When I decided to move to Boulder, I’d planned to consider part-time work, but wanted to initially keep freelancing so that I’d have time to explore the community and get settled.

Be prepared to modify your plans

I met Grace Boyle through the blogging community and mutual blog friend and Colorado girl, Sharalyn Hartwell.  Between Grace and Cali Harris, I was encouraged to attend Ignite Boulder 7 and learn about the community, the start-up scene, and just meet people in a fun (read: there’s wine and beer!) setting.

I could write a whole separate post on how much I loved the event (and might after tomorrow’s Ignite 8!), but will stick to the point here.  I was able to meet so many (friendly, welcoming) people in this community, and knew after that night that I was going to love living and working here.

The next morning, Grace invited me to stop into her office at Lijit Networks to meet her coworkers and continue networking my way into the tech community, even if I wasn’t sure how I’d be a part of it once I landed here.

That was back in December, and after a series of conversations with the Vice President of Market Development that ranged from informal chats about possible upcoming job openings, to all-afternoon interviews with other brainiacs on the management team, I accepted a job with Lijit as a Publisher Services Manager.

A seamless fit

The beauty of this job for me is that it’s part-time for the time being, which for someone with her hands already in a lot of other projects, worked out perfectly.  I’ve been there a week now, and am absolutely loving it so far.

My professional background is in online media buying (Campbell Mithun and Adfusion, both Minneapolis agencies), and my personal hobby list is topped by blogging, blog-reading, and blog-friend-making.  The fact that this role is based on a knowledge and utilization of all of the above is an absolutely beautiful thing.

My time in the office is spent identifying new users (blog-hopping, reading, and hunting), making introductions (meeting people, networking), and helping bloggers get set up with Lijit search and stats (something I already used and loved, prior to this opportunity ever being on the table).  I get to learn a side of the tech business I’ve never been a part of (start-up scenes, search, etc.) and am surrounded by brilliant minds who are introducing me not only to new knowledge and professional growth, but hiking, biking, Paleo (I’m learning about it, I’m not doing it), and how the Rock Chalk Jayhawk cheer started.  It’s incredible being in a role where I’m actually getting paid to do a lot of what I was already doing (reading blogs), but even cooler when I realize that I get paid to not only find awesome new blogs, but to also check up on and check out loud and proud Lijit users FAILblog, LOLcats, and Lamebook.com.

Moral of the story

While relationship-building proved to be a massively significant factor in landing what’s a serendipitously perfect job right now (and my professional background lends itself quite nicely to what I’m going to be doing), those relationships started because I just jumped right in and put myself where my soon-to-be colleagues were hanging out, reading, Tweeting, and Igniting.

So… I got involved and then got a job.  What’s next?  Work hard, play hard, right? This city seems to have that completely nailed down, and I can totally fox with that.  I’m learning to hike… maybe one of these days I should put on a pair of skis and give that a shot, huh?

*Ok, so maybe not domination.  But I do intend to be a super involved part of this community.

Get yours quick! Less than 100 left.

Here are the speakers:

Ryan Wanger Topic: (Almost) Nothing is Irreversible: A Guide to Decision Making
Kate Brown MacGyver your way through dangerous situations: Lifesaving hacks from the sport of triathlon
David Mejias A baby, a bird and an Afro: How to plan for and make conceptual photographs.
Ali Schultz Game (ig)Night: The shortest distance between two people is a good laugh.
Tara Anderson Pain & the Art of Long-Distance Backpacking
Cris Silva Brazilian Portuguese for Foreigners

Intermission featuring The Low Flying Knobs

Josh Mishell Minimize Your Hangover & Maximize Your Awesomeness: How to Thrive at a Beer Festival
Lisa Seaman Clap Happy!
Leela Turnage How Drug Smuggling and A Run-In With the Mexican Army Helped Me Ace Spanish Clas
Matthew Lenda There IS such a thing as bad music, and it will be the end of us all.
Nick Armstrong Nerd-gasm AKA The Life Lessons of Geek Heroes
Julie Wallace Working with SCIs
Gina Bugiada Drugs, Sex, Love and Environmentalism: 20 things I’ve Learned During My Move From NEW YORK to Boulder

Designer Meetup, Hosted by David Hoffman of Next Big Sound the Design coffee will be a very low key discussion around design as it applies to technology. RSVP -> david@nextbigsound.com.  Mon, February 8, 3pm – 4pm Atlas Purveyors – 1505 Pearl Street

The CEO Group Lunch, The CEO Group is an informal monthly lunch-and-learn session that is held at noon at the Bunker on the second Wednesday of each month. During each session the group tackles a specific business topic. Each participating CEO is asked to provide a few insights or lessons learned on the subject of the day. Example topics include: hiring, sales, marketing, technology, partnerships, negotiating etc. The CEO Group is facilitated by TechStars mentor Chris Moody. If you are interested, please contact chris [at] chrismoody.com.

Bio Coffee, Kevin McGarvey and Adam Rubenstein host Boulder Bio Coffee. BioBeers too late in the day for you? Perhaps your a morning person? Then come caffeinate-up for the day at BioCoffee! Join like minded bio-preneurs, gather to share ideas, cultivate business relationships and build life-long friendships. We invite you to join the conversation today. RSVP to kevinwmcgarvey@gmail.com or arubenstein@rnaventures.com   Wed, February 17, 7am – 8am, Atlas Purveyors, 15th and Pearl

Startup Drinks Boulder Every 2nd Friday of the month, Drafthouse 5-7pm.  A startup club with a drinking problem.  RSVP by buying a beer.

Photo Meetup and Photowalk! Second Sunday of the month at 9:30 am, coffee at Atlas Purveyors followed by a photowalk hosted by Benjamin Chait.  RSVP -> benjamin.chait@gmail.com

All these can be found (with an iCal feed) at the Boulder Tech Calendar.

Want to add another?  Great!  Email andrew@techstars.org.

I moved here from Minnesota (unique, I know) knowing that there was something special about this place, knowing I felt some kind of connection to the people and environment here.  I wanted a place that fit me – my wannabe-geek side, my yogini-in-training side, my I-can’t-stand-one-more-sub-zero-no-sunshine-day side.  I knew within 24 hours of planting here that I’d found such a place, and I would feel guilty or obnoxious about raving every single day about how crazy in love with this place I’m falling… except every single person here seems to be under the same spell (or curse, as it’s been explained to me).

Thanks to the community that the blogworld is and can be, I was fortunate enough to have met a few locals (transplants?) prior to landing last week.  Grace Boyle and Cali Harris have been a couple of those people who have already become incredible friends, resources, and inspirations as I plant roots here.

Grace recently tipped me off to Girls in Tech – Denver/Boulder (our local chapter of a national effort and organization) and invited me to join her for their first chapter meeting Wednesday night, January 27.  I came, I networked, I loved.

What is Girls in Tech?

Girls in Tech is a social network enterprise focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology. As young women with the capacity to inspire, we made it our personal desire and passion to create and sustain an organization that focuses on the collaboration, promotion, growth and success of women in the technology sector.

Created in February of 2007, ‘Girls in Tech’ (GIT) was founded by Adriana Gascoigne. GIT and was born out of a need to provide a place for women to cultivate ideas around their careers and business concepts involving technology.

Girls in Tech aims to offer a variety of resources and tools for women to supplement and further enhance their professional careers and aspirations in technology. Some of these resources include, educational workshops and lectures, networking functions, round table discussions, conferences, social engagements, and recruitment events. (from the GIT website)

Being a girl [who wants to be even more] in tech, I knew this would be a great opportunity to meet other like-minded women in the Denver/Boulder area.  And sure enough, I did.

Who are these girls – and what do they want?

The backgrounds represented by the women who attended last night’s event included a great variety of careers and skill sets: marketers, social media professionals, software engineers, small business owners, career coaches, filmmakers, designers, a librarian and a variety of others.  We discussed exactly what we wanted to get out of such an organization and the initial ideas were inspiring and exciting.  While there is a national, parent organization, each local chapter is encouraged to set their agenda as they see fit, with regards to the specific needs of each community.

Most importantly, the women in attendance wanted to support other women in a traditionally male-dominated career path.  We discussed ways of providing education and information to middle and high school girls so that the tech field is an option as a career path when it might not have been otherwise (I can’t wait to be involved in this part).  Other exciting ideas tossed around included workshops so we can learn from our varied skill sets, networking events, help and support for job seekers, speaking opportunities and engagements, and general fun-having on a regular basis.

What’s next and how can you be involved?

An event planning meeting will be held on Wednesday, February 17, to set the agenda for Girls in Tech – Denver/Boulder 2010.  We also settled on a happy hour meet-up just prior to the next Ignite Boulder (details TBA).

Women in the Denver/Boulder tech scene can get involved by attending the meetings, events, and sharing their knowledge, expertise, and personal experience with other women just waiting to learn, support, and grow.

And for me?

I’m so very excited to be jumping head first into to the Boulder community, tech and otherwise.  I’m shiny and new here, and want to meet every single person here that I can.  Making it my mission to explore my way around the city, I want to find great places to work, eat, drink, learn, mingle, laugh, and live.  Boulder vets?  Let me know where I should go and what not to miss!  New to the area also?  I’ll be documenting my dive into the Boulder tech scene (and outdoors scene… and happy hour scene… and yoga scene…), and invite you to join me as I plant roots and learn my way around this cursed charmed city.

Tons of great commentary by Brad Feld, a must read.

I think one of the things that makes Boulder special is that you have this larger percentage of people willing to engage in the entrepreneurial community, and that integrate into their life very effectively, versus it becomes this thing that they do for a period of time and then need to go have a life, but still want to be in the same place. Those two things sort of work together.

We bill our city as a hub of innovation, creativity and activity. You see it in the businesses that are drawn there and especially those that are born here. You see it in the kind of people that flock to our coffeeshops, where great ideas are hatched and patched. And hopefully, you’ll see it on Boulder.me – a charming little hub of information for the recently Boulder’d.

This place is made for startups. We have cultivated an open, collaborative startup environment in town – anchored by a cast of helpful tech notables and startup veterans who are passionate about entrepreneurship, community and giving you a free t-shirt. Most of us aren’t from here, which instantly gives us something in common with you. Once upon a time, we all were the “new kid in town” – taking our first Pearl Street stroll on shaky legs.

And now we’d like to return the favor and help you get the most out of Boulder. Check the site often, clickity-click on the blogroll links, contact one of the folks on our Ambassadors page – grab your laptop and start bumping brains with Boulder’s finest.

Welcome, welcome, welcome. Boulder loves you without restraint.

Make sure to check out the calendar and companies for more information.

Never Mind the Valley, Here’s Boulder from ReadWriteWeb on Vimeo.

PodCamp Boulder 2 will be held January 22-23, 2010 at the skinnycorp / Threadless office (1468 Pearl St, Boulder)

How’s it going down?

Starting at 7:00 Friday night we’ll get together over drinks and in front of a whiteboard to hash out the Saturday schedule. Knowledge to drop? Things you’ve been curious about? So long as it’s in the realm of creating / posting (Audio, Video, Photos, Blogs/Microblogs) , it’s fair game. We’ll wrap at 9:00 having decided both what sessions / panels / discussions will be happening, and when we want to be back in the morning. (9:00-5:00 Saturday) All are welcome. Invite a friend. Bring your gear, bring a good attitude.

PodCamp Boulder

More at the organizer’s blog.  Way to go Jeremy!

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.