Feld Thoughts

MARCH 5, 2021

The Techstars Foundation recently announced a new program called Accelerate Equity. We created the Techstars Foundation in 2015 to help make innovation and entrepreneurship more accessible and inclusive. Since then, the Techstars Foundation has been investing in and accelerating nonprofits that deliver scalable impact for underestimated entrepreneurs.

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Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 28, 2021

I expect we’ll be exploring, unscrambling, pontificating, and dealing with what is happening with GameStop (GME) for a while. If you are reading this in the future and want some historical context for the rest of this post, this chart from the last 30 days of trading is instructive. At the end of 2020, we start at $20 / share. 30 days later, it’s at $238 / share with a high of $482 / share.

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Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 25, 2021

I’m working on a new book with Dave Jilk, my first business partner. It is titled The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche: A Book for Disruptors. We are in the home stretch (it’ll be published sometime in the second quarter), and I’m adding a little connecting tissue to the major sections this morning. The third major section (of five) is called Free Spirits.

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Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 8, 2021

For the past nine months, Amy and I have started our morning together. I get up, pee, weigh myself, brush my teeth, meditate for 20 to 30 minutes, and then we have “morning coffee” together. Morning coffee lasts for two cups of coffee (one regular, one decaf). This ends up being between 15 and 30 minutes, depending on what we are talking about.

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Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 20, 2020

On November 5th, from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM EDT, I’m co-hosting a DEIS Practicum with Rodney Sampson and the OHUB Foundation. Rodney was one of the dozen Black colleagues I reached out to after George Floyd was murdered. I asked them each the question, “What are two things you are doing to eliminate racism that I can support you with time, network, and money?

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Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 13, 2020

Amy has a birthday coming up. We spent some time this morning talking about her next year. Since the two of us are together all day every day, we also discussed how I’m spending my time over the upcoming year that begins at her birthday. A few hours later, I stumbled upon Your Life in Weeks on Wait But Why , one of my favorite blogs. The following are the number of weeks (measured in boxes) that a typical 90-year-old human has on this planet.

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Feld Thoughts

JULY 20, 2020

I recently was in an email thread where a Black founder had a powerful and clear response to the question from one of her corporate partners. The question was: How can our (the corporate partner’s) team better support diversity in our work, particularly in our sourcing, diligence, and onboarding efforts? The entrepreneur responded with a long explanation that was a brilliant and extremely helpful perspective for me.

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Feld Thoughts

JULY 5, 2020

In response to my post, Contemporary Mentors , a female reader of this blog who often sends me notes when I fall into a pattern of highlighting cis-het-white men, responded directly to the post with: I hope that you add more women and more diversity to your contemporary mentors. Otherwise you are in the same f **g echo chamber. I responded with: I have many women mentors.

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Feld Thoughts

JULY 1, 2020

My new book The Startup Community Way: Evolving and Entrepreneurial Ecosystem is coming out this month ( pre-order it here.). At the same time, the 2nd edition of my book Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City is also coming out ( pre-order it here.). Ever since I started thinking, writing, and talking about startup communities, I’ve always wished there was a global virtual community for anyone interested or involved in startup communities.

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Feld Thoughts

JUNE 17, 2020

I have a few minutes each morning between when I wake up and when I go downstairs to meditate. I do two things during this time: (1) basic hygiene stuff and (2) let whatever thoughts are in my head roll around. This morning I had the following thought. It would be nice to just fast forward to 2025. During some of my recent public talks, I’ve described how the Covid crisis has accelerated work and technology change in a dramatic way.

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Feld Thoughts

MAY 29, 2020

On Wednesday, June 3rd, a team led by the COVID Tech Task Force is putting on the first of several free public conferences on the topic of Contact Tracing and Technology. Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center, NYU’s Alliance for Public Interest Technology, TechCrunch, Betaworks Studios, and Hangar are also part of organizing the effort. I’ve gone extremely deep down the contact tracing and exposure notification rabbit hole.

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Feld Thoughts

MAY 8, 2020

Yup. I’ve got it. Zoom Fatigue. But before I talk about that, thank you to everyone who emailed me about Brooks the Wonder Dog. He has a Canine Meningioma which we will treat with radiation therapy at CSU. He’s coming home from the doctor this morning (they kept him overnight for two nights for observation) and it sounds like he’s doing ok.

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Feld Thoughts

MAY 3, 2020

I took a digital sabbath yesterday. I ended up doing three things. Read The End of October by Lawrence Wright Took a nap Watched three episodes of Breaking Bad. I feel so much better than I did at the end of the day Friday. After I finish this blog post, I’m going to participate in the Emerge Family Virtual 5k. The End of October was intense. It’s the story of a modern day pandemic.

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Feld Thoughts

MARCH 28, 2020

Governor Jared Polis had an excellent and extremely data-driven press conference yesterday to provide quantitive support for his stay at home order (among other things.) The presentation is embedded and worth paging through. Colorado Governor Polis #DoingMyPartCO Presentation – 03-27-2020 from Brad Feld. The basic message is that unless it is absolutely necessary for you, please stay at home to prevent the spread of the virus.

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Feld Thoughts

MARCH 16, 2020

St. Patrick’s Day (tomorrow – 3/17) has always been a big holiday for us because it’s also my dad’s birthday. This year we are celebrating it remotely. We are doing a Zoom call together at 6pm MT to have a birthday cake, sing happy birthday, and hang out as a family from three different locations (my parents, my brother’s family, and us.).

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Feld Thoughts

MARCH 15, 2020

Following is a poem titled Pandemic written by Lynn Ungar on 3/11/20. Thanks to Joanna Rupp at the University of Chicago for sending it to me. I like to read poetry out loud. It slows me down enough to relish the words. Lynn, I don’t know you, but you wrote a beautiful poem that hopefully helps a lot of us in this moment. Pandemic. What if you thought of it as the Jews consider the Sabbath— the most sacred of times?

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Feld Thoughts

MARCH 15, 2020

A coalition of 250 CEOs and leaders (and growing by the hour) are asking our fellow business and civic leaders around America to #LeadBoldly and #StoptheSpread of COVID-19. We as leaders are doing the following, and asking other leaders to join us: Immediately change our organization’s policies to “work from home” for all employees where possible, including leaders.

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Feld Thoughts

MARCH 2, 2020

Her first Marathon. Second place in the Olympic Trials. She’s now heading to the Olympics as part of Team USA. I don’t know Molly. I first heard about her yesterday when watching a video of the US Olympic Marathon Trials. As I watched her run, I could see both joy and grit on her face. This is what sportsmanship looks like (Aliphine Tuliamuk cheering on Molly Seidel a few moments after crossing the finish line in first place.).

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Feld Thoughts

MARCH 1, 2020

Apparently everyone in the US is now talking about the threat of the coronavirus, which really should be referred to as Covid-19 since there are hundreds of different types of coronaviruses. My guess is the 10% drop in the Dow woke people up. Or maybe it is because of the first known cases in the US. As I was going through my random Sunday morning reading, I came across several good articles.

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Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 12, 2020

While reading Kim Scott’s book Radical Candor: Fully Revised & Updated Edition: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity , I came across an anecdote from a discussion she had with Dick Costolo. One of my favorite stories about Dick and diversity was his effort to eliminate the phrase “you guys” from his vocabulary. I told him a story about my twins—one a boy and one a girl—who were in kindergarten.

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Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 5, 2020

I do a lot of random podcasts and especially like to be an early guest on new ones to help get them started. 001 – Brad Feld. The first five episodes are with me, David Cohen, Susan Conover, Amos Schwartzfarb, and Charlie O’Donnell. Andrew Waine is the producer. He’s currently a senior at the University of Florida finishing his Bachelor’s degree in the Summer of 2020.

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Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 20, 2020

Amy and I didn’t feel like taking a Christmas or New Year’s vacation this year so we just hung around Boulder, worked, and did our thing. We then decamped to Mexico last week for warmth, sun, beach, and books. News flash: there are a lot fewer people at a fancy resort in Mexico in the third week of January. It was a good reading week. How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success : We don’t have kids, but a friend recommended this.

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Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 8, 2020

As you might have seen in an earlier post, Foundry Group is helping to bring the Helium Network to Boulder. Another Helium fan – James Fayal – reached out to me about his effort to do the same in his hometown of Baltimore, as well as DC and Philly. I’m hopeful that some of the readers of this blog live in Baltimore, DC, or Philadelphia and are interested in participating in the Helium rollout.

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Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 26, 2019

My dreams were vibrant and bizarre last night. It’s no surprise since I finished two books yesterday – The Bright Hour and The Migration. These followed a three-day binge of The Expanse Season 4, which had echoes of BSG Season 3. I have a recurring nightmare about accounting. I’m running a business, but I can’t get the monthly financials produced.

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Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 12, 2019

My partners at Foundry Group have decided to bring the Helium Network to Boulder. We’ve ordered 50 hotspots and, with your help, will set up a LongFi network throughout Boulder. If you are asking, “What’s Helium?” here’s a fun video to get you started along with a deeper explanation of the technology. As an LP in USV, we are small indirect investors.

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Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 1, 2019

Simply begin again. I turned 54 today. I’ve always marked the start of a new year on my birthday rather than January 1st. As part of my birthday tradition, I write myself a letter about my upcoming year. I started posting these publicly when I was 51 and they serve as a nice reminder of where I was at v52 (focusing on what I want to do ) and v53 (exploring what I want to be).

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Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 21, 2019

Last week David and I spent some time at the Techstars Sustainability Accelerator in partnership with The Nature Conservancy. Their demo day is happening on October 30th in Denver and you can register here if you’re interested in attending. . If you want to see what actual world-changing startups look like, you’ll love this particular demo day. The ten companies that you’ll hear from are working on problems like how we remove carbon from the atmosphere, better manage our water, make valuable pro

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Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 18, 2019

One of the many great things about the Governor of Colorado is that he’s an entrepreneur, having started multiple successful technology companies, including BlueMountainArts.com (acquired by Excite for $800m) and Provide Commerce (IPO, then acquired by Liberty Media for $500m). He’s also a co-founder of Techstars with me, David Cohen, and David Brown.

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Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 4, 2019

In 2011, my now-partner Chris Moody (and then-CEO of Gnip, which I was on the board of) kicked my butt about my endless statements about hating marketing. His thoughts on recasting “marketing” as “thought leadership” appeared on this blog in a post I Don’t Hate Marketing. It remains a great example of one of the reasons I blog, which is to think out loud, get feedback, learn, and iterate.

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Feld Thoughts

SEPTEMBER 3, 2019

I’m an enormous Jim Collins fan. It’s a special bonus that he lives in Boulder. He just came out with a short monograph called Turning the Flywheel. It’s only 40 pages but stunningly good. In it, he dissects the concept of the flywheel, which he first described in his seminal book Good to Great. Every CEO in our portfolio will be receiving a copy in the next month as part of our “book of the almost every month club.” If you are a CEO trying to build an enduring comp

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Feld Thoughts

JULY 10, 2019

Over the years, I’ve written about my belief in the importance of giving back to your communities and #givefirst. In this spirit, one of the key organizations my partners at Foundry Group have helped create and nurture is Pledge 1%. In 2007, we were a founding member in the predecessor organization to Pledge 1%, called Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado (or EFCO).

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Feld Thoughts

JUNE 25, 2019

This first appeared in the Boulder Community Health Foundation Summer 2019 Magazine in an article titled Taking On The Mental Health Stigma. I started the second week of 2013 in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. Within two hours of arriving, I was in my hotel room, the shade closed, the door locked, and in bed with a pillow over my head. I couldn’t deal with anything at all.

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Feld Thoughts

JUNE 4, 2019

One of my guilty pleasures is reading biographies about financiers and their companies. On Saturday, I gobbled down King of Capital , which is the story of Steve Schwarzman and Blackstone from inception through 2011. While I’ve never met Schwarzman, I’ve had a handful of experiences with Blackstone, mostly with the Blackstone Foundation and the head of it, Amy Stursberg.

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Feld Thoughts

MAY 20, 2019

I had surgery recently and a few friends, including Chris Moody and Sarah Ahn, gave me some books as gifts. They knew I’d be spending a lot of time on the couch either napping or reading, so my pile of infinite books to read became more abundant with a few good ones including The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World by Melinda Gates.

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Feld Thoughts

MARCH 29, 2019

Sunday is the Knoxville Marathon. My plan was to run it, collect the finisher medal that has become part of the marathon ritual, eat whatever I wanted for dinner on Sunday night, and head home Monday morning. Amy and I are heading home today. While some aspects of our week in Knoxville have been good, I came down with a nasty cold early in the week.

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Feld Thoughts

MARCH 26, 2019

Life often involves tough tradeoffs. I love running marathons but I’m less happy about the body soreness and longer recovery cycles as I age. I’m excited about every investment Foundry Group makes, but I know not all of them are going to pan out. Entrepreneurs talk about “changing the world”, but the companies that emerge often ring hollow against this backdrop.

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Feld Thoughts

MARCH 14, 2019

Happy Pi Day everyone. If you love dogs, or robots, or dogs and robots, you’ll love the video below. Two companies we are investors in – Rover and Sphero – have teamed up on Pi Day. Sphero is in the last week of their Kickstarter campaign for their new robot named RVR (pronounced “rover”) and, well, it loves dogs. There’s also a new Pi Day Tier on the Kickstarter that’s available for 24 hours and limited to 314 people.

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