The comradery of Boulder’s entrepreneurial community was unmistakable during this week’s Espirit Entrepreneur event that celebrated Boulder successes and the community’s unity during the recent floods.

 

Boulder Chamber’s two-day event kicked off in high spirits with a VIP networking reception Monday night at Kitchen Next Door and the lively mood continued into Tuesday’s day-long event at the St. Julien that over 300 attended.

 

The event began with the whole community celebrating its collective relief of the natural disaster and also recognizing this year’s Esprit honorees at breakfast yesterday. The Entrepreneur of the Year Award went to Ingrid Alongi, CEO of Quick Left, the Boulder web development firm that helped raise money for Jamestown after the flood.

 

For its 29th year, Esprit went big and themed the two-day event “Launch USA: Grow Your Ideas Nationally” so entrepreneurs like Tim Miller of Rally Software and Kim Coupounas of GoLite could share their experiences on scaling up.

 

Miller and Coupounas offered a few of words of wisdom for the community during their keynote alongside Stephen Tebo of Tebo Development and Libby Cook of Wild Oats & Sunflower Markets specifically about company growth.

 

During initial growth companies shouldn't primarily focus on raising capital, Miller said, instead, the team should bootstrap. “The very best source of capital is to sell more product,” Coupounas said.

 

Throughout six more sessions, entrepreneurial wisdom like this was passed along to attendees from speakers such as Jim Franklin of SendGrid, Mel Carter of Credit Suisse, Sara Sutton Fell of FlexJobs, Brad Bernthal of Silicon Flatirons and so many more.

 

“The success of the Boulder business community is due to industry leaders who freely share insights and an open community that collaborates,” Boulder Chamber CEO John Tayer said.

 

This willingness to pass down stories of entrepreneurial failures and successes is exactly why Esprit has been around for the past 29 years, an idea Miller captured quite well in his keynote: “Learn as much as possible from others until you have the courage to do it yourself.”