Mentor, startup accelerator, board participation
1664_ 1/26/15 - In 2013 she won a $250,000 Take the HELM grant to open Startup Institute's New York campus. In her free time, she is an amateur athlete, with 18 half marathons, 2 triathlons, and 2 marathons under her belt... Lucy Sanders, CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT along with Larry Nelson, Director of w3w3® Media Network continue their interview with Christina Wallace, the Founding Director of BridgeUp: STEM, a new educational initiative at the American Museum of Natural History focused on introducing girls and minorities to computer science. It is funded by a generous $7.5M 5-year grant from the Helen Gurley Brown Trust. Originally from Lansing, Michigan, Christina is a mentor with Coolhouse Labs, a startup accelerator based in Northern Michigan, and is pleased to sit on the Alumni Board of Interlochen Center for the Arts. She is also a mentor with the Fashion Tech Lab in New York City. An avid writer, she contributed a chapter to Passion and Purpose, published by Harvard Business Press in 2011. She was named to Mashable’s list of “44 Female Founders to Know” in 2012 and has been profiled in...there's much more...
RELATED LINKS: Christina Wallace Website || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || w3w3.com Blog || KEYWORDS: Christina Wallace, Founding Director of BridgeUp: STEM, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women in Technology, NCWIT, Entrepreneurs, Coolhouse Labs, Alumni Board of Interlochen Center for the Arts, Fashion Tech Lab, > bytes=12464695
LISTEN TO: Christina Wallace, Founding Director, BridgeUp STEM [Part 2 of 2]

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Startup Communities and Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
1666_ 1/26/15 - [Reprint 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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CIOs, CTO's and C-Level Executives
1660_ 1/20/15 - Larry's talking with Erik Mitisek, CEO of the Colorado Technology Association. Coming soon is CTA's signature event and Erik says, "this year is the 9th C-Level @ A Mile High and attracts over 1500 technologists and the top leading CIOs and CTO's and technology leaders in the state, for the largest CTA Fund Raiser of the Year! We bring the community together to raise funds for all the activity we do; advocacy, economic development, all the work we're doing in the workforce, the talent and education as well as just core community and business development. We use the proceeds from this event to really give back 100% of that. The drive, the condition and value of what CTA exists for here in Colorado for the last 20 years. This year we've got some really special activities: A larger silent auction, bigger items, better activities for the bidders to engage in. We have a really great volunteer committee. We have over 100..."
Listen for more...
RELATED LINKS: C-Level @ A Mile High || CTA Events || Software Channel || Blog || KEYWORDS: CTA, C-Level @ A Mile High, Colorado Technology Association, Erik Mitisek, C-Suite Executives, Technology Solution Providers, C-Level Auction, Networking Event,, bytes=3912414
LISTEN TO: Erik Mitisek, CEO, Colorado Technology Association

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Venture Investments at Highest Level Since the Internet Bubble
1663_ 1/26/15 - Larry is talking with our friend Ryan McIntyre, Managing Director at the Foundry Group, and Larry wanted to get Ryan's take on the economic future. But Ryan tells us as a venture capitalist who works in the technology industry and specifically in the very early stage startups, they don't spend much time at all focusing on the macroeconomic environment. Ryan's involvement in a company comes when it's a couple of people and an idea through hopefully an acquisition or an IPO, a success case. But, he says, "We are by no means public market investors, we are not macro economists, we don't spend a lot of time focusing on what the current state of the economy is. Partially because that is not our area of expertise and we've found over the past number of years that the venture business, particularly very early stage is pretty uncorrelated with the macroeconomic environment..."
RELATED LINKS: Foundry Group || ASk the VC Blog || Economy Builders || Soul Patch || Podcast Directory || KEYWORDS: Ryan McIntyre, Foundry Group, Venture Capital, Ask the VC, Trade Secrets, Intellectual Property, IP, Patents, Soul Patch, > Bytes=5864701
LISTEN TO: Ryan McIntyre, Managing Director, Foundry Group

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Building business from Boulder to Australia
1665_ 1/26/15 - It's been a few years, but we're catching up with Jana Matthews, the roving professor/consultant, advisor to high level powerful business leaders. We first met Jana in Boulder, "You did, I had moved back to Boulder after spending ten years at the Kauffman Foundation doing some of the original work on what entrepreneurs needed to know to grow companies, how do they learn it and how do we package that in the most efficient way for them to learn it quicker." Larry remembered that was where Jana met Brad Feld. "Yes, Brad worked with me at Kauffman and we've been friends quite a long time. Of course he's here in Boulder and I've been in Boulder doing quite a lot of work but, as you say, international as well." Now Jana is spending most of her time in Adelaide, Australia where she is helping them understand how to grow companies. Jana said, "I've just accepted...
RELATED LINKS: UniSA Business School || Jana Matthews Group || University of Southern Australia || FeldThoughts || KEYWORDS: Jana Matthews, Boulder, Australia, Business Leaders, UniSA Business School, University of Southern Australia, Kauffman Foundation, Brad Feld, > bytes=4574879
LISTEN TO: Jana Matthews, Professor/Consultant/Advisor

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Founding Director of BridgeUp; STEM, a New Educational Initiative
1659_ 1/20/15 - Lucy Sanders, CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT along with Larry Nelson, Director of w3w3® Media Network are interviewing Christina Wallace, the Founding Director of BridgeUp: STEM, a new educational initiative at the American Museum of Natural History focused on introducing girls and minorities to computer science. It is funded by a generous $7.5M
5-year grant from the Helen Gurley Brown Trust. Previously Christina was a Vice President at Startup Institute, the Founder and CEO of venture-backed fashion company Quincy Apparel, a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, and an arts manager at the Metropolitan Opera. She holds undergraduate degrees in mathematics and theater studies from Emory University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Originally from Lansing, Michigan, Christina is a mentor with Coolhouse Labs, a startup accelerator based in Northern Michigan, and is pleased to sit on the Alumni Board of Interlochen Center for the Arts. She is also a mentor with the Fashion Tech Lab in New York City.
RELATED LINKS: Christina Wallace Website || NCWIT Home || NCWIT Blog || Heroes Channel || Podcast Directory || KEYWORDS: Christina Wallace, Founding Director of BridgeUp: STEM, Lucy Sanders, National Center for Women in Technology, NCWIT, Entrepreneurs, Coolhouse Labs, Alumni Board of Interlochen Center for the Arts, Fashion Tech Lab Ni , bytes=14294102
LISTEN TO: Christina Wallace
Founding Director, BridgeUp STEM [Part 1 of 2]

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Helping entrepreneurs become more successful in their endeavors
1656_ 1/12/15 - Nicole Glaros, Managing Director, TechStars - Boulder, gives Larry an overview of the company, which is a seed accelerator. What that means is we take a little bit of capital and we fund early stage companies - and we put them through a 13 week intensive boot camp. In that boot camp, we surround them with mentors, and at the end of that boot camp we hope that the companies are much more successful. Turns out that the formula works, we're running about a 90% success rate since 2007. That means either they've been acquired or still in business, only 10% of them have shut down. TechStars has expanded all over the country with about 15 programs running in the U.S. as well as internationally. Nicole's personal focus is here in Boulder where she runs the local program. But when she's looking at investing in a company, she tells Larry, "I'm looking at anything across the board in the web and Internet software space. So we specialize in ...Listen for more exciting details and 8 Weeks of Awesome...
RELATED LINKS: TechStars || TechStars Blog || Disney Accelerator || TechStars 7th Anniversary Video || Economy Builders || 8 Weeks of Awesome || KEYWORDS: Nicole Glaros, TechStars, Entrepreneurs, Disney Accelerator, David Cohen, David Brown, Brad Feld, Jared Polis, Boulder CO, Entertainment, Walt Disney Company, Technology Startups, > bytes=6041080
LISTEN TO: Nicole Glaros, Managing Director, TechStars Boulder

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Alan Beaulieu, President, ITR Economics details 2015 Financial Forecast [Part 1 of 3: Keynote Presentation]
1655_ 1/12/15 - Alan's presentation will cover a wide variety of topics including short and long-term global economic forecasts, regional economic updates, an outlook on inflation, and the relationship of political events and economic growth. He will also detail what economic indicators executives should follow, and provide proven strategies for leveraging economic forecasts at the company level. bytes=19005756
LISTEN TO: Alan Beaulieu, ITR Economics
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