Last week, Ascend had the fantastic opportunity to attend and present at Denver Startup Week, the largest free entrepreneurial event in North America.
We were so excited about our experience that we interviewed the team about what made the event so special and successful, both individually and as a whole.
Infographic from the Denver Startup Week Kick-Off Breakfast
What was your general impression or overall experience during the week?
Steven
The week was a whole lot of fun and so much more organized than the year before; I already can’t wait to see what it becomes in future years.
Overall, it was amazing to look around at all these entrepreneurs and hear insights and personal stories from some really inspirational people.
It was a good feeling, as an entrepreneur myself, to have people around who are going through similar experiences—it built a unique sense of comradery.
Chad
It was incredible to see over 18000 registrants for the week and to see that community grow since the last time around.
For me, this year was different because I had the opportunity to do two speaking engagements there, and I was totally honored to partake in the event on that level. Just the appreciation that everyone expressed who came up to me afterward, both times I was speaking, was astounding.
The "Bullets, Sausage, Whiskey and Pot: Manufacturing for the Vices" Panel featured
on 9 News. Left to right: Al Laws from Laws Whiskey, Gerry Spoor from Top Brass,
Cami Mulholland from Continental Sausage, Lynn Honderd from Mary's Medicinals,
and Chad Coleman from Ascend
All the community around every industry—from cannabis, to business-to-business, to tech, to products—came together to really help this Denver startup community achieve this new level, especially with how many startups are at this very fragile stage of their development and could use some support.
I thought it was interesting that there was a lot of cannabis-based stuff, more than I had seen last year, so I think that space is really attracting different startups and getting more information out to people who are curious about that industry, which is pretty neat to see. They pulled in industry experts on the panel that we went to on Friday, “Cannabis State of the Union” at Chase Basecamp. They had everyone, from a product owner to an economist, speaking about how unique of a market there is here and how Colorado is really on the cutting edge of that. They talked about all the challenges, which was really interesting; the regulations; if it’s even a good thing for Colorado startups when it’s legalized across the country; and more. I was really impressed with how much information they packed into a single event.
Katie
Pretty much any time there’s a big event, it really does just motivate me—it gives me this brand new energy like I just went on vacation; lights a fire in my belly. Because, as tiring as it is, going from event to event and talking to all these people you don’t know, it’s also completely rejuvenating in the aspect of your daily job. I think that they do a really good job of capturing that kind of energy.
The whole Denver Startup Week event really embodies the spirit of community—I think that’s something they absolutely have nailed, and I feel like every time you go to an event, you don’t feel weird approaching someone to talk because everyone knows exactly why they’re there, and it’s to network. It kind of creates this open line of communication that you don’t always have the opportunity to have—a lot of people work from home, or work remotely. It's a chance for everyone to get out there and get involved.
Zofia
It was my first time attending the festivities of Denver Startup Week, and I was simply blown away by how professional, popular, and well-put-together the whole ordeal was. I was, frankly, anticipating less of all of that for a free event, so everything blew my expectations out of the water.
The overwhelming sense of community was so invigorating, and, much like Katie, lit a fire in my belly and rejuvenated my desire to learn as much as I can as a marketer. It was like coming to a festival every day for a week, complete with the thrill and excitement.
One notion that kept floating around in my thoughts was how empowering it must be for startups to know they’re not alone amidst the festivities of Denver Startup Week. All of these numerous startups are technically competing for the market, but at the same time, they’re all in it together. Because it’s hard—like, really freaking hard—to start a business, and this event provides great support.
I feel like, in general, I can imagine that if you just come to Denver for the week-long event, it’s as if the whole city takes you in for the week, wines, dines, and educates you and says, “welcome to our beautiful city!” It’s a really cool event that’s totally free for everyone to attend (thank you sponsors!).
Did you learn anything new, either in your industry or in general?
Steven
I think that the event reinforced the idea that being an entrepreneur is hard: you need to hustle, but you can make it work at the end of the day. It’s all about passion and how hard you work for what you want, and Denver Startup Week helped remind me of just that.
Overall, my favorite part of the week was when Casey Neistat presented at the kick-off breakfast on Monday and told us, “DO WHAT YOU CAN’T.” I can’t stop thinking about that phrase. It helps me think beyond what’s possible and challenge myself as an individual and business owner alike.
YouTube creator Casey Neistat speaking at the Denver Startup Week Kick-Off Breakfast
Chad
The fact that Denver Startup Week got almost 60 million impressions on social media was pretty cool. The ability for them to pull in guys like Casey Neistat, Mark Cuban, Brad Feld, Charlie Ergen, Mayor Hancock...it was awesome to see the whole town behind it. To have a guy from Shark Tank and have him right here to share his words of wisdom, to have successful founders share their startup failure stories, was so valuable.
I loved the story from the co-founder of Dish satellite, Charlie Ergen, about how literally 50% of his entire inventory was on the back of a truck on the way to his first installation of a satellite and it fell off and broke. To hear those stories from a guy who’s built a multi-million dollar company—if not a billion dollar company—was inspiring.
You see that everything that everyone does is always going to be hard work and there are going to be challenges; there are going to be those “oh shit” moments, as the speakers referred to them Tuesday night at "Chinese Rockets and Disco Dance Lessons: The Art of Reinvention" at Ellie Caulkins Opera House. To know that they’ve all been there, even Mark Cuban and the former CEO of Dish, is extremely comforting.
The "Chinese Rockets and Disco Dance Lessons: The Art of Reinvention" panel.
Left to right: Brad Feld, Charlie Ergen, Mark Cuban.
Katie
The "Designing Microinteractions for Better UX" talk on Wednesday at Fusionbox was the most educational event that I attended last week.
I learned about how microinteractions are the “bits” between point A and point B, typically used to accomplish a single task, interact with a single bit of data, and control the ongoing process. It was interesting to think of even a simple light switch as a microinteraction; they’re everywhere and anywhere.
With that, there are certain requirements for successful UX: you must provide timely messaging, clarify an outcome of an interaction, provide real-time feedback to tactive adjustments, offer user guidance, establish a user pattern, and, above all else, reinforce the brand’s personality throughout.
The way that the speaker, Justin Stollsteimer, handled the presentation was nicely balanced: here’s the basics, here’s a little bit further, here’s some more basics, here’s a little bit further. He kind of held your hand as he was explaining it—just in case you were on either end. I loved it.
Zofia
I was able to sneak away from my desk for a couple of marketing presentations, and I’m so glad that I did.
As someone who primarily does content marketing in my role at Ascend, the “Your Content Marketing Playlist: From Run DMC to Journey” event at SendGrid on Thursday was both educational and entertaining—plus, they spoiled us with the most amazing chocolate chip cookies!
I learned about how to create document guidelines to increase efficiency across the team when creating new content, and the speakers even offered to share their templates for inspiration. Now, that’s how you build a fruitful marketing community—sharing is caring.
Perhaps the most useful part of the presentation was the diverse cast of characters—er, marketers—that spoke. First, I thought, “do they really need four people to talk about this?” It turned out that they did; each team member specialized in something specific—whitepapers, social media, blogging—and had such valuable, hyper-specific insights to lend to each topic.
Overall, I learned how to approach and organize internal and external subject matter experts for content, which metrics are the most important to measure, how to build a whitepaper that readers actually want, and finally, which marketers in the audience had the best dance moves when the music would play.
What was your favorite part of DSW?
Steven
My favorite part of the whole week was the "Chinese Rockets and Disco Dance Lessons: The Art of Reinvention" event. It was great to see a whole community come around to hear from inspirational, successful people and listen to their amazing stories on how they got to where they are today. Plus, the fact that Denver Startup Week got such big names in the industry to show up and give a free presentation was very exciting and showed how Denver Startup Week is growing every year.
Chad
I loved the whole IRL: Physical Product Showcase this year—the fact that they made an effort to go beyond just tech stuff and niche industries and include products that exist in real life was so neat.
IRL: Physical Product Showcase at The Alliance Center, part of the Maker track
They had a guy who invented a new kind of guitar, rock climbing strength testing equipment, form-fitting sheets that zip off so they don’t fall off, and so much more. Just to see that they had real-life products that people can touch, feel, use—and being able to demo and see them, that was pretty awesome, because I think it’s something that was kind of lacking in last year’s showcase.
It’s nice to get a tangible experience and realize that we can be a bit tech-focused as a community—even as a company here—so it was neat to think about that startups aren’t just about Saas products; they can be a product itself, they can be a service business, or something totally different.
Also, we’d like to make a shout out to the awesome sponsors who put thousands of dollars into this huge event; it’s amazing what they created and that it was completely free to attend.
Katie
The kick-off breakfast was my absolute favorite event, partially because I really liked Casey Neistat’s uplifting talk about starting with nothing and becoming famous through passion and perseverance. Partially, too, because it got everyone riled up for the week ahead, and that energy was incredible.
Otherwise, my favorite part was the “Snapshot: A Select Group of Women-Owned Businesses Will Host One Amazing Happy Hour and You'll Have a Professional Headshot to Prove It!” event at The StoryBrick on Tuesday.
Even though I missed out on getting my hair, makeup, and headshot done for free (it was quite popular), it was kind of interesting to see all these women just kind of together, off in these little clusters, being a little cliquey. Zofia and I just happened to notice one person standing there, kind of alone and scared. It really just takes that one person to say, “hey, you look like you just got here. I’m Katie!” and make a connection.
I’ve learned that you shouldn’t be nervous to introduce yourself to strangers. All of us are there, and all of us are thinking, “should I say anything? Should I just sip my wine?” Don’t be afraid to make the first move; you never know what interesting people you’ll meet.
Zofia
Even though I’ve lived in Denver for half a decade, Denver Startup Week helped me explore the city and find places that I didn’t even know existed. I once said that, compared to Chicago, Denver is cute and tiny, but I may have to retract that statement a little—there just are so many businesses, from startups to headquarters of international brands, in our beautiful and lively (and deceitfully massive) city, all harmoniously existing side-by-side.
Not only did the week-long event give me a chance to meet my fellow marketers and hear inspirational stories from plenty of excited entrepreneurs, but I also had the unique opportunity to check out the day-to-day life of many of our neighboring businesses.
From modern, sprawling offices to funky, little house-turned-hair salons, I think it’s safe to say that I fell in love with Denver all over again this past week.
Above all else, my favorite part was realizing how amazing Denver is as a city, a community, and a startup hub. In many ways, Denver is like the Fertile Crescent of entrepreneurship in the U.S., and I’m proud to call it home.
What are you looking forward to or hope they change for next year?
Steven
I hope for even more keynote speakers and events next year, especially the most thought-provoking ones who disrupt their industry and succeed.
Sameer Dholakia, CEO of SendGrid, at the Denver Startup Week Kick-Off Breakfast
It would be cool to have a big keynote speaker for each track—I think it would create more community because you would go to this thing, see all these people that are a marketer, designer, or entrepreneur like you, and then when you see them throughout the rest of the week, it’s an easy way to start a connection.
Chad
Definitely excited to see if Denver Startup Week could continue to grow the way it’s growing; that would be awesome.
Some kind feedback for the event planners: I think it would be good if the venues were closer together, and I think it might be good to do some presentations that are popular more than once. There were definitely times where there were two events I wanted to attend happening at the same time, and it’s hard to resist the one that's labeled “popular,” so you end up going to that...but you could potentially be missing something valuable.
If there was an overflow time slot for popular events—for instance, if Friday was designated for repeat events selected by popular demand or by an online voting system, people wouldn’t have to be as torn between which events to attend and could get even more value from the week.
Katie
My advice for attendees next year is to make sure that you attend as many happy hours as possible. Generally, when you get to the events, people are rushing to get there, rushing to leave, and you don’t always have the luxury of hanging out before and after the presentation...and obviously, you can’t chat during the event itself. I would highly encourage people to make time to go to at least three happy hours. That way, they can get a chance to network, really connect with people on a personal level, and not feel so rushed.
Having similar events in similar areas (like a track hub) would be helpful for busier people—a lot of the design tracks were all over the place. I think if they were to have, for example, makers in these three buildings, and designers all in these three buildings, if you are running from event to event for certain tracks, they’re at least closer together.
Making some sort of channel—not necessarily a Slack channel, but a way for people to communicate for different events, would be useful. For example, Brad Feld’s event had a lot of people. What if they wanted to chit chat about what they learned about, questions that they asked, or anything else? I think it would be nice to have a virtual hub where people could communicate, even if the website’s events had commenting capabilities; some kind of way to continue the conversation beyond that hour that you get would be nice.
I didn’t go to a whole lot of design events, but the one that I did go to, when I learned about the microinteractions, was a really good, in-depth talk that was interesting. I think having events like that is wonderful, and having a way to categorize events from beginner to expert level would help me differentiate which events to go to. I’m not an expert by any means, but I’m far away from being a beginner.
Most of all, I’m looking forward to all the free food, coffee, stickers, alcohol, and partying next year!
Denver Startup Week Opening Bash outside of Union Station
Zofia
Now that I’ve experienced my first Denver Startup Week event, I’m impatiently counting the 360-odd days until “round 2.” I’m looking forward to attending more happy hours next time around (thanks for the advice, Katie), and really putting myself out there to build the most connections I can. Because frankly, if you attended Denver Startup Week this year and didn’t meet anyone new, did you really attend?
Another aspect I’m looking forward to is fully planning the week ahead of time so that I could show up early enough to events to, first of all, claim a seat, and second, to turn individual events into networking opportunities as well.
One gentle suggestion would be to have people vote for their favorite events to be livestreamed on Friday at basecamp (building off Chad’s idea of missing out on events). That way, the stress and anguish of having to choose between two equally awesome events may be extinguished once and for all!
I agree with Katie’s idea of continuing the conversation beyond the event time—right now, it’s like you went on a team-building cruise with a bunch of people, and upon leaving the boat, never spoke again. I love the sense of community that the event creates, and it’s a shame to see it dissipate as soon as the final party is over.
The Bottom Line
Overall, it’s safe to say that the whole team at Ascend had a blast at Denver Startup Week.
We’re very grateful to all of the amazing sponsors who made it possible; the speakers who were bold enough to share their dreams, failures, and everything in between; and to all the wonderful people of Denver and beyond who helped the event shatter records and build more excitement for years to come.
The happy Ascenders attending the Denver Startup Week Kick-Off Breakfast
