Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 2, 2018

I have a chapter in Startup Communities that uses CU Boulder – and specifically Silicon Flatirons – as an example of a much better way than the traditional approach (circa 2012) for a university to engage with the startup community. He continually strives to connect the university and surrounding startup community.

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Feld Thoughts

MARCH 19, 2014

In our portfolio of startup companies, following is how websites usually get managed. Startup engineering teams are now tasked with managing a CMS system. The startup’s ops and engineering team. At some point (hopefully) the business starts growing and a professional marketer is brought on board. Total break down.

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Feld Thoughts

JUNE 14, 2011

My friend Krista Marks (now at Disney – which acquired her first company – Kerpoof ) sent me a copy of the graduation speech she gave at the University of South Carolina College of Engineering and Computing on May 8th. In 1989, I graduated with degree in Electrical Engineering from the USC. Enjoy and be inspired!

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Engineer South Carolina Entrepreneur Internet 172

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 17, 2017

Engine Advocacy , Y Combinator , and Techstars are organizing a letter opposing these actions, signed by startups, investors, accelerators, incubators, and entrepreneurs. Help us send a message from startups and entrepreneurs that his rumored action to undermine net neutrality is not ok. Congress is lining up behind him.

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.Net Startup Incubator Green 136

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 9, 2013

I’ve written before about hiring for cultural fit, and about the importance of prioritizing cultural fit over competence when hiring at startups. I started thinking about it again when I saw this Dilbert comic , because it pokes fun at the culture of startups and their propensity only to hire people who fit into them.

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Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 19, 2010

One of our software engineers wrote all the code. After a week of this (where we probably got two analyses done because of the time it took to iterate on the changes requested by the client for the app) I decided to spend some time with our engineer who was working on it.

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Feld Thoughts

MAY 20, 2013

Over the past few decades, the most compelling engineers and entrepreneurs I’ve met have tended to be working on problems that can be solved with software. If you’re a startup with a piece of hardware (or plan to have one) check out Bolt and apply to be part of their first accelerator class.

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Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 15, 2014

Gifford Pinchot used to say “early learning beats better planning”, and in some ways, this is the entire mantra of the startup movement. Tech startups succeed so often because they excel at doing and learning from their doing, while big corporations excel at planning. Purpose: Increase kung fu and avoid procrastination.

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Technical Review Technical Cofounder Software Review Cofounder 195

Feld Thoughts

MARCH 19, 2012

Last week at our Yesware board meeting, we talked about the idea of “the monastic startup.” It embodies two concepts: The monastic startup is a place where engineers do the best work of their lives. This place involves work with long stretches of uninterrupted time. Oblong immediately comes to mind for me.

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Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 18, 2012

In the Startup Communities , I talk extensively about leaders and feeders. I assert than anyone in the startup community should be able to start / create / do anything that is helpful to the startup community. They don’t have to ask permission – there is no VP Activities in a startup community.

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Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 6, 2020

I’ve found that secondary/tertiary US cities work better than international locations, with the exception of software/hardware engineering locations. The post All Startups Should Consider Expanding In Multiple Geographies appeared first on Feld Thoughts. China and India work, but seem to be harder and more hit or miss.

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Feld Thoughts

MARCH 14, 2011

Today Senators Kerry (D-MA), Lugar (R-IN) and Udall (D-CO) unveiled the Startup Visa Act of 2011. This is an updated version of the Startup Visa bill from last year that is aimed at making it much easier for foreign entrepreneurs who want to start a company in the US to get a visa.

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Feld Thoughts

MAY 26, 2017

To have an Attorney General with an innovative mindset will mean that the Colorado AG’s office will become an engine of policy development and new thinking on a range of issues. Phil is a rare entrepreneur who can bring innovation to the government, which is just the sort of leadership we need now.

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Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 30, 2013

re-introducing the Startup Visa Act of 2013 (good). Yesterday, as part of his Comprehensive Immigration Report plan , President Obama explicitly listed the Startup Visa as one of the initiatives. Obama: “Create a “startup visa” for job-creating entrepreneurs. Canada’s startup visa program. Hallelujah.

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Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 5, 2013

He starts off with a very strong juxtaposition of thoughts around the importance of “the idea” to a startup. Ideas_Matter: The pop culture view of startups is that they’re all about coming up with a great product idea. And the emergence of that continuum in a startup has the potential to be very powerful.

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Startup Restful Engineer Community 148

Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 13, 2018

JumpCloud , one of the fastest growing companies in Colorado, is looking for awesome Developers, QA engineers, DevOps admins, and Customer Success Engineers. Over the next year, they are planning to hire 50 people for the engineering team and about 70 across the entire company.

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Engineer Hiring Colorado Cloud 18

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 16, 2015

If you are a software engineer, you probably get this instinctively. These programs don’t run in isolation – rather they are part of a horizontal scaling strategy based on a premise that you can build startups, and a startup community, anywhere in the world.

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Feld Thoughts

JULY 8, 2013

Over the years, I’ve come to believe with moral certainty that everyone needs DevOps now, especially software startups where the successful execution of Development and IT Operations preordain success or failure. As I said, this happens both in large enterprises and growing startups alike. In that moment, I saw the light.

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Phoenix Software Review Technical Review Cofounder 175

Feld Thoughts

JULY 22, 2011

Their suggestion was to write a series of posts that follows the development of an imaginary startup as the company navigates various events, focusing on how each event will impact not only the P&L, but also the Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement. Our first substantive post will be up next Friday.

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Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 29, 2012

On Friday I spent three hours at Tufts University meeting with Chris Rogers and a few of his colleagues at the Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach. James Barlow , the Director of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Program for The Gordon Institute at the Tufts School of Engineering was also in the meeting.

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Feld Thoughts

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

They need to raise money before building anything substantial after determining that they needed a little dough to follow the Lean Startup methodology. In startup time, that feels like forever. While that is true, if you rely on outside capital to reach escape velocity, keep the cockpit talking to the engine room.

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Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 24, 2018

Ian (my co-author) and I are using it in our upcoming book The Startup Community Way which should be out in the second half of 2019. If you are a programmer, engineer, creator of any kind, or are interested in Google history, you’ll love it. I love the concept of Binary Stars. It’s a magnificent and delightful story.

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Partner Engineer Internet Community 100

Feld Thoughts

MAY 14, 2018

For the second year Amy and I are supporting the Open Weekend – a celebration of neurodiversity in the startup community – through the Anchor Point Foundation. Friday, May 18th starts off with the Brain Crawl at Boulder Startup Week. My good friend Jerry Colonna and I spoke at this part of the weekend last year.

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Feld Thoughts

JULY 16, 2018

The head of Google Boulder (I think his official title in Googlespeak is “Engineering Site Director”) is Scott Green. While Scott and I don’t spend a lot of time together, we’ve both been part of the evolution of the Boulder startup community going back to the late 1990s.

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Cofounder Green Community Engineer 73

Feld Thoughts

DECEMBER 7, 2017

Bobby Schnabel has returned to CU Boulder as the College of Engineering and Applied Science faculty director for entrepreneurial leadership , external chair of computer science, and campus thought-leader on computing. While you may not know Bobby, this is a huge add for CU Boulder and the Boulder Startup Community.

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Indiana Colorado Cofounder Community 73

Feld Thoughts

MAY 15, 2013

Rackspace acquired his company Slicehost in 2008 and then made him VP of Engineering. Jason is moving down the road from San Antonio to Austin and we’re confident that he will be a big part of growing both TechStars and the startup community in his new home. Jason is a “ techie ” and entrepreneur.

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Austin San Antonio Angel Investor Engineer 143

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 11, 2013

In each of the companies, there is an excellent VP of Engineering. They are each obsessed about the product, but they are approaching it from an engineering perspective. Startup UX and Design Demystified. They each have a strong design / UI person. Two of the three had founder/CTOs. And the CEOs in each are excellent.

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Early Stage Engineer SEO Design 188

Feld Thoughts

MAY 29, 2013

The National Day of Civic Hacking is the first of a yearly event created by the White House to gather Citizen Engineers and have them use newly accessible government data to improve their communities and our entire society. On Saturday, NREL engineers will join the local civic hackers too.

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Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 24, 2017

It’s a classic engineer / rational problem-solving approach that appeals to me. I’m actively investing in startups in the Bay Area and have been aware of some of the companies that have emerged from TechStars. While Manu went to CMU, his style is similar to many of my MIT friends. Subject: TechStars Demo Day in Mountain View, CA.

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LP Engineer Conversion Partner 91

Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 6, 2012

We’ve decided to take a crack at a cross-campus course (law, engineering, and business) that focused on contemporary issues around entrepreneurship, would be a great introduction to any student who wants to immerse herself in entrepreneurship, and would enable us to create some unique content around this topic.

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Feld Thoughts

JANUARY 12, 2017

Eric Ries: Entrepreneur, blogger, and author of The Lean Startup. Dave McClure: Founding Partner, 500 Startups. Mustafa Sezgin: Head of Engineering in Amsterdam, Uber. Khailee Ng: Managing Partner, 500 Startups. Skoll Foundation. Brad Feld: Managing Director, Foundry Group. Paul Graham: Co-Founder, Y Combinator.

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Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 13, 2012

A great panel full of engineers titled Tech Tutorial Backdrop: An All IP Network and Its Policy Implications came next, followed by a talk from Colorado Senator Michael Bennet. ” My brain is an engineers brain. the Startup Visa) I immediately watch a negotiation begin to ensue. When I present a solution to a problem (e.g.

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Southern California Colorado Washington Government 137

Feld Thoughts

APRIL 12, 2013

Green cards for the advanced degree graduates in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) we are training in our universities. Startup Visa immigration march for innovation' Access to high-skilled workers when and where they are needed through H-1B visas and green cards. And we need your help!

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Widget New York City Washington Green 153

Feld Thoughts

AUGUST 29, 2013

Several of my friends have done courses, including Chuck Eesley , a professor in Stanford University’s Management Science & Engineering group. Matt Blumberg finished filming the course around his book – Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business - a few weeks ago.

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Venture Capital Engineer Technology Management 134

Feld Thoughts

OCTOBER 30, 2013

We see DevOps instantiating the lean startup culture throughout an organization. Similar to how we got involved in the Agile movement early with our investment in Rally Software , we are long on DevOps with investments in companies such as JumpCloud , VictorOps , SendGrid , Pantheon , Authentic8 and others.

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Conversion Agile Portfolio Lean 132

Feld Thoughts

MAY 20, 2012

Triv was an engineer at a company I worked for when I first came to the US as a product manager. About five years and a couple of startups ago, I mercilessly tracked him down and he was good enough to meet and hear the pitch for the startup I was with at the time. He used to be a client of mine. There is no try.”

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Feld Thoughts

APRIL 17, 2012

There is this magical moment that happens when a startup finally puts the key components together to build a successful business. This product was a monumental engineering feat and a huge portion of Gnip’s customers have already taken advantage of this product in just the first two months after its release. And, the best news of all?

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China Portfolio Product Development Engineer 137