Boulder Kicks Off

It has been an amazing first two weeks of activity at TechStars Boulder (TechStars Boston starts this Tuesday).

We kicked off TechStars.tv as a holding place for all the video content from what we create and from our mentor network. We are doing some really cool things with video this year.

The teams moved to Boulder from all around the world to live in Boulder until August.  They moved into the office, met the other teams and checked out out the busy schedule.

The day meetings with mentors and evening sessions have been happening at an incredible pace.  Microsoft, Mozilla, Google, Yahoo! and Facebook have spent time meeting and offering tips to the teams as well as hosting sessions in the evenings talking about their technical solutions and offering advice.

We hosted a community party for all those in Boulder that wanted to meet the teams and hang out with the greater startup enthusiasts in the area.   The Autumn Film played a fantastic set to a packed room.  We had over 280 in attendance throughout the night (not bad for a Tuesday).

TechStars Community Party

From feedback from the past years we have organized quite a few social events for the teams to get to know each other.  There has been to a rooftop bar crawl, hiking up a Flatiron and a poker party in Denver.   The teams from the first two years came out to offer their insight as well as get to know the teams.

Hiking a Flatiron on a spring day

Finally we hosted a FaceBook Developer Garage with over 100 in attendance to listen to Dave Morin talk about the future of the platform.  The development community in Boulder has an amazing energy.

Dave Morin FaceBook Developer Garage Boulder

With Boston starting shortly, expect updates from back east on the new offices and teams.

Where our applications come from

Because TechStars gets so many applications, we’re often asked what the trends are. This year, we decided to try to blog a bit more statistical data from the application process. Thanks to Josh Whitney for spending some time cleaning up and helping us visualize this data.

First, here are the counties from which we received applications for 2009. About 10% of our applications came from outside the US this year. The darker the country, the more applications we received.

Within the US, here’s an idea of where the applications are coming from.

 
Obviously, we see more applications from Boulder/Denver and Boston than is generally representative. It’s easier for companies living there to apply, so those areas should be discounted somewhat if you’re trying to get a sense of where the action is.

Here’s one last view. The numbers within each state are the not the number of applications, rather, they represent the number of unique cities in that state that we saw applications from.

 
You can click on any of the above images to see a larger resolution image. More to come as we get some time…

TechStars Boulder Community Party

We are pleased to announce the first annual TechStars Boulder Community Party happening May 19th 2009 at The B-Side. Beers, startups and as an added kicker, one of the most up and coming bands I know, The Autumn Film.

The Autumn Film

If you are curious about The Autumn Film, you can download three EP’s here.  They are really an amazing band.

Back to the community party.  We are doing this for the great Boulder community, to say thank you for the support and encouragement.  We will have ten new TechStars teams in attendance, who are excited to meet everyone.  The teams will be looking for feedback on their products down the road, and to do this, we need your help.

We need you to come and drink a pint, meet the teams and keep building up the Boulder tech scene with your amazing startups, projects and energy.

We will be hosting the finest in local microbrews all night. To avoid a sell out of the event in 5 minutes (like the last Ignite Boulder) we are doing a small charge of $5 that will go to nothing but better beer and gifts if we can get them in time.

Get your ticket here!

Look forward to seeing everyone!