All of the startup participants have been selected for this event. If demand is strong, expect another event like it!

The event is on Thursday, March 24. Lunch is served at noon, presentations begin at 12:30 and end by 2pm. Please plan to stay for the whole event. Cost: $20.

Seats are quite limited, and an RSVP is required. RSVP to RSVP@highlandcityclub.com.

[disclosure: I'm a founding partner at dojo4.]

How did you come up with the idea? What is a Sphero?
Orbotix stated out as a Techstars company that was founded by Ian Bernstein and Adam Wilson, our co-founders.  Ian Bernstein, our CTO and founder, is a non-traditionally trained robotist and he came up with the idea for Sphero one day while talking with Adam in the Tech Stars bunker.  Ian in particular realized that we’ve got these incredibly powerful Smartphones we carry around everyday and said wouldn’t be cool if we harnessed their power to  control everyday physical devices around us.

So Ian and Adam started by using different smartphones to control everyday devices such as garage doors, locks and motorcycles.  But then they both hit upon the idea of creating a robotic ball, that could be used for different gaming apps that you control using your Smartphone. Think of it as a Segway inside of a spherical shell.  Designing a robotic ball is actually something really difficult to achieve as the sensors needed to control the ball from the phone have only recently become available.
But one of the great things about Boulder and TechStars is not only did we emerge with an idea but also great mentors. Mark Tilden of WoWee continues to mentor Ian and Paul Berberian, our CEO, helped clarify our business direction.

How is a Sphero different than a remote control car?
The way Sphero behaves isn’t determined by the physical device, but by the software that is controlling it. So, unlike a remote control car that has basic controls, front and back, left and right a Sphero can roll right, left, and tilt. It has an infinite number of uses beyond gaming but that’s where a lot of the interest currently is.

There seems to be a lot of excitement and interest around this product? What’s been the biggest surprise since starting out?
The biggest revelation is how much people connect with and love this product. Prioro launching at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), we had not done a lot of marketing or PR, but we were fortunate in that we had a perfect storm of events – engineering progress, press interest and consumer interest – all of interest that really helped bring a lot of attention to Sphero.
At the CES event we were just amazed at the reaction from consumers, developers and buyers. It was just a great experience. The team had been working really hard and it all seemed to come together. We were thrilled with the level of interest.

Because of the excitement at CES, we are completely focused on getting Sphero retail-ready by late 2011. We’re fine-tuning the software, hardware, packaging – we want to create a great customer experience. We want people to be elated when they get their package from us. You know how when you receive a package, begin opening it up and are just thrilled by the experience –  that’s what we want to create for our customers.

Any advice for new startups or someone working on a new idea?
There’s tons of advice and resources out there in the Boulder Community – Techstars, VCs and experienced mentors.  These resources have provided an amazing support network for a number of local successful startups.  So I encourage other startups to tap into the experience and resources that Boulder community has to offer.  Beyond that, I tell other startups to focus all their efforts on the core aspects of their business and weed out all of noise. Then start executing.  Quickly develop a prototype, bring people in and show them what you have so you get an idea of the level of interest and reaction.

Fiona credits the amazing support of the Boulder startup community with giving her the experience and confidence to start Fidatto. She left her corporate life and spent about a year working with and attending events in the startup community (SnapImpact, Boulder Open Coffee Club, Girls in Tech, Boulder Denver New Tech, Ignite, Boco, Silicon Flatirons, and many more) and it felt like an entrepreneurial internship.  She learned so much that she and her business partners decided to tackle what  they saw as a significant  opportunity to improve the word of mouth experience for Facebook users.  The best part is that she is having more fun than expected.

Fidatto  went live in June 2010 and is growing slowly as planned. This is a bootstrap effort and Fiona is the only full-time partner today.  They want the tool to evolve in a manageable way and plan to introduce new features and functions as demand grows and the business becomes more mature.  The long term goal is for Fidatto to be a part of your profile, like your education or current city, so that Facebook can enrich communities by promoting local service providers.

Immediately, in many of our preliminary conversations to suss out the viability of our business, a few names who have been pivotal to creating the startup community I’m writing about came up which include Brad Feld, Andrew Hyde, and David Cohen to name just a few.  Through these contacts, we were quickly welcomed and assimilated into the diverse community of experienced entrepreneurs who approach business in a “pay it forward” sort of attitude. Each of the contacts we met with felt the need to help others as they had been helped early in their growing careers.  These sort of interactions happened multiple times a day and has resulted in success at a pace that would have otherwise taken many more months if not years to arrive at had the community not lent the support to Napkin Labs as it has.

For the support received to date, thanks goes out to all!  I look forward to the day that I too can pay it forward.

So what does all that mean.  If you are considering taking the entrepreneurial plunge or have just done so never hesitate to reach out.  Schedule as many meetings as you can to learn from those around you.  Don’t be afraid to reach out to those you’ve never met.  You will quickly find a welcome committee in response to your requests.

No longer should it be difficult to get time with VCs or advisors; remember it is you the entrepreneur that offers upside potential.  It’s VCs like Brad Feld who get this and know that with some advising they can help.  Thus programs like http://winterinthebunker.com/ where world class advising is offered for free and Entrepreneurs Unplugged where slice of life interviews are open to the public are popping up more and more across the entrepreneurial centers spread throughout the states.

The approach to entrepreneurism has been redefined and the barriers that have once prevented it have now dissolved due to the support of startups.  How do you support startups?

More about the author:  Warren Ng is the co-founder of Napkin Labs, a product innovation consultancy that utilizes a crowdsourced approach to innovation to enable breakthrough ideas to bubble up at the intersection of diverse thinking as consumers and experts in all fields.  For more information about the author or Napkin Labs visit www.napkinlabs.com or follow on Twitter: @warrenng or @napkinlabs.

For more info, follow @startupdrinksCO on Twitter and read the Startup Drinks Boulder blog.

See you Tuesday!

Almost a year ago, I attended a session at BarCamp Vancouver ’08 called something like, “How does BarCamp apply to the real world?”

It’s a great question.  In my experience, the talking we do at an event like BarCamp is merely a part of — maybe even the start of — ongoing conversations that bounce around town, generate excitement, and spark new important/awesome/hilarious endeavors.

For example: At BarCamp Boulder 3 last year, Andrew Hyde held a little brainstorming session about how to get CU involved in the local startup scene.  He was having all sorts of trouble finding the right person or group to talk with.  We all offered ideas, and I bet most of us recalled that conversation now and again over the winter.

Some of us, it would seem, kept thinking about it and working on it.  Here we are on the eve of BarCamp Boulder 4, not even a year later, and CU is just finishing up its  first-ever CU Entrepreneurship Week.  Governor Bill Ritter is scheduled to speak this afternoon on campus about the “Entrepreneurial Ecosystem.”

As everyone reading this blog knows, Boulder has received national attention of late as an example of the entrepreneurial ecosystem.  BarCamp is one of the great watering holes of that ecosystem: Smart, engaging people come out, have a drink together, let their ideas mingle, and leave with new energy and plans.

It’s worth pointing out that BarCamp isn’t just about starting businesses or writing code: It’s about us.  It’s about living here in Boulder (or Northern Colorado, or the Rocky Mountains, or whatever).  It’s about things that we care about and work on, and connecting with others who care about or work on them too.  So if you have a topic that needs some attention, or an idea that needs some scrutiny, or a magic act that needs some volunteers, bring it.

BarCamp Boulder 4 kicks off tonight at 6 p.m. with beers (provided by Techstars), conversation, and maybe — by the looks of things — some snowy adventures.  Tomorrow morning we’ll have bagels and coffee (provided by Hop Studios) and start the sessions at 10 a.m.  Everything happens at 1375 Walnut, lower level.  Admission is free.  Sign up here so we know how many bagels to buy.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

(Not sure what a BarCamp is?  Wikipedia knows.)

Feld-Weiser One-on-One: Feld on The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
@ Wittemeyer Courtroom, Wolf Law Building
April 15, 2009, 5:00pm
Register @: http://www.silicon-flatirons.org/events.php?id=611

April Entrepreneurs Unplugged: With Glenn Jones, Founder and Former CEO of Jones Intercable, Inc., and Chairman and Chancellor of Jones International University
@ Wittemeyer Courtroom, Wolf Law Building
April 15, 2009, 6:00pm
Register @: http://www.silicon-flatirons.org/events.php?id=480

Over the past year I’ve been increasingly involved in Boulder’s startup goodness. From CU organizations like the ELC and the Deming Center to the mandatory monthly meet-ups and presentations. The ability and interest of the community makes an incredible resource for turning a project into a business – but that’s possible because of the great social aspect of it.

I spent a good portion of last summer in Pasadena [working and] competing in the ‘friend’ game where you earned a point every time you met a new person. As approachable as people are here it’s harder to rack up a high score because it’s so easy to get lost in conversation about all of the exciting projects going on.  Even scoring a few points at each meet-up will leave you networked to a pretty bright crowd quickly.

Last night after an inspiring talk by Josh Fraser [eventvue] at DIV, a friend brought up an idea for a new project that just made complete sense to me. Talking through it we knew exactly what resources to rely on and where to go for help to launch the project as our next business. All from or through the great folks we’ve networked with at Boulder’s events it seemed so straightforward.

This isn’t the first startup that either of us our planning to launch as CU students, but it is the first that we’ll have launched as the minority of networked CU students. This reminded me of why we launched CU’s web development club DIV in the first place: To network students into Boulder’s wonderful world of web development. With all of CU’s [non hallucinogenic inspired] great ideas there hasn’t been a clear bridge to launching a product on the web until recently. We’re going to keep bringing in inspiring speakers to our events along with hack sessions to give students the bridge they need into development and Boulder’s tech community. Stay tuned for more from CU.