Archives / May, 2021

You Need More Nietzsche in Your Life

Nietzsche has so many famous quotes it’s sometimes hard to choose just one (most have heard that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger although I suppose few realize that it was the German philosopher who first penned it). My favorite, perhaps, is: there are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth. I like it in particular because in many ways it describes Nietzsche himself. His writing is often beautiful, but with a depth that sometimes takes time to fully recognize. In their new book, The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche: A Book for Disruptors, Brad Feld and David Jilk pick out some of their favorite Nietzsche quotes and form chapters around business lessons from them. It’s a brilliant construction and one…

Supporting Small Businesses – A Political Perspective

I’m really excited about an upcoming event that my partners at Foundry have put together that will build upon the discussion we’ve been having around New Builders in some critically important ways. Senator John Hickenlooper and Congressman Joe Neguse will join Denver entrepreneurs Makisha Boothe, Founder of Sistahbiz Global Network and Lorena Cantarovici, Founder and CEO of Maria Empanada Restuarant. We plan to dig deeper into why politicians like to talk about small businesses but rarely enact meaningful policies to help them (and increasingly seem to be favoring policies that support larger businesses at the expense of smaller enterprises).  The event is free and will be held on Tuesday, May 18 at 1pm MTN / 3pm EDT / 12pm PDT. You…

Older Entrepreneurs Leading the Way

We had the opportunity to talk with many great entrepreneurs doing research for our book, The New Builders. I was struck by how thoughtful, determined, and gritty they were. As most readers know, the book focuses on entrepreneurs from a diverse set of backgrounds – people that truly represent the next generation of founders in the United States. One of the trends that we observe in the book is that the rate of entrepreneurship among older Americans is actually quite high. In fact, across all age groups, the fastest-growing group are entrepreneurs 55 and older. There are a number of interesting reasons for this that we talk about in the book. And we tell the stories of handful of older American…

Some Great New Builder Events This Week

It’s Boulder Startup Week and there is a great lineup of events happening all week. I was really grateful when Dave Mayer from Technical Integrity suggested I consider an event during BSW to highlight some of the trends around diversity that we write about in The New Builders. Makisha Boothe from Sistahbiz (who is featured in the book) is going to join me for a wide ranging discussion about who is actually starting businesses these days and how we can and need to better support them. I hope you can join us for it, Tuesday May 11 at 1pm MTN. You can register here. And, of course, check out the other great Boulder Startup Week events taking place all week….

Making a Better World – Uncharted’s Economic Equality Initiative

Uncharted is about to launch applications for their new Economic Inequality Initiative to support teams working on radical ideas to address economic inequality. I have a long history with the Unreasonable Institute (renamed Uncharted in 2017) and the work they’ve been doing around empowering entrepreneurs from many different backgrounds who are working across the globe on some of our world’s most important problems. Since 2010, they have helped an amazing set of entrepreneurs raise over $250 million, created impact in 96 countries, and benefited 37 million lives around the world. Amazing! Seeing extreme economic inequality as one of the biggest threats to America in the next 30 years, they’re launching their most ambitious program ever. I hope you can help…

Fortune: Tech entrepreneurs grab the headlines, but COVID relief should target grass-roots small businesses

With the fate of many small businesses remaining up in the air, after over a year of Covid related restrictions and challenges, my New Builders co-author, Elizabeth MacBride and I just authored a piece for Fortune that talks about the importance of saving America’s more Main Street businesses. We titled it Tech entrepreneurs grab the headlines, but COVID relief should target grass-roots small businesses – I hope you’ll check it out. The article talks about the importance of small business and tells the story of one New Builder – Carmen Portillo – who is the first certified chocolatier in the state of Arkansas. We tell Carmen’s story in more depth in the book, but the highlights are important to add texture and color to…