What’s Working: Techstars teams with startup community to bring back Boulder accelerator

Tamara Chuang

Business/Technology Reporter

David Cohen calls last year’s tumultuous restructuring of Techstars the “awkward teenage years,” which included a decision to move the company’s headquarters to New York and end the local business accelerator in its hometown of Boulder.

Since returning as CEO three months after that locally unpopular announcement, Cohen, a cofounder, said Techstars has committed to Boulder in a big way: It is restarting the Boulder accelerator as part of a partnership announced this past fall with local founders and investors.

“The big news is the rekindling of the Boulder accelerator itself (and) allowing the startup community to invest with us like we did in the early days,” Cohen said Thursday, just before a new class of startups would present their 5-minute business pitches in Denver.

“We’ll be an anchor investor that will allow the community to coinvest with us,” he added. “That gets the mentors more engaged. It gets the alumni more engaged. They feel ownership over it. They want to see the companies be successful, not just us. I think that was the magic early on that we lost a little bit.”

No start date has been announced, though he expects it will be “early next year” and the process of finding candidates to lead the Boulder team is underway. The focus will be similar to what it was in 2007 when the first class spent a few months sharpening their business plans, making sure their tech product or service worked, and getting advice from mentors.

Techstars never intended to leave Colorado. The company, which is more like an investment fund in search of the next great startup, opened an office near Denver’s Union Station last year. That became home to its workforce development accelerator, which graduated a cohort of 11 startups Thursday evening. Two were from Colorado, which is not unusual for any of its accelerator programs that continue to operate around the globe.

“I’m running the company again like I was for the first 14 years,” said Cohen, who lives in Boulder. “We’re now 18 years old. Some would say we had some awkward teenage years. It’s not unusual as you grow up.”

Tackling workforce development

Held at The Cable Center in Denver, the Techstars Workforce Development Day showcased technology solutions to help companies with hiring, training, retaining and even layoffs. Here are a few that got our attention:

• Work Simplr — This Denver company focuses on that transition period when students enter the workforce but may not have enough experience to land a job. It essentially provides paid freelancing gigs to give young workers added skills and experience. And for clients? It ramps up fast and can provide up to 100 workers within 72 hours with “zero micromanagement,” according to the company.
  
  “Perhaps it’s best illustrated with one of our top users,” CEO Jodi McPherson said during her 5-minute pitch. “When U.S. News lost their ‘Best of’ for university rankings, they called us and they said, ‘We need a lot of information.’ So we hired and trained 62 students to collect almost 200,000 pieces of information in four weeks, accurately. We not only saved their project, we made them a believer.”
  
• Speak_ — While keywords can get a job seeker’s resume through — or tossed — from an automated hiring system, this Boulder startup developed a “secret sauce” for recruiters to essentially train an AI system in their own words to find top candidates. Using a “sentiment-based analysis,” Speak_ relies on what recruiters share. An example, according to the company: Telling the AI system to find candidates with “strong systems thinking and analytical skills, with the ability to see how various products and features fit together.”
  
• Cantaloupe AI —
  Based in New Orleans, the genesis for the company was the incessant challenge of hiring hotel, restaurant and other hospitality workers, industries known for high turnover. Cantaloupe skips the typical resume and starts the process with “Cleo,” its AI interviewer trained to ask custom questions in a conversational style, analyze responses and make a recommendation. Cantaloupe’s system also helps employers auto-generate job descriptions and after an employee is hired, Cleo checks in with workers for encouragement or to flag for potential turnover risks.

>> Links to the rest

➔ A new book from Brad Feld, Techstars cofounder. He’s also a veteran of the Boulder startup scene. In his new book, he expands on the “give first” mentality that made the local startup ecosystem unique. It came from a sentence in his earlier book, “Give before you get,” he said, which someone from Techstars shortened to #GiveFirst. The point? It’s not tit for tat, though it’s not altogether altruistic. For him, it’s about encouraging a positive feedback loop.

“I’m not doing it out of the goodness of my heart because I expect to get something. But that something might not come back directly to me. It might go to somebody else as a result of the things I’m doing,” said Feld, just before Demo Day festivities began. The new book, “Give First: The Power of Mentorship” comes out June 24.

Sun economy stories you may have missed

➔ Jared Polis ordered Colorado labor department to turn over personal information after ICE subpoena, lawsuit claims. A whistleblower lawsuit filed in Denver this week revealed the subpoena and the clash between the governor and a state labor director who says releasing the personal info is illegal >> Read story

➔ Colorado counties, towns step up to fund Forest Service workers amid federal budget cuts. Eagle, Gunnison, Pitkin and Summit counties direct local tax dollars toward backcountry rangers who will maintain trails, douse fires and pick up trash amid surging visitation to public lands >> Read story

➔ PERA could be the big winner of Colorado’s police funding deal. Here’s how. >> Read story

➔ Outside Festival attendance nearly doubles in second year, setting Denver on path to hosting the “SXSW of the Outdoors.” The Outside Festival counted 35,000 attendees in Civic Center park >> Read story

➔ Colorado arts and humanities funds are being drained. Can philanthropy refill them? >> Read story

➔ Millions of kids are caregivers for elders. Here’s why their numbers might grow. More than 12% of Colorado high schoolers provide care for someone in their home who is chronically ill, elderly, or disabled >> Read story

Other working bits

➔ Coming soon: Incentives for better rural mobile phone service. Colorado counties, special districts and school districts can now provide property tax relief to cell-service providers that expand their facilities into unserved or underserved areas after Gov. Jared Polis’ approval of House Bill 1080. That includes buildings, infrastructure and equipment used to provide wireless phone service or fixed or mobile broadband service. The bill originally sought to offer grants to wireless companies, but that was nixed due to state budget restraints. Recommendations also came from the Cell Phone Connectivity Interim Study Committee, which met last year.

➔ The renamed Denver Startup Week seeks submissions. The annual week of startup festivities in downtown Denver is now called Colorado Startup Week. It will still be in the fall in downtown Denver. Organizers are seeking submissions for sessions and community content. No sales pitches. Submissions open until July 6. >> Details

• Missed Boulder Startup Week ? Check out the photos

➔ Greeley startups showcase. The gBETA Greeley startup accelerator is hosting its spring showcase June 12, starting at 4 p.m. at the Atlas Theater in Greeley. Five companies focused on agriculture innovation will present. >> Details

Got some economic news or business bits Coloradans should know? Tell us: cosun.co/heyww

Thanks for sticking with me for this week’s report. As always, share your 2 cents on how the economy is keeping you down or helping you up at cosun.co/heyww. ~ tamara

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What’s Working is a Colorado Sun column about surviving in today’s economy. Email tamara@coloradosun.com with stories, tips or questions. Read the archive, ask a question at cosun.co/heyww and don’t miss the next one by signing up at coloradosun.com/getww.

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