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!

On a recent visit to Boulder, entrepreneur and thought leader Eric Ries was kind enough to stop by the TechStars Bunker to lead a discussion for a room full of folks interested in the Lean Startup methodology. In reflecting on that night, I can’t help but wonder, will Lean Startups be the standard in the Boulder startup ecosystem someday soon?

Here’s the methodology in a nutshell: “Stop wasting people’s time.” Ries implores entrepreneurs to stop building products and services that customers don’t want by replacing guesswork with validated learning. At a high level, this requires three actions:

• Build. For the first iteration, build the minimum viable product, as basic as is possible for customers to understand and use. For subsequent cycles, release small batches of code through continuous deployment.
• Measure. Ries recommends measuring the high level stuff, the stuff that matters. Unless it tells you something important about whether what you have built is more or less likely to make customers pay for it, don’t bother measuring it.
• Learn. Talk to customers, look at the data, and face reality. Apply that validated learning to the next cycle before building anything else.

Many of the principles are derived from lean manufacturing, made famous by Toyota, applied in the startup environment. Speed is key here, and progress is measured in how much you learn, not how much code you write.

There’s no need to recount the entire presentation line by line because you can view a recent webinar of Ries’ and hear him directly instead. If you’re curious as to whether the Lean Startup methodology has applications beyond writing code, the answer is yes. Erica O’Grady, who was also there that night, has even applied the Lean Startup methodology to dating.

The Lean Startup methodology seems to be gaining momentum, especially as of late with bloggers and the press. In April Ries held the first Startup Lessons Learned Conference in San Francisco, which was streamed into locations around the world, including Boulder’s own Rally Software.

With that said, coupled with the fact that entrepreneurs, present and future, filled The Bunker that night, it seems that the future for Lean Startups is bright in Boulder. I, for one, can’t wait to see what happens.

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.