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I had the pleasure of attending this year’s Colorado Capital Conference last week.
It opened with a very well attended special Preview Gala event in the first floor of the Denver Post Building.
It was a great night. Peter Adams, Sara Rodriguez Lopez, and the many volunteers & others from Rockies Venture Club put on a fantastic event.
All 12 of the companies which were pitching during the conference had set up tables as well, so investors could meet them prior to their pitches the following day.
The theme for the two-day event was “Colorado Success Stories.” During the opening remarks, Peter Adams touched on how it has been a particularly good year for Colorado company exits (and how we need more of them) — for example, both Noodles & Company and Rally Software had highly successful IPOs.
And he explained how, quite fittingly, Congressman Jared Polis was the keynote speaker for the evening. If you’re not already aware, our congressional representative is one who has founded several companies & has had two major exits — BlueMountainArts.com for $780 million and then ProFlowers for $480 million.
Congressman Polis has taken this true entrepreneurial background & focus with him to Washington, where he has worked on a number of initiatives that are important for the startup/business communities.
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He addressed a number of subjects during his keynote, including:
Immigration reform (particularly with an eye toward lowering the barriers to entry for high skilled workers & entrepreneurial job-creators). As he put it, “We want these people to start their businesses here, otherwise, they’ll become our competition abroad.”
Colorado’s position as a startup leader, with one of the highest per capita rates of startups in the country — and what it takes to create (and continue to nurture) the kind of environment where entrepreneurialism can thrive.
However, things became particularly lively when he opened the discussion up for general Q&A. It was a room full of entrepreneurs & investors, so of course the first question of the night was “Can you tell us your story? I’d like to know how you started your companies & in particular, your experiences with your exits.”
He was happy to oblige with an interesting account of experiences with his first company, American Information Systems (which he founded while still in college), and then on to BlueMountainArts.com & ProFlowers.com.
You can see an interview with Congressman Polis from just after his keynote here:
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS29QmBDCLs]
After the keynote, Peter Adams presented the Entrepreneurship Awards, which are meant to recognize those who make a significant impact on Colorado’s entrepreneurial community.
Among the award winners was Terry Morreale, the CTO of NCWIT:
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgb0krfjuHo]
As I'd mentioned before, it was an excellent evening, full of networking with interesting entrepreneurs & investors (who hopefully found new opportunities to help add to Colorado's startups-per-capita total)!
Locations
Colorado, USA
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