COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Boulder and Denver may get all the attention when it comes to Colorado’s booming startup scene, but Colorado Springs is looking to bolster its reputation with its third annual “startup week.”
Colorado Springs Startup Week kicked off Monday with a workshop on leadership for entrepreneurs. Other events are peppered throughout the week, with the final day being Friday, Aug. 25.
Unlike other startup weeks – such as Boulder’s earlier this year – that feature dozens of events spread out over the city over the course of the week, Colorado Springs’s startup week combines some of those workshops to make them easier to navigate.
That’s deliberate, said Michelle Parvinrouh, executive director of Peak Startup, a local nonprofit that organizes the week’s events. Organizers really wanted to make sure this year’s startup week was manageable for attendees and offered the right kind of information for Colorado Springs’ relatively young startup community.
“This year, we made a conscious effort to really focus on the foundations of startups,” Parvinrouh said. “Colorado Springs is much younger in that [startup] evolution” compared to Boulder and Denver, Parvinrouh said, and it’s important to meet the area's entrepreneurs where they are in the process.
Organizers expect to see several hundred attendees this year and while that might not seem like a big crowd, Parvinrouh said that number allows for a more personal experience for entrepreneurs.
“By bringing the focus in, we’ve been able to get closer to the startups and we know them better,” Parvinrouh said. “It might be few people but it’s the right people and they get it.”
For more information, log on to coloradosprings.startupweek.co.