Originally published in Entrepreneur Magazine

By Brad Feld

Boulder, Colorado is home to one of the most-active startup communities in the country, according to the Kauffman Foundation, and having been a part of its development, I strongly believe that healthy startup communities can grow anywhere in the world.

In Boulder, no one person sat down and said, “Let’s create a startup community here.” That’s not how it happens. It’s not something that anyone creates from the top down, but rather something that develops organically, as a network, driven by entrepreneurs.

When I moved to Boulder from Boston in 1995, there were a number of entrepreneurs already working on different companies, living what I now call the “GiveFirst” philosophy, which is about putting time and energy into a system without defining the transaction up front. While at the time we didn’t really understand the power of it, looking back over 22 years tells a remarkable story.

Read the full article at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/305080

Brad Feld is co-founder of Foundry Group, a Boulder, Colo.-based venture-capital firm, and TechStars, a startup accelerator.