Denver Startup Week — the Ambassador experience

Let me start by saying just how much I enjoyed the entire trip. The city of Denver. The local startups. The hosts. The itinerary. And my fellow participants.

The goal of the Denver Startup Week is to promote the local startup community as well as the city of Denver at the national level. It’s been running for seven years straight now. The Ambassador program, however, is only two years old and was created to promote Denver as a high tech hub and a viable alternative to the Valley both for work and high quality living. By partnering with Denver startups and more established companies (thank you Southwest Airlines) the program brings 50 Ambassadors from across the country to experience Denver and network with the local startup community.

Let me start with sharing my impressions of Denver. Despite having been to the Denver Airport only about 50 times (I’m an avid skier and midwest just does not cut it), I have never managed to visit Denver itself. I was always focused on maximizing my slope time and I was excited to finally roam around Denver. And I liked what I saw. Really liked! Living downtown Chicago I am very much a city person and Denver certainly catered to my taste. It’s a city, it’s got a city vibe, it’s got graffiti (the artistic kind), it’s got coffee shops, restaurants, rental bicycles and scooters (first time I saw those), and it’s got people.

It’s more laid back and more friendly than Chicago, it shuts down earlier, and it’s just noticeably smaller. But it’s got all the right parts and it’s growing! About 10,000 people move to Denver monthly. It’s also the sunniest city in the States with 300 sun days a year and, contrary to what you might think, it’s warm with the average winter temp way above Chicago’s.

And Denver has mountains. Mountains with some of the best snow on this planet.

I was also surprised by how developed the startup scene is in Denver. We had the opportunity to have at length meetups with several startups. We heard presentations and talked with CEOs and other executives, techies, marketers — you name it. Given an opportunity, I would love to work with any of these people. And it’s not just the number of startups, it’s the scale, and the professional experience that I was impressed with.

One thing I would like to call out specifically is the gender diversity that stood out to me. It felt to be more mixed than Chicago and that’s something that I hope we in Chicago can catch up with soon.

While Denver might not be for everyone, it’s great to see that Valley’s monopoly on tech and tech startups is beginning to wane.

Thank you Denver Startup Week for the wonderful experience!