Boulder New Tech Meetup
May 6th, 2008This evening I joined the Sales and Marketing team for a short trek up to Boulder to attend the New Tech Meetup. We have been following the Meetups with some interest as there is a vibrant start up community in Boulder. Several former Indigians have moved on to new opportunities in the area as well. The event did not disappoint from an entertainment and inspiration standpoint.
Being the newbies of the bunch we did not realize that the rear of the auditorium was reserved for the hecklers and managed to stumble smack dab into the middle of the circus. Despite the seemingly juvenile antics, one can’t help but respect the intense sense of camaraderie and energy that exists within the community. The common bond that exists as a result of the shared struggles for funding, the seemingly insurmountable technological barriers that must be overcome for the next ‘big’ demo, and the never ending of list of todo’s can only truly be appreciated by those that have participated in the spectacle.
The event reminded me of my own participation in the start up days of CareerSite in Ann Arbor some 12 years ago now during Tech Bubble v1. As a young technology professional, a startup can provide a fantastic opportunity to fill many roles and accomplish many things free of the constraints of corporate responsibility and process. Where else can one be a System Architect on Monday, SysAdmin on Tuesday, DBA on Wednesday, and write huge chunks of a large distributed system the remainder of the week. Everything is a blank canvas, start painting in the center and work your way out. If you can cover enough canvas for the money people to see the picture and write the check, those stock options suddenly become worth more than paper.
This evening we were also treated to a couple of tremendously compelling demos. One from the folks at BrightKite and another from TrackVia.
BrightKite is really interesting in that the introduction of physical location into the social networking mix opens entirely new doors of real social interaction. I think they have some hurdles convincing people that they can be as public or private as they are comfortable, particularly once the location becomes more than a self generated report but an actual GPS based location as GPS becomes ubiquitous on mobile devices. I can probably think of at least one person that I would prefer not be able to locate me to the nearest 20 meters.
I did receive an invite to the private beta from Sara this last weekend but it hasn’t yet become a habit for me. They also demoed a really nice looking iPhone application that yet again made me wonder how long I can hold out from having one of those in my pocket. I expect to hear much more from these guys in the near future.
TrackVia describes their product as a ‘Usable Database’ and after their short demo, I was thoroughly impressed. I think it fills a really nice space for individuals and small businesses to replace their Excel spreadsheets with a fast, easy to use, and powerful tool. Online integration with existing sites is nearly instant and doesn’t require an army of Software Engineers to add a simple data gathering form to an existing web site. It was impressive how well the software determined what type of HTML input widget most appropriately represented the data field. Very similar to Intuit’s Quickbase but far easier to use and much more cost effective.
The question and comment session that followed frequently included the requisite but obvious ‘how does it make money?’ and ‘I am going to make this comment so people might be confused enough to think I am brilliant’ comments from the wantrepreneurs but also included some insightful questions and comments from less self-serving members of the community.
Despite our outsider status both geographically as well as philosophically, we enjoyed the Meetup and the opportunity to gain a little insight into and network with the Boulder Startup Community.
