[bouldercouncilhotline] Hotline: Sam Weaver attendance at Kauffman Foundation conference

[cmosupport at bouldercolorado.gov]

Sender: Weaver, Sam

Fellow Council Members and HOTLINE followers,

In October 2015, I attended the Kauffman Foundation annual Mayors conference on entrepreneurship.  It was a fascinating event and focused on what elements are required to foster a culture of starting and nourishing local businesses.  I have been tardy in writing my summary of the conference, but better late than never.

The conference was held in Albuquerque, NM at the same time as their balloon festival, which was completely fabulous.  Our opening session included representative from 28 states and DC, and the focus was about how to cultivate an environment  of entrepreneurship.  Boulder is clearly a leader in establishing this type of culture, as our city was mentioned three times in the opening day, and a dozen times during the whole conference as an exemplar of a city with a culture of start-up companies.  This was very encouraging to hear in the audience, and a confirmation of our leading citizenry on starting businesses.  Other cities that received similar frequent mentions were Austin, Portland, Madison, Chattanooga, Louisville, KY, Cleveland, Denver, and Silicon Valley.  Boulder probably had the most accolades of the bunch.

Many speakers talked about what elements foster a culture of entrepreneurship.  Stacy Miller of the Institute of Local Self Reliance spoke about the impacts of the built environment on local business.  Her message was that diversity of building types and uses, density of uses, walkability, and public gathering space were all catalysts to start-up businesses.  She also mentioned that preservation of currently well-functioning urban fabric was crucial to keeping a start-up culture vibrant.  An example she gave was Phoenix and their fire department and building department in promoting adaptive re-use of their urban core.  If re-using a current building, Phoenix  fast-tracks permits and inspections and has a grant program for rehabilitation projects.

Housing policy was also a subject of the panels, and Boston's program of mandating small affordable apartments in mixed-use projects was cited as a way to house the employees that these small companies need to be vital.

Some of the take-away lessons from the panels were


1)      Favor incumbents less

2)      Listen to entrepreneurs

3)      Map the local ecosystem

4)      Avoid artificially segmenting your business community

5)      Be ready to capitalize on crises

Boulder is blessed in many senses.  One of the results of many studies is that entrepreneurial activity in a city is strongly correlated with the level of education of its citizens.  We all know that Boulder has one of the most educated populations in the country, which seems to lead to a powerful start-up culture.  This is a very welcome circumstance for our city.

Panel members suggested that cities should convene discussions around the benefits and impacts of growing businesses in their towns.  The suggested stakeholders were entrepreneurial business owners, university representatives, affordable housing representatives, and local business groups.

Some other factors of success mentioned were:


1)      Density

a.      By business sector

b.      number of entrepreneurs

c.      percentage of young businesses

2)      Fluidity

3)      Connectivity

a.      number of deal-makers

b.      deal-maker network

4)      Diversity

a.      number of sectors in new businesses

b.      socio-economic mobility in community

c.      inclusion of non-traditional communities in start-up businesses

In the closing remarks, it was noted that Louis Brandeis decades ago considered states to be the laboratories of democracy.  Today the laboratories are the cities, with state legislatures frozen.  Points noted in the closing were that:


1)      We live in a new Gilded Age, in which politics are polarized, income inequality deepens, and anti-immigration sentiment grows

2)      Leaders at all levels under-invest in hard and soft infrastructure

3)      There are clear community markers of success:

a.      less polarization in local politics

b.      local leaders can be named and are influential

c.      there are successful public/private partnerships

d.      citizens know the local civic history

e.      a 10-minute walk through downtown will give a realistic assessment of community health

f.       presence of a research university

g.      presence of a strong community college

h.      creative and experimental community schools

i.       open and inclusive, welcoming community culture

j.       craft brewpubs!

Markers of a monoculture include:


1)      Insularity

2)      Incentives

3)      Incumbency protection

You can see that Boulder is doing well on a lot of these entrepreneurship markers, and trying to improve on areas we are not as strong in.

I appreciate the Kauffman Foundation for paying for my attendance at this conference, and would welcome the opportunity to attend in the future.  Our hosts in Albuquerque were extremely gracious, the city and balloon festival were outstanding, and the panel members were very insightful.  Thanks are due to former Mayor Appelbaum for putting my name forward to attend this conference.

Best regards,

Sam Weaver
Member of Boulder City Council
weavers at bouldercolorado.gov<mailto:weavers at bouldercolorado.gov>
Phone: 303-416-6130