In the continuing Entrepreneurs Unplugged series, next week Sam Zell will be visiting the university.

April 22nd, at noon in the large (Boulder NewTech Meetup) courtroom at the law school.  More info here.  It is free, but you must register, so keep that in mind.

Sam is always an interesting interviewee and speaker and even more so this year with his recent sale of Equity Office Property and sell of the Chicago Cubs.

Is he really that old?  Nah, not really, but last night Brad received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Entrepreneurship as part of the first annual Entrepreneurship Mashup event. 

The event was a huge success with a couple of hundred of folks showing up representing all facets of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in and around Boulder.  It was nice to see veteran entrepreneurs mingling with the next generation of great company builders.

As part of the event, we made a video homage to Brad.  Congrats partner.  In typical Brad fashion, he was humble, gave a great acceptance speech and implored everyone to consider it a "half-lifetime" achievement award.

Brad Feld – Lifetime Entreprenurial Achievement award video from Kendall Media Group on Vimeo.

Fresh off the heels of my recent Ann Arbor visit, I came back to Boulder to find out that one of our companies, Newsgator is participating in a great executive educational program:  Making Social Computing Work In Your Enterprise.

It’s June 1-3 and will feature cutting edge research from faculty and on-the-front-lines practical advice from the smart folks at Newsgator. 

For more information, please see the Newsgator press release on the event. 

I just returned from Ann Arbor where I was on a "quest" for the center of entrepreneurship, startups and innovation.

It’s always been a thesis of mine that Ann Arbor should have a vibrant startup and entrepreneurship ecosystem.  It’s a lot like Boulder in many respects. 

That being said, my alma mater has previously disappointed me in their lack of innovation and culture surrounding early stage software and IT.  They’ve been great in some areas like life sciences and manufacturing, but for software / IT / Internet, there hasn’t been a lot of action.  Clearly I’m biased as a VC that invests in these areas, but so do the majority of VCs in this country and it always felt a bit odd why Ann Arbor wasn’t targeting these sectors.

This time was different.  There was a lot more energy surrounding software; from the engineering school, to the business school to even LS&A.  In fact, whereas two years ago there were few organizations on campus supporting these activities, now there are several that are deeply engaged in helping good folks with good ideas out. 

I gave a lecture one night to a group at the business school outlining my thoughts on what makes a good early-stage innovation and startup ecosystem.  While I was my usual rambling mess, Mark Maynard of the tech transfer office wrote a cogent and thoughtful summary.  If you missed the presentation, he pretty much gets all the points.  In the future, I plan on doing some writing on what makes a good startup ecosystem, so stay tuned.

For those of you in Ann Arbor and are looking for where to turn to for support, I’d suggest some / all of the following:

www.a2geeks.com and www.annarborstartups.com – both brought to you by Dug Song who was the most inspiring person that I met in Ann Arbor this trip.  He is deeply engaged trying to coordinate all of the startup activity on campus and he is well-experienced in having been a startup junkie and hacker all of his life. 

The Center for Entrepreneurship – although housed in the engineering school, the center is working hard to coordinate all students and professors, regardless of school affiliation on campus.  The fact that Marc Weiser from RPM Ventures is on the board (who is an early-stage VC, including software investor) should help this mission.

There were many other organizations, too and not mentioning them is no slight, rather these two organizations seemed to be the easiest for the entrepreneur to get directly plugged in;  the first two be the consummate grass roots efforts while the latter being a more formal offering. 

In summary, there are some positive signs of life in Ann Arbor in the early-stage software / IT / Internet ecosystem.  I think they have all the tools to become an important investing geography, but only time and their collective efforts will tell.  As a former long-time resident, I sincerely wish them the best of luck and offer any help that I may give in the future.  Thanks Ann Arbor for being such great hosts. 

If you are in or around Boulder and are interested in all things related to entrepreneurship, startups and venture capital, here is your event of the year:

Silicon Flatirons Entrepreneurship Week

The events are too numerous to list (see the link above), but some of my favorites will be:

1. NewTech meetup on 4/7 (okay this makes the event a little longer than a week)

2. The Entrepreneurial Mashup, where we honor folks like Brad Feld, David Cohen and several Colorado-based companies for what they mean to the community.  We’ll also play plenty of Rock Band.  What I’m most excited is that folks from CU to "grizzled veterans" will be there blending current, past and future entrepreneurs in an event that won’t soon be forgotten.  It’s going to have food, entertainment and plenty of surprises.

3.Feld versus Weiser – The second smack down (okay, not really, it’s friendly) between these two discussion important current topics, followed by an Entrepreneurs Unplugged session

4. The whole afternoon / evening of 4/16 has a variety of panels and events featuring our governor Bill Ritter.

5.  New venture challenge – on the morning of the 17th, the first annual new venture challenge at CU will have its first annual winner

All are welcome.  I hope that you are excited as I am to participate in the activities.  For more information, check out the link above. 

Thanks to my friends at Kendall Media Group, here is the video of my recent Venture Capital Crash Course at the Silicon Flatirons.

Venture Capital Crash Course with Jason Mendelson from Andrew on Vimeo.
I give a 25 minute presentation and then hold an hour town-hall question and answer session.  Great questions were asked, so if you are interested in what goes through a VC’s head, take a gander.

The video is really well done.  The slides are integrated into the presentation.  I’d highly recommend Craig Kendall if you need any video creation or editing work.  Thanks Craig for putting all the time into the video.  Here’s a bit about Craig:

Founded on 13 years web and video experience and a passion for top quality video, Craig Kendall is the founder of Kendall Media Group and eventon.tv. Currently partnering with many Boulder area technology programs including IgniteBoulder, the Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup, and Silicon Flatiron’s Crash Course for Entrepreneurs, eventon.tv is helping provide video recording and production for the web. Having recently returned to Colorado after 13 years in Tennessee, Craig is thrilled to be part of the technology community in Colorado.”There’s some really amazing things happening in the Boulder/Denver area as far as technology and entrepreneurship and Kendall Media Group is excited to be a part of it,” says Craig. Reach out to Craig at craig at kendallmediagroup dot com.

The folks over at Boulder.me are soliciting folks to write about what living in Boulder means to them.  They are going to be collecting them and posting on their site.

In case you haven’t seen the site, Boulder.me is for folks that are interested in the Boulder startup ecosystem with a bent toward wooing great folks to move here.  Having lived here just under three years after 10 years in the San Francisco Bay Area and way too many years outside of Detroit, I thought it might be a good time to reflect on my life in Boulder.

Last April, Ryan and I posted a blog on the Foundry Group website about "What We Learned By Moving To Boulder" which was a venture capitalist’s perspective on the advantages of being located in Boulder.  In short, we found Boulder to be a vibrant, supportive and well-located geography for a national investing platform.  Furthermore, we thought being away from the Silicon Valley actually sharpened our focus on the region.

Today’s post is more a personal nature that I didn’t feel qualified to write a year ago.  For whatever reason, it was quite apparent (quickly) that Boulder was great location for business, but how about life?

Pretty simply – Boulder rocks.  I’ve never lived anywhere that has such a strong amount of intellect (Boulder was recently ranked the smartest city in the country) that is focused not only on professional endeavors, but hobbies, sports, outdoor activities and life in a way that I’ve not had the pleasure of previously experiencing in my other hometowns.  In other words, it’s really nice to see people’s energy and passions allocated to things outside of work.

Furthermore, the supportive community on the business end also trickles over into the personal end.  After less than 3 years here, I feel a closer sense of community than I ever did back in California.  My neighbors actually seem genuinely interested in what is going on in their community and the people who live there.  Maybe it’s a little too Wisteria Lane, but I like it.  Of course, nothing is perfect, there are a few who I wish were a little less concerned, but overall it’s a positive.

Lastly, I would say the ability to walk out my front door and either:

1. Go for a hike;

2. Walk to work;

3. Walk on over to TechStars and hang out with the next generation of great entrepreneurs;

4. Walk to the Boulder Theatre and see a world class show; or

5. A combination of all of the above couple with a great Belgium Brew from The Kitchen

means that while my world is a bit smaller than was before, most everything I want is within a short non-motorized commute.  It’s highly addictive.

So, that’s a short post on what Boulder means to me.  Thanks Boulder for having me.

Last night, I was a guest of the Silicon Flatirons to present a "crash course" on venture capital.  Basically, it was a no holds barred town hall-type conversation where I led off with a brief presentation and then opened it up to the 200 or so attendees to ask questions.  I encouraged the audience to ask anything they wanted about venture capital, getting funded and "secrets" of the VC ecosystem.

The event was videotaped and hopefully soon, I’ll be able to post it on this blog.  Until then, here was the presentation that I gave. 

I enjoyed immensely hanging out with a lot of smart people interested in venture capital.  Thanks to all who attended.

For those of you in the Boulder/Denver area, I’m giving a 1.5 hour “crash course” lecture on the VC industry.

The program is February 24th at 5:15 at the CU law school.  You can find more information here.

The topics will include everything from what makes VCs tick, who are our bosses, what are things that you can do to improve your chances of receiving funding and things that many VCs don’t want to talk about.  No question is off limits and I hope that it will be a very interactive forum.

Hope to see you there.

Do you want a job?  Do you want to work in Boulder?  Do you want an all expenses paid trip out here to interview?

Do I have the deal for you…

Boulder is looking for great people to come join our startup ecosystem.  While many areas of the country are experiencing shrinkage in the job market, not us!  We have plenty of companies looking for great folks.

See our Foundry Group post for more information.