The Great Thing About Someone Buying Your Company is That Someone Buys Your Problems

Reading Time: 14 minutes

I know that I’ve been talking about Denver Startup Week for quite a while now, and the event truly lived up to the hype. It was a week of making new connections, reviving old connections, learning new things, and experiencing a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem. It was invigorating, but also exhausting – I took the day off after I returned to eastern Iowa, and I was awake long enough to eat a meal and plug in all of my devices to charge and update in the middle of the day. I’ve finally had a chance to distill down some of the things I learned and experienced during the week.

Looking at the calendar, it doesn’t seem like the week’s load should have been that exhausting – I had actually packed my schedule much tighter last year with educational seminars, but I don’t feel like I got as much out of the week as I did this year, focusing more on the big events with just a handful of sessions throughout the week. I feel like I did a better job of cherry-picking sessions this year that covered topics outside the norm of what is presented at events like Denver Startup Week or other entrepreneurial get-togethers. You can only sit through so many versions of “marketing/sales/product tips and tricks” or “how to code better” before it all starts to run together.

So, let’s run down the list of events I attended:

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  Steve Case on stage at the Kickoff Breakfast.

  Denver Startup Week Kick-Off Breakfast: What an excellent way to kick off the week! I was able to snag a ticket to this event last year, and the stream of presenters really injected a lot of energy into the morning. This year, I made sure that I was able to grab a ticket during the very short availability window, roughly 3 to 5 minutes. They offered a live-streaming location next door to the banquet hall at the Commons on Champa, but I don’t feel like it would be the same as being in the room with all of the activity. The theme of the breakfast was perseverance through adversity, as was highlighted by the main keynote speaker, Steve Case. The breakfast burritos were pretty great, too.

• Is there such a thing as a utopian workplace?: This was my first educational session of Denver Startup Week. I was planning on going to something else before this. However, the Kickoff Breakfast ran long and I noticed how far the session I’d signed up to go to was from the convention center, so I decided to just grab some lunch and leisurely make my way to this session. The bulk of the session came down to discussing company culture, which should be implemented from the moment you begin scaling your business up from the original founding team. The panel gave out a ton of great advice, especially regarding human resources in growing startups.

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  Going Up? A startup pitch competition in an actual elevator: This was another event I participated in last year just for the experience. I returned this year, again for the experience, but to improve my elevator pitch for Cider Finder. Last year, it seemed like I had extra time in my pitch before the elevator returned to its starting point – this year, I finished my pitch right as time expired and the doors to the elevator opened. I didn’t win anything, but my score suggested that I’ve improved the pitch significantly since I first gave it at the Young Entrepreneur Convention back in April… or, I had more favorable judges in Colorado.

• Denver Startup Week Opening Block Party: Last year’s Monday evening party took place at Union Station, and thankfully so as the weather last year was cold and rainy. This year, the party was in a park in the heart of downtown Denver, and the weather truly couldn’t have been better! I ran into a bunch of folks over the course of the evening who I had met last year during Denver Startup Week, and it was great to reconnect with so many of them. I also found a small contingent of fellow Iowans who had made the trip there specifically for the Startup Champions Network meeting, which overlapped with Denver Startup Week. I had no idea they would be there during the week, so it was a great surprise to see the friendly faces from back home.

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  Friendly faces at the Opening Block Party!

  The Product Marketer’s Playbook: Tuesday morning started out with a bit of advice on product marketing. In this session, I wanted to see if I could pick up any tidbits to use with marketing both Cider Finder and BondingBox, and the session did not disappoint. The panelists in this session gave some great examples of marketing techniques, and how to improve a sales team’s output through become more familiar with the products your company is selling.

• Pitch Techstars!: I have a tough time turning down the opportunity to participate in or watch a pitch competition where I’ve not heard the pitches before, and this one was no exception. I had applied to participate in this competition, but was not selected. However, the folks who were chosen did quite well, and covered a fair number of different industries. At least one of them had participated in the elevator pitch competition the day before, so I knew what to expect when he got on stage. I’ve also gotten really good at picking the eventual winner of these competitions – one of the three pitches in my mind went on and won the competition, which gave them the opportunity to move forward with an application to Techstars in Boulder.

• 

  Daymond John on stage, discussing the “10-year overnight success.”

  MillerCoors Business & Beers Presents: Daymond John: Much like the Kickoff Breakfast, this session with frosty beverages and a Q&A session featuring Daymond John was one of most popular events of the week, and required tickets to get through the gate. I missed out on a similar type of event last year, where Mark Cuban was the guest speaker, because I completely forgot when the tickets would be available. This year, I made sure that I set an alarm on my phone, so that I’d be at my computer the moment the organizers opened the registration form for the event. Hearing Daymond John talk about his “10 year overnight success” was fascinating, and the different sacrifices he went through in reaching his goals. Over the course of the week, including this event and Steve Case’s talk at the Kickoff Breakfast was the concept of the “10 year overnight success.” I’ll talk more about takeaways later in this post.

• In Real Life (IRL): Physical Products Showcase: After Daymond John’s Q&A session was over, I wandered from the Commons on Champa over to the Skyline Beer Garden in the middle of downtown Denver for the Physical Products Showcase. This was a great opportunity to see what other entrepreneurs were creating, and to see whether I could plug any of these ideas into either BondingBox or Cider Finder. Also, I wanted to see how these entrepreneurs were managing a table at an event like this, as BondingBox was planning to have a table at the Innovation EXPO in Cedar Rapids, which I will discuss later in this post. Like other events, I ran into some friendly faces, and I wound up winning a hat (which my kids have now stolen, as they usually do with the swag I bring back from events like Denver Startup Week.)

• Pitch Lab: 5 Comedy Techniques That Will Make You A More Engaging Presenter!: After dropping off the stuff I collected at the Physical Product Showcase back at the place I was staying for the week, I took the unexpectedly long walk to the Pitch Lab session. The location where the session was taking place looked a lot closer on the map than it actually was – this became a bit of a recurring theme during the week. However, the weather was gorgeous, and the session was definitely worth the walk. There were probably 80 people crammed into the location, and delicious beverages were available. There were several takeaways from the session, but the overarching themes were confidence and engagement – compose yourself with confidence, and make sure that you’re engaging your audience, no matter the size or type. Also, make sure you’re having some fun with the experience.

• 1 Million Cups Denver: As a 1 Million Cups organizer, I believe that I’m contractually obligated to attend 1MC wherever I go. I had attended 1MC in Denver during last year’s Denver Startup Week, and it was a great group of presenters. This year’s group was excellent as well – I tip my hat to that chapter’s organizers for their work putting together such an engaging trio of presenters both last year and this year. Now residing on the other side of the 1MC curtain, I know how difficult it can be to find great presenters who not only have a great pitch, but are also able to engage the audience during Q&A.

  

• The Good, Bad & Ugly of Selling Your Business: I attended this session, not because I’m in any place to sell any of the things I’m currently working on, but just out of curiosity as to what happens the days and weeks after the sale – what could happen to me years from now. I could tell that each member of the panel was still torn on selling their businesses. On one hand, they could once again pursue things that were more interesting than the day-to-day operations of an ongoing business. From my experience, it’s a lot of fun starting things and building things up to a point. This is why I’m such a huge advocate for events like Startup Weekend Iowa City. However, once you’ve scaled the business to a certain point, the operation looses some of the luster it once had. So, they were happy to move on from that and start something new. But, selling their businesses seemed almost like what I assume it will be like when I send my kids off to college – you’ve spent so much time working on something, and now it’s completely out of your hands. It’s got to be an extraordinary feeling to be in this position, and it’s something I hope to experience someday.

• Accelerator Reverse Pitch: Going into this session, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. I wanted to learn more about the different accelerators that were participating in this panel, and only a couple of them had any sort of application to what I’m doing. Most accelerators are going down the path of being hyper-focused. I feel that tailoring many of these programs to certain industries is better for the companies who go through these programs, because they are more likely to interact with leaders in that specific industry. General accelerators are needed as well, because certain companies are never going to fit into one of these specific verticals that accelerators are now offering. However, if your startup fits into one of these specific accelerators, you would be a fool not to apply.

• Founders Live Denver: Of all the events of the week, this was probably the closest thing to being a dud. The concept of the session was sound – a pitch competition where pre-chosen pitchers would give 99 second pitches, with just a couple of minutes of Q&A, and the audience would choose the winner at the end of the night. However, the session was plagued with technical difficulties, and the facilitator didn’t seem to be terribly prepared. 3 of the 5 pitches had to be cut off at 99 seconds, and they all insisted on using their full slide decks during elevator-pitch quantities of time, as though they weren’t told that they only had 99 seconds to get everything across. Also, we were promised snacks and beverages, and that didn’t happen. Then, to vote, we had to sign up on their Web site, and I’ve been trying to unsubscribe from their emails ever since (I’ve just resorted to putting the emails in my spam folder.) I’m planning to steal the concept for use here in Iowa City and clean it up a bit. Look for it in 2019.

• Denver Startup Week Closing Bash: I’m not terribly sure why the Closing Bash is on Thursday evening while Denver Startup Week runs through Friday… but the party did not disappoint. It was part networking event and part dance party, with a special cocktail being mixed up that was named for the sponsoring company (and tasted like UV Blue and lemonade.) Like other events during the week, I found myself running into people I’d met during the week and had met during Denver Startup Week the previous year. I had a lot of great conversations during the event, and it was a nice try to (almost) bookend the week.

• Finding Balance: Being a Parent and a Creative: This session was the reason I stayed in Denver through Friday. I had submitted a session proposal similar to this for Denver Startup Week 2017, so I was glad that someone else was able to get this off the ground for 2018. There were about 15 of us in the room at the peak of attendance, so it almost turned into a group therapy session for people with small kids (like myself) who work flexible schedules as freelancers or with established businesses. It was probably the first time since I started freelancing where I truly felt like there were other people in my position, working from home so that they could be around their kids while pursuing the creative things they love. If something like this were run at EntreFEST, I would be more than happy to sit on the panel of experts (or help run the group therapy session at a local watering hole.)

• 

  Waiting through technical difficulties for the Founder Institute Demo Day to start.

  Founder Institute Demo Day: Much like pitch competitions, I have a hard time turning down the opportunity to attend a demo day. From what I gathered reading about the Founder Institute, it functions much as Venture School does here in eastern Iowa, and is not really a traditional accelerator. Four people presented their companies during the demo day, and they all had seemingly solid business plans coming out of this program. However, if Founder Institute wants to do a demo day, they really need to have a dry run of their program and technology before the actual event. There were so many technical glitches during the 90 minutes, and a couple of the presenters seemed like they were giving their full pitches for the first time ever during the demo day. Hopefully they remedy this for next year’s event.

So, what did I take away from the week? Several things, and they’re all applicable to all of the different projects I have in play right now. First, something I mentioned earlier in the post – the “10 year overnight success.” This came up several times over the course of the week, and it’s something I’ve also heard echoed at other conventions throughout the year. Scott Belsky referred to it as “the messy middle” during his keynote at EntreFEST this past May. I’m glad this is being covered at a greater depth than it has been in the recent past. Many people outside the entrepreneurial ecosystem don’t see the struggles behind the curtain – they see the very beginning at events like Startup Weekend, and they hear of the multi-million dollar exits, but the journey through the middle of the process is rarely covered. (Publications like Clay & Milk help peel back the curtain to show the “messy middle,” which is why I made the decision to become a financial sponsor.) I’m hoping that as time continues marching forward, we get more coverage of the grind, to compliment the big celebrations at the beginning and end of the process.

The second big takeaway of the week is something I’m calling “the earlier, the better.” This applies to just about anything to do with your startup or business. If it’s important enough to be part of the business, the earlier you get it done or make it institutional, the more success you will have with it or enforcing it in the future. Setting your workplace culture from the beginning came up not only in the Utopian Workplace session on Monday afternoon, but several other sessions throughout the week. Getting key positions hired and documents in place early on with save you so much time and energy later, as you try to scale your business. So, get it done earlier. You’ll feel better.

The third major takeaway from Denver Startup Week 2018 was more of a feeling than a tagline. It’s something I put at the end of my newsletter each month – we’re all in this together. This year’s event was the first time that I’ve felt as though there truly are others going through the same struggles I am – I haven’t felt this way after any other convention over the last 4 years that I’ve been plugging away in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. It was refreshing, and was a great feeling to hold onto as I came back to eastern Iowa, ready to tackle what’s next.

So, what was next when I returned? The Innovation EXPO in Cedar Rapids was back on October 10, and BondingBox was able to snag a table in the exhibitor’s space. We decided not to apply to participate in the pitch competition, for reasons I’ve discussed in previous blog posts. I didn’t end up watching the pitch competitions, either, as I’ve heard most all of the pitches that were given at the EXPO in previous venues.

I feel as though we had a decent turnout at our table. Many people took our information, but we’re yet to see any sort of impact on the number of orders through our Web site. We also premiered our newest offering – a card game that lets couples generate date ideas, based roughly on Cards Against Humanity and the Half Baked icebreaker activity that created BondingBox’s original name, Sexy Life. We’ll see in the next few weeks, based on sales, whether or not staffing a table at the Innovation EXPO was worth it.

Coming up on October 27, I’ll once again be helping out with Iowa Startup Games as a mentor for the student teams. I’ve been involved with Iowa Startup Games for several years now, and I always enjoy seeing what ideas come out of the weekend. There were a few tables at the Innovation EXPO populated with students who had kept working on their ideas from either Startup Games or Startup Weekend Iowa City, and I’m glad to play the smallest of parts in helping them take an idea and turn it into a viable business.

I will only be able to help with Iowa Startup Games on that Saturday, because Sunday morning, I will be on the road to Kansas City for the 1 Million Cups Organizers’ Summit. I’m carpooling with at least one other 1MC organizer from the area, so even the drive there and back should be a lot of fun. The summit organizers sent out an email a few days ago with a breakdown of the schedule for the 3-day event. There are several breakout sessions over the course of the summit, and each of those breakout sessions has something that looks interesting, from the basics of organizing and leading the event, to working with other chapters and building a pipeline of presenters – great information that I can bring back to Iowa City. Plus, it looks like we’re going to see at least a little bit of Kansas City while we’re down there. Crossing my fingers for a little bit of barbecue during the trip.

I’ll return to Iowa City on Halloween after attending Kansas City’s 1MC that morning. Kansas City is the original site for the program, so it will be a lot of fun to see how things are done there, and to connect with a brand new group of people. My visit there will mark my seventh 1 Million Cups location – still a long way from the over 160 locations throughout the United States, but it’s a start. Then I’ll drive back, return the rental car, and take the kids treat-or-treating as we finish out October and start moving into the end-of-year grind. Travel will be done for the year, and there’s plenty of work to be done at the home office.

I have a stack of books that I’ve been reading over the past couple of months based on recommendations from friends and colleagues, and I’m starting to write a series of (probably pretty amateurish) book reviews that I will be posting to this blog, to supplement my stories of travels and learnings. I want to share what I’ve taken away from the material, and I hope it might spur some who read this blog to check out a few of the books I am reading. Also, I’m always taking suggestions on what to read next – it doesn’t have to be personal improvement or business-related to make my reading list, but it does have to fit into one of those two categories to make the cut for an online review. You all know how to reach me to suggest reading material.

Until then, stay warm and stay dry. I think fall is finally here to stay in eastern Iowa, and the rivers are finally starting to recede back where they belong after the weeks-long rainy period we had recently. I’m just hoping the snow stays out west a bit longer – I’m not quite ready for winter yet.