulder: I received an enthusiastic “hell yeah” after e-mailing one of the event organizers with a short pitch for a presentation I had in mind and was added to the next event.
• TechStars’ Investor Day: Sitting in free seats set aside for the public, I had an invaluable chance to watch and learn as the TechStars 2009 companies pitched to a theater full of potential investors.

The upshot to all this is that there are plenty of opportunities to get involved in the Boulder tech community above and beyond just showing up, even for a guy like me who cringes at the thought of traditional networking (I have an allergic reaction to making small talk with strangers in the hope of exchanging business cards).  In every instance I’ve been both welcomed in and encouraged to participate, a nice change from what I’m used to in the Northeast.

I’ve been given the opportunity to dive in, stretch my comfort zone a bit, and figure out where I fit in, and for that I am very thankful. Go ahead, give it a try yourself. You might just like it.