First tell me how you failed. But wait, before you do that...make sure that while you are telling me about your failures, you sprinkle in little hints about how all of these failures led to some kind of acquisition. Ah yes, now I feel better about myself.

Actually, I don't. I feel like I am always on the cusp of something someone else already has and the way you are sipping on that beer makes it almost feel like when you did it, it was easier. 

Or maybe that's just how you rehearsed this little presentation to seem.

Either way, the smile I display on the outside is purely that of my competitive meat-grinder brain wanting to crush you into a little ball and stomp all over you, but holding back, with gritted teeth, in hope that you might shake my hand later and answer a question I can't even remember I wanted to ask you about liquidation preferences. 

This is startup events.

The bittersweet agony of a few winner-take-all successes preaching to the multi-failures swinging the bat for the fences, only to come up short of a base hit. 

But where else can I go for a free drink, entertainment, and a room full of like-minded people?

Certainly not anywhere but. 

Prior to Denver creating a startup community, much of which now revolves around Galvenize, entrepreneurs would ultimately only run into one another at freak chance. 

Maybe at a party, someone would say, "yeah, I have this business I've been running selling X, Y, Z on the internet," my heart would start racing, "YES, I'M LISTENING?!"

But now we have Galvenize. The Founders Network. Founders Institute. ***TECHSTARS***. B/D New Tech. Startup Week. Startup Weekend. NEXT. RVC. And I'm sure I've missed twelve others.

Oh yeah, and this cool website that lets me blog if I feel so inclined about my startup experiences called Built in Colorado.

(You might have heard of it)

With all these great events, I could probably be a full time startup junkie. Comrades on my quest for world domination are now just a meetup away. I can bask in a room full of type-A-go-getters-with-little-to-no-risk-inhibitions by clicking a couple of buttons on Eventbrite. 

I can learn about growth hacking, canvases, getting lean, MVPs, pivoting my tacks, and why any company that files anything but a C-Corp in Delaware is a hack, without having to get on a jet plane to Palo Alto. 

PS. I'm an LLC and I like it. PPS. I generate revenue so who really cares. 

I can talk to people in real life that speak the language I learn on the internet about how to move faster, be more competitive, and drill down into money-making-paradigms-that-didn't-exist-five-years-ago.

Honestly, it's utter bliss. Trust me, the alternative is going to regular business events where someone might say something insanely earth shattering like, "you should network to grow your business." Thank you Chamber Director, I will move along my way now.

So there you have it, I secretly don't loath startup events. I love them.

BUT.

You've made it this far...here are some tips to avoiding my presenters D-list and how you can turn my upside-down-sometime-loath into a yes-sir-may-I-have-another-piece-of-unsolicited-advice-right-side-up.

If you are standing in front of a crowd of entrepreneurs to give your wisest wisdom to the next generation of founders, do these three things:

1) Be specific
Don't skirt questions around revenue, percentages, or numbers. I hate it when presenters balk or give the dirty-grin-smile "I'd rather not say." Get dangerously specific. I want to not just know numbers, but I want to know the when, where, why, and how. Tell me exactly what the term sheet said, why you did X instead of Y, and how I can make sure that I actually learn from you. If you lecture me for an hour and I later find out that you sold your business for three million dollars and only had 6% equity when it was all said and done...I need to know. These details matter. 

2) Tell stories
Don't just say, "I did this, and then this." Tell me the exact situation when you got funded. Tell me what happened when you got your first customer—why was it important. What did you wish you had done differently, what were the events that transpired directly after that? Know that all good stories have some kind of arc, protagonist and antagonist. There must be a great enemy that you are fighting and I want to hear about your struggle. You must have been David...so who was your Goliath and how did you defeat them?! If I can't sense a world of passion inside you about your own story, I am disinterested...so get into it.

3) Offer yourself up for sacrifice
I either paid to attend or I at least took an hour out of my busy product-producing-schedule to listen to you talk, so make sure you make an effort to be accessible to me. Don't "click-up" directly following the event so that no one new can come up to chat. Also, if I make an effort to connect post-event because the line was too long to talk in person or my Zendesk is blowing up with a situation, respond to my email. There are a couple of VCs and high end folks that I know are ultimately busier than I am, but for the rest of us, learn how to operate your email box. 

So far in Denver, I have seen a couple of people speak that are the real deal.

Jim Franklin passes on more wisdom in three sentences than most hour presentations. He doesn't act "too cool" for anyone and has not only responded to an email I sent him, but gave me a tour or SendGrid, took me to lunch, and introduced me to multiple VCs. If he has the ability to respond and check email, we all do. 

Steve Blank was the king of great stories. I know he's not from Denver and was just stopping through, but man we need more people like him talking to us. He was specific, told a good tale, and is insanely accessible. 

The rest of us so far need to keep working at it. 

Until next time.