On Monday, I had the pleasure of travelling to Boulder, CO, to participate, along with a number of other Administration officials, in the seventh of eight stops that are a part of the Startup America Roadshow. The local newspaper captured some of the high points in this article. Before touching on my observations from the event, let me first answer the question, “Why Boulder?”
Fifteen years ago, Boulder was considered a sleepy college town known mostly for its great rock-climbing. Today, Boulder is home to one of the strongest entrepreneurial communities in the country, with close to 200 fledgling tech companies and a city campaign that proclaims “Boulder is for startups.” In fact, last year BusinessWeek named Boulder America’s best town for startups, and it was featured in The New York Times for its entrepreneurial scene. Part of its success rests on the fact that Boulder has the highest U.S. concentration of software engineers and PhDs per capita. It is second only to Silicon Valley in percentage of workers employed in the technology sector.
I fully agree with this - my son lives there is an engineer - it is a hotbed of start ups. BTW GOOGLE just leased 100,000 sq ft of space downtown.
Now why does not Conifer get some of this - well we cannot even do a simple rec center - professionals will not move up here until, we emerge from the dark ages (that would be 1965-1980).
The first.....FIRST item on the list is SKILLS.......Boulder has them. They are not cheap BTW - but when your skill set is snow plowing and back hoe work - well the market is limited. This area will slowly die because the kids see this and leave as soon as they can - I encourage them to do so at this time.
You would think they are saturated but with the internet you can use people from all over. You are not as limited.
That is why marketing as small town overhead might make a big difference. We won't even touch Denver for computer services.
And you are right finding skill up there has not been easy.
I worked in Boulder for a few of those startups- by the way Boulder has had this "startup" business thing going for far longer than 15 years. It was 20 years ago when I lived and worked there.
The company I worked for had it's first facility within the city limits of Boulder- but after a few years - and some experience with all the regulations, city taxes, and dealing with city officials- they built the second facility in Weld County. The Boulder fire city code cost the company big bucks as compared with weld county.
But yes- many companies start up in Boulder- the master and PHD level skillset is abundant there- and prices are CHEAP- most of those people hired are from academia- they have never worked for a private company (unless you count Kentucky Fried Chicken).
We had about 450 employees- about 400 of them has either a masters or phd in Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Microbiology, or Organic Chemistry. Boulder is full of these people - most of them are flippin burgers.
deltamrey wrote: I fully agree with this - my son lives there is an engineer - it is a hotbed of start ups. BTW GOOGLE just leased 100,000 sq ft of space downtown.
Now why does not Conifer get some of this - well we cannot even do a simple rec center - professionals will not move up here until, we emerge from the dark ages (that would be 1965-1980).
Get over it already.
I'm a software engineer that lives here to avoid 'progress'. I get enough civilized crap all day long.
5 other programmers where I work live up here too.
And we all plow our own freakin snow.
"Whatever you are, be a good one." ~ Abraham Lincoln
deltamrey wrote: I fully agree with this - my son lives there is an engineer - it is a hotbed of start ups. BTW GOOGLE just leased 100,000 sq ft of space downtown.
Now why does not Conifer get some of this - well we cannot even do a simple rec center - professionals will not move up here until, we emerge from the dark ages (that would be 1965-1980).
Get over it already.
I'm a software engineer that lives here to avoid 'progress'. I get enough civilized crap all day long.
5 other programmers where I work live up here too.
And we all plow our own freakin snow.
Count me in too. I'm a software architect and the company I work for is in the Deloitte fast 500 and we are ranked one top software shops according to the Denver Business Journal. You don't have to be in Boulder to find tech jobs. Also, their are ton of Lockheed Martin employees that live up here.
