Fort Collins Startup Week

Leah Zions from Team & Culture and Ashlee Cloud, People Engagement Manager at Skookum Digital Works will lead a panel discussion of 4-6 CEO’s / Founders who have built great culture and that are fanatical about the subject. A VC / investor will be on the panel too to give perspective on why culture matters to them. Here are some of the themes of the talk:
- The importance of thinking about culture from the start. When you start your company is the time to put a strong culture in place.
- What is culture?
- Why does culture matter?
- How do you scale and stay true to your values?
- The Good, The Bad And The Ugly --  War..horror..Stories about good & bad culture.
Panelists:
- Nathan Greenlee, Chief Culture Officer @ Team & Culture. Mr Greenlee has helped launch tech & big data startups as well as pioneer the new space market. The company sold over half a billion dollars in spaceflight missions, including all of the self-funded private citizens. "Throughout this journey I've discovered that who is more important than what and that culture matters. Being obsessively focused on the team and culture of your company is the difference between good & great".
- Dan Lynn, TechStars alumni, co-founder of Full Contact. He is currently the CEO of CodeFutures. 
- Natalie Baumgartner, Dr. Natalie Baumgartner is a Co-Founder and the Chief Psychologist at RoundPegg. 

Hardware prototyping has reached new levels of speed and capability as readily available DIY electronics, open source software and 3D printing have combined to allow inventors to create complex devices easier and faster than any time in human history. The challenge is balancing Speed, Scale, and Quality as you gain traction.  Chuck will illuminate best practices, issues, and blended opportunities.

Starting a company is awesome. However, startups regularly and unknowingly make legal mistakes. Often, these mistakes aren't revealed until it is far too late and costly.  This talk will give you a complete checklist of things you need to properly structure, protect, and prevent costly legal mistakes as your startup begins to take off. 

IoT enables business model innovations that you may not even be considering yet. Whether or not your widget is connected today, you should be aware of the opportunities and what it means for your competitive landscape.

 

Come learn from lessons, user-first strategies and challenges faced by the CEO of an online platform company tackling inefficiencies in one of the largest transactional markets in the planet.

The real estate industry accounts for 15 percent of the U.S. economy,
over $12.5 billion of ad spend and 2.5 million jobs with its related professions. 
There are over $1 trillion of transactions in residential and commercial
real estate and housing annually and yet it remains ripe for technological disruption.

Open Source is not limited solely to software companies and Northern Colorado has proven that an open source hardware startup can achieve market leadership and scale in a high growth market (3D Printing). Open source and the issues of scaling and being defensible are no longer polar opposites in the reality of sustainable and innovative business practices, dna, culture, and business models. Lulzbot out of Loveland, is living proof in a highly competitive and growing market that Open Source can scale.  Come listen and learn how you can apply this principles to build a growing and regenerative business of your own. 

What is House of Genius?

House of Genius brings together entrepreneurs and a diverse mix of collaborators from the community for an evening each month of disruptive thinking, supportive input, and creative new ideas. You’ll find Houses in many cities and countries around the world.  House of Genius is continually growing based on grassroots demand. Together, we create Genius.

It's a fact. Nothing masks the issues and robs an organization of its full potential like success. If you are successful, you will grow yourself into problems. There has never been a company whose growth was linear or smooth. Everyone expects some problems but most are never fully prepared for the spin-cycle and pain of driving through plateaus to real growth and sustained profitability.  Kirk Dando has spent 20 years working with nothing but the CEOs of companies in a growth curve when they couldn't go anywhere else with their questions, concerns, and strategic conundrums.  Don't miss this event if you plan to build a company that grows and scales up.