You Need More Nietzsche in Your Life
Nietzsche has so many famous quotes it’s sometimes hard to choose just one (most have heard that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger although I suppose few realize that it was the German philosopher who first penned it). My favorite, perhaps, is: t__here are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth. I like it in particular because in many ways it describes Nietzsche himself. His writing is often beautiful, but with a depth that sometimes takes time to fully recognize. …
May 25, 2021· 2 min read
Supporting Small Businesses – A Political Perspective
I’m really excited about an upcoming event that my partners at Foundry have put together that will build upon the discussion we’ve been having around New Builders in some critically important ways. Senator John Hickenlooper and Congressman Joe Neguse will join Denver entrepreneurs Makisha Boothe, Founder of Sistahbiz Global Network and Lorena Cantarovici, Founder and CEO of Maria Empanada Restuarant. We plan to dig deeper into why politicians like to talk about small businesses but rarely enact meaningful policies to help them (and increasingly seem to be favoring policies that support larger businesses at the expense of smaller enterprises). …
May 14, 2021· 1 min read
Older Entrepreneurs Leading the Way
We had the opportunity to talk with many great entrepreneurs doing research for our book, The New Builders. I was struck by how thoughtful, determined, and gritty they were. As most readers know, the book focuses on entrepreneurs from a diverse set of backgrounds – people that truly represent the next generation of founders in the United States. One of the trends that we observe in the book is that the rate of entrepreneurship among older Americans is actually quite high. In fact, across all age groups, the fastest-growing group are entrepreneurs 55 and older. There are a number of interesting reasons for this that we talk about in the book. And we tell the stories of handful of older American entrepreneurs to help highlight these trends. One of my favorites was Fred Sachs who founded and eventually sold a lumber company as well as a commercial door and hardware company. He’s also my wife’s cousin, once removed (that’s her dad’s first cousin)! …
May 12, 2021· 2 min read
Some Great New Builder Events This Week
It’s Boulder Startup Week and there is a great lineup of events happening all week. I was really grateful when Dave Mayer from Technical Integrity suggested I consider an event during BSW to highlight some of the trends around diversity that we write about in The New Builders. Makisha Boothe from Sistahbiz (who is featured in the book) is going to join me for a wide ranging discussion about who is actually starting businesses these days and how we can and need to better support them. I hope you can join us for it, Tuesday May 11 at 1pm MTN. You can register here. And, of course, check out the other great Boulder Startup Week events taking place all week. …
May 10, 2021· 2 min read
Making a Better World – Uncharted’s Economic Equality Initiative
Uncharted is about to launch applications for their new Economic Inequality Initiative to support teams working on radical ideas to address economic inequality. I have a long history with the Unreasonable Institute (renamed Uncharted in 2017) and the work they’ve been doing around empowering entrepreneurs from many different backgrounds who are working across the globe on some of our world’s most important problems. Since 2010, they have helped an amazing set of entrepreneurs raise over $250 million, created impact in 96 countries, and benefited 37 million lives around the world. Amazing! …
May 6, 2021· 2 min read
Fortune: Tech entrepreneurs grab the headlines, but COVID relief should target grass-roots small businesses
With the fate of many small businesses remaining up in the air, after over a year of Covid related restrictions and challenges, my New Builders co-author, Elizabeth MacBride and I just authored a piece for Fortune that talks about the importance of saving America’s more Main Street businesses. We titled it Tech entrepreneurs grab the headlines, but COVID relief should target grass-roots small businesses – I hope you’ll check it out. …
May 3, 2021· 2 min read
More New Builders Events! Tattered Cover Bookstore (and more!)
A few upcoming events to let you know about. First, we’re taking over the Instagram account for Commonplace Books in Oklahoma City for the entire day today (4/27/21, but the archive will remain there if you’re reading this later). We’ll be live on the account to answer questions about The New Builders and to talk with readers at both 1:00PM and 4:00PM MDT (that’s 2:00PM and 5:00PM in OKC). We’ll be telling the stories and introducing some of the entrepreneurs working in Oklahoma City that we write about in the book. Drop in and join us! …
April 27, 2021· 2 min read
New Builders | Black Lab Sports Forum
Black Lab Sports is hosting a great event on Wednesday, April 28 from 6pm – 8pm that will focus on the intersection of themes from our upcoming book (The New Builders) and diverse founders working in sports and performance technology. The event will be hosted by Black Lab Sports CEO JP O’Brian and Cody Burkhart of NASA and, along with my co-author Elizabeth MacBride and me, will feature some amazing guests working at the forefront of human performance: …
April 22, 2021· 2 min read
Bolster’s Board Benchmark Study | Shout-out to Execs Looking for Independent Director Roles
As we’ve recognized the need to diversify our networks to better diversify our companies and company boards, Foundry has been working with a number of firms such as HimforHer, Valence, ReadySet, and others. We’re also partnering with Bolster – a company that, although we’re not direct investors, we have strong ties to through several of our partner funds who are investors as well as through our long, long time relationships with Bolster’s CEO, Matt Blumberg (who was CEO of Return Path in the Foundry portfolio) and Micah Mador (former Foundry Network and Community Catalyst and now Partnerships Manager at Bolster). …
April 22, 2021· 4 min read
Behind the Scenes: Writing “The New Builders”
Many readers likely already know that I’ve been working on a book for the last several years – The New Builders: Face to Face with the True Future of Business. It’s due out in a few weeks and I’m really excited about it. Writing a book was challenging but in many ways, it was an unexpected pleasure. I thought it would be fun (and interesting) to post about the process a bit. Especially as we’re about 10 days away from its release on May 4th. …
April 21, 2021· 6 min read