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SPEAKERS

Jeff York, Erick Mueller, Joel Davis, Brad Werner

 

Jeff York  00:14

Welcome to creative distillation where we distill entrepreneurship research into actionable insights. My name is Jeff York research director at the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado Boulder. I'm here today with my guest host as always Brad Warner.

 

Brad Werner  00:29

I'm an entrepreneur and I also work at the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship. We have a really special day to day, Jeff, we have two friends coming on. First, I think today I'd like to introduce Joel Davis, the producer of the boulder tech podcast, and he also happens to be our producer. So Joel, welcome.

 

Jeff York  00:46

Hey, Joel, good to see you.

 

Joel Davis  00:47

Thank you. Thanks for having me on, guys. It's great to be here on your podcast on my podcast.

 

Jeff York  00:52

So yeah, there's like two numbers ready to go. So we're taking over that burner tech podcast, right, Joe?

 

Joel Davis  00:57

Yes, correct. So that's the podcast that I've been producing for a couple of years now. It started during boulder Startup Week 2018. And today, we're recording on Monday, May 11. It's the first day of Boulder Startup Week 2020. Virtual edition. Of course, like everything else, it's gone to zoom. And boulder Startup Week, wanted me to speak with somebody from cu, because see you as a sponsor of Startup Week, and I just thought, hey, let's see if we can work the creative distillation podcast into the boulder tech podcast. And basically let you guys do the work of the interviewing.

 

Jeff York  01:34

Did you know we were very adverse to doing any work. But yes, that's awesome. So the boulder tech podcast is usually about everyone's favorite beverage. Right? That's what they usually talk about on there. That's actually

 

Joel Davis  01:46

the creative distillation podcast. The border tech podcast is about tech and Boulder. And it's me speaking primarily with founders and other players in the tech community and, and other people that just interest me about what they're up to and why they're up to it. It's more about the people behind the tech and the tech itself.

 

Jeff York  02:08

Excellent. And we also have a another guest we're gonna hold off on introducing him real quick. That'd be a very special surprise. Joel, thank you so much for being here. It's awesome. Joel has been absolutely The only reason our podcast ever has a thin veneer of professionalism, and or listen to ability is all thanks to Mr. Joel Davis, who's

 

Brad Werner  02:27

here here to that a

 

Jeff York  02:29

fantastic producer. Yeah, thank you. And so in that vein, let's discuss our favorite beverage we're having now. Now last time, our guest was Trent Williams, who is an amazing scholar, and I often go to conferences with Trent I'll trade him my desert for his drink tickets. This is sort of the way the academic process works. So it's gonna disappoint us just drinking bottled water. I'm sure we can do better this week. So what I have is I have a road works juicy bits. And for anyone that's not familiar with this, what works is a brewery that is in weld county in Colorado, in Greeley Colorado to be specific. The only way I could get this was by driving there during the pandemic. They have guys outside and masks with gloves that will load up a case of beer for you. As you drive by you opened the trunk and they played it. And I spent the rest of the day feeling horribly guilty about driving around and breaking the stay at home order to go buy beer seemed like it was probably not a necessary purchase on that one. I'm very very pleased about they are an excellent brewery they may or may not distribute them near where you are. But if they do, I highly encourage you to seek them out. Juicy bits is but one of their fine beverages. This one's a New England style hazy IPA, citra mosaic Eldorado hops intense grapefruit, a little bit of a peach flavor to it in my opinion. But they also make my other favorite beer they make is called I'll have some MOA that. And they've actually made an imperial stout that tastes just like a Girl Scout similar cookie. Pretty amazing stuff even has like a mouth do like a Girl Scout cookie. And they also have Oh god, what is it called? They have a sour banana strawberry beer, which I purchased an account.

 

Brad Werner  04:18

Disgusting.

 

Jeff York  04:19

I actually really liked it. I can't remember the name of it now. Oh, three. Oh, God spirit. Something that's all good is it made me forget the name of it. And my daughter said that smells like a smoothie. I left out on the counter for three days. I like yes, that's exactly right, honey. That's that's what beer nerds look for in a beer. It's actually Yeah, it's pretty good. But this, this is definitely one of their more approachable beers. They make amazing IPAs seek out their products. Now that were just safer at home. I guess you could drive out to the brewery and not feel so guilty. So that's why I'm having this week.

 

Brad Werner  04:52

That sounds great. Well, I have to tell you that I actually broke quarantine yesterday too. For my first time. I also drove somewhere To get to get something more personal like a beer, it happened to be the Helping Hands dispensary. And I have to tell you the one thing that I found from helping hands though, the efficiency about doing a curbside delivery is actually going to change the way the business is being done and we could talk about that later, but I totally agree actually shocked at how efficient it was doing it. But today, Jeff, I'm joining you with a beer from Libby brewing. I don't know if you're familiar with Libby. They're from Longmont, Colorado, and this is called their dunkel lager. And the dunkel though, actually tastes really really awesome. Other than that, it tastes like beer to me. And, and I love it.

 

Jeff York  05:41

Yeah, it's very, it's very much in the pirate theme of taking our podcast. It's like the Beastie Boys where they would. But if you see the Beastie Boys movie, you gotta check that out. Yeah. It's, it's so good. Really good job. Good.

 

Brad Werner  05:55

What's your beverage today?

 

Joel Davis  05:56

I am drinking Kirk and Sweeney. 18 year Dominican rum.

 

06:01

Holy cow.

 

Joel Davis  06:02

He's a real heart. Yeah, I got reacquainted with ROM in the last couple years. And this is one that I really enjoy. It's very drinkable. Just straight up. It's got a very nice kind of vanilla caramel flavor to it. So Jeff, you could trade your dessert ticket for drink tickets and get this and still kind of have a little bit of dessert. Although the beers pretty dessert he also Yeah. Oh, man. That's

 

Jeff York  06:29

a serious, serious dessert.

 

Joel Davis  06:31

Yeah. Anyway, it's a Monday afternoon. It's we've cleared the two o'clock hour. So

 

Brad Werner  06:42

I'll and and the three of us have finished our grading hopefully. So we all have a cocktail. I think it's a great time to also introduce our special guests find out what he's doing. Our special guest is Erick Mueller. Erick, why don't you just introduce yourself?

 

Erick Mueller  06:57

Great. Thanks, guys.

 

Erick Mueller  06:58

First of all, I just want to come at we'll play Joel I think that was two or three fingers of some rum there that I saw. So you know,

 

07:05

messing around my

 

Erick Mueller  07:07

too. Right? Well,

 

Jeff York  07:08

well played.

 

Erick Mueller  07:09

Everybody. Pleasure to be here. I have the pleasure of working with Jeff and Brad. I'm a colleague and really had a blast teaching entrepreneurship with both of them. And so it seems like I have to talk about a beverage that is that. Is that how

 

Jeff York  07:23

that's the general idea? I mean, you could sit it out if you like, but

 

Erick Mueller  07:27

no, I'm not sitting out. Are you kidding me? I'm not sitting that out. But I gotta say this, this is the most unique introduction that I've ever done. Usually, it's like oh, he got his graduate degree here. He started this business and blah, blah,

 

Jeff York  07:38

blah, blah, blah, care about that stuff.

 

Erick Mueller  07:40

And I love that my my introduction will be around booze.

 

Erick Mueller  07:44

You know, and I'm gonna I'm gonna go

 

Erick Mueller  07:46

off script here. You guys know me as as a beer hound. But you know when you when you said to share beverage I'm going to share with you a deer hammer buenavista brandy. Wow. And there are only 400 bottled of this brandy. I have bottled number 71. And it was hand bottled by I can't read. I can't read the person's name. But let me let me just share with you kind of on the on the back of the label here. This brandy is one of deer hammers most alluring spirits result is luxurious, luxurious mind you have full bodied rich spirit with notes of vanilla, dark fruit, honey and spices. I don't care who you are. I think you gotta have a little bit of that. But quick note around this. The reason I pulled this is deer hammers brew to Buena Vista, Colorado. As I mentioned, they went to our very first rule Colorado workshop series six years ago, they were kind of struggling. They came to our workshop cu sponsored workshop. And now they are distributing. They've got a really amazing whiskey. But they're distributing across the entire United States. And it's a really cool adventure in the sleepy town of Buena Vista on the shores of the Arkansas River. And so that's why I chose the deer hammer brandy to share with you guys this afternoon.

 

Brad Werner  09:13

Actually, when I ask your brandy, I think of ice fishing and the Green Bay Packers.

 

Joel Davis  09:18

Eric I forgive you the correct pronunciation of Buena Vista.

 

Erick Mueller  09:23

Ah Are you from the heritage? Oh no, I'm

 

Joel Davis  09:26

not but I've just lived in Colorado long enough to know that if you say Buona Vista, you're obviously not around. Yeah.

 

Erick Mueller  09:33

They'll give you I'll just say a very, very harsh look. If you say yeah, I'm going down to to one of it not view unavista. So yeah, it's amazing community down there. I love our rural communities in Colorado.

 

Jeff York  09:46

Right I think we just found our second post pandemic road trip location for creative destruction.

 

Brad Werner  09:50

But you know what, that actually is a great way to talk about this briefly. Eric, would you mind just kind of giving an overview of cu and specifically the Deming centers outreach to rural Colorado. And how that's looked and evolved over the last few years. Yeah, you

 

Erick Mueller  10:03

bet, Brad. We're just so lucky to partner with amazing folks around the state. So we started, actually, quick story. It started around a beer and a Harley ride. So there was a gentleman that went to one of the workshops I had given about seven or eight years ago. He said, Hey, our small community in Chafee county could use some, you know, entrepreneurial mindset, you know, some entrepreneurial thinking, how about you come down and run a workshop? And I said, Well, hey, put me up at a hotel and buy me a few beers give me an excuse to ride my motorcycle down. And yeah, that was a Gosh, over seven years ago now. And within two weeks of concluding our workshop, in Buena Vista, we had about three dozen emails from communities all across the state, to do something similar. So the goal of the workshop series is to really elevate the entrepreneurial way of thinking in our rural communities, which leads to business starts and business growth, which ultimately leads to job creation. So we're now entering our seventh year of running this program. And we're in every major geographic region throughout the state. And it's some of the most fun work that I get to do I get to work with Brad and others, all across the state in helping our rural communities really drive economic development. Yeah,

 

Brad Werner  11:22

it's a great mission. And truthfully, if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't believe it. I'm fortunate enough to work with Eric, we go to southwestern Colorado every year. And the difference that it makes is really incredible to these local entrepreneurs, just the support that we were able to give them and it's nice that they have kind of a sounding board all year, even if we're not down there. So I think it's just fantastic work.

 

Erick Mueller  11:44

Thanks. I totally agree. It's It's so much fun. Our rural communities kick ass.

 

11:48

Yep. Totally agree. Very cool.

 

Jeff York  11:50

All right. So we have covered our beverages the Bureau is trying to think of is called fruit camp, by the way, just to make sure I get that name out there. So you can speak that out. I think we're gonna do just a quick everyone's favorite story of entrepreneur responses to COVID-19. Just quick and then we'll then we'll get into talking a little bit with with Eric about boulder Startup Week. So my favorite might do to do one really quick one. So really interesting Wall Street Journal's story I believe, about how Nike which usually takes about 22 weeks to bring a market from a prototype to something they might think about manufacturing started making face shields in less than two weeks. I just thought that was super cool. I'm not a huge, I mean, Nike definitely has had their struggles ups and downs, I think it'd be hard for anyone to argue that they're not a genius marketing company, and incredibly innovative on a consistent basis. And it was just a really cool story. I mean, you saw the face shields and almost, there's no swoosh on them. Even Nike didn't go that far. But they just look cool compared to the facial. We'll talk a little bit more about, you know, efforts to make face shields and things like that. So becoming familiar with like face shields from trying to make my own here for our local community. And then the second one I want to talk about I plug these guys before but upslope brewing company here in Boulder is one of my favorite companies, just amazing members of the community do all sorts of stuff on sustainability. They had a Mother's Day Special yesterday, you can list it, you missed it too bad. They delivered a local bouquet of flowers done by a local artisanal florist that came and like one of their shallots like glasses, along with a 12 pack of your your mom or wife, in this case, his favorite beer, and they throw in an extra crowler as well with it. I just thought that was super cool. I've never had anyone wish my wife happy mother's day. So many times. As the guy who delivered this onto our front porch, she must have said four times. Of course, we were trying to get the dog away from him and things like that Bailey, amazing offering really cool idea nice pivot of bringing together to local entrepreneurial companies. So I've gone from Nike to the most local company that I spend a lot of time with, what kind of stories you guys got about your responses to COVID-19? This one? Well, I'll tell you

 

Brad Werner  14:02

one thing that I that stands out. And I think that on a smaller level, when we're talking about students and startups, the list is really endless. So I would just like to shout out all the people that have actually just taken action, to try to do something to help the local community, I actually would feel bad about saying one or two are great. All the attempts are awesome. They're freaking awesome. And it's heartening to see the spirits in the entrepreneurial community, instead of sitting around and pulling the covers over your head, like we talked about last podcast, Jeff. Yeah, actually taking action, and they're making small changes. And these small changes can lead into very, very big changes over time. And to me, that is just it gives me great pleasure to know that I'm in the right space and working with people that I want to surround myself with and be in that type of environment. It's incredibly uplifting for me to see all those types of actions.

 

Jeff York  14:51

Absolutely that and it's totally aligned with what Dr. Williams was telling us last time. When people take action. Not only does it have a positive outcome For those that they help, but they actually gain the positive psychological effects of taking action, no longer feeling like a victim. It just changes your whole mindset. And so yeah, I mean, it's we're incredibly lucky, as faculty members to be able to work with students to try to coax them into taking action. And I know you and Eric and myself, last semester, we were involved in that. But Eric, what's your? What's your favorite story of the last week or so?

 

Erick Mueller  15:27

Gosh, you know, there's so many people taking action, which I'm so inspired by. And I don't know if we're going to talk about this specifically later, but the student teams that pivoted,

 

Jeff York  15:37

let's go and talk about that.

 

Erick Mueller  15:39

Yeah, I'll kick it off. And really, Brad drove this in terms of working with so many student teams, but the foundation was we had Scott and Tracy King, who are on our faculty, Scott is said, hey, let's take action, let's help our community. And so they invested $25,000 for our student teams, to pivot from ideas they've been working on for three months, to take a month to solve a COVID challenge. And we had over 15 teams raise their hand and say, I'm going to throw away everything I've done for the last three months, and I'm going to help my community, and I'm going to solve a problem. It's frickin amazing. And

 

Jeff York  16:22

I just I'm sorry, I just gotta step in for a second. I have watched student teams persistently, for an entire semester be told their ideas, no good. Come in last place, and every competitive challenge me go have one on one conferences with them about, hey, this isn't going to work. And they never will change. I mean, occasionally student teams change. But usually they're so locked in, and here's a 15 of them changed. That's amazing. To me. That's just

 

Brad Werner  16:48

astounding. Well, the more amazing part is these are graduating seniors that could have actually sat on a couch for three or four weeks. So they actually raise their hand to do more work. Right. So they really were that compelled to do this. But the king family, through their gracious donation has actually given these teams runways now that if they want to launch their businesses, that they have the ability to do so and which is amazing. And there's some teams that have really risen to the challenge, would you say, Eric?

 

Erick Mueller  17:14

Oh, my gosh, so much. So yeah, and just today, we had an additional pitch competition for teams to pitch for additional funding through the summer. And each team could get up to two grand to continue implementing their concepts. And so for example, one of the concepts is called bio box. And it's about sanitizing current protective equipment. So you know, which is a big challenge right now is we've all read about so their solution is real. They've got a couple of engineers, they've got business students, they've got you know, so we've got a cross disciplinary team, that's tackling a very serious problem. And they've got serious traction, they've got a prototype up and working, they're talking with hospitals, in how they can sanitize equipment. So just today, we had a chance for them to get more investment dollars, and they're committing the summer to help our community and do this, you know, a couple of engineers and one of our business students they had, you know, I think they still have real offers on the table, like, no, we're, we're gonna pause, I'm gonna help our community. So it was just amazing. And Brad, most of the folks pitching were Brad's teams. He's done an amazing job and just inspiring them to want to take action, as opposed to just kind of sit on the couch.

 

Brad Werner  18:28

Yeah, and they are taking action. And a really cool thing about the specific company that you're referencing, Eric, is they're one 10th the cost of their competition. So they really took this down to the bare bones, and you're talking about a product five, or $600 versus six or $7,000. And so what it does is the market that they open up to right becomes affordable to just about anyone that needs that type of technology. So it's really amazing. And I'm actually really excited to see where they go, because I think that this has legs. And I think that all of our listeners will be hearing about Vioxx in the near future.

 

Jeff York  19:02

This is virtually the same technology that Governor polis was just posting, hey, we got another one that allows us to sanitize and 95 minutes, is

 

Brad Werner  19:11

that what you're talking about? Right? And they could do it in five minutes?

 

Jeff York  19:14

Well, that that was literally like a big store here in Colorado. Like, four days ago. The governor was excited. We got another one of these. You're saying these guys can produce a 10th the cost that's that's amazing. That's really cool. That's amazing. I'm just curious where the other teams is that out? Actually,

 

Brad Werner  19:30

I have kind of I feel like I have a horse in the race or five horses in this race. So I'll leave it Yeah,

 

Erick Mueller  19:35

well, you know, so so the other concepts was it was a virtual reality solution for patients that you know, are having a tough time recovering and so it's kind of a pain management, you know, system via VR. Another concept was around finger cots. I think they were called I can't remember exactly but but ultimately when you go and you type in your pin or you sign on a credit card machine at a Retail Store, they have a solution that to keep that sanitized. And another concept is around kind of consulting with small businesses that are really hurting, and helping them wherever they need to help. So those are just a few of kind of the different concepts that are out there, you know, making a real impact and helping. So that's my inspiring COVID story for the week, these students that have just raised their hand to help our community and take action and the credit to our faculty that teed this up for our students to have this experience. It's real, it's tangible. And it's making a an impact,

 

Brad Werner  20:36

as a validator of diverse teams, right? We have people from the engineering school, Business School, all over the place. And I can't speak highly enough about the value of diversity in your team and diversity of thought versus having just a bunch of everyone's the same. And pretty much Yes, men or Yes, women, to have this diverse thought really gives the startups a much greater chance of success. Oh, yeah.

 

Jeff York  21:00

I mean, I think cutting across the boundaries within schools and the university is something that everybody, every university, every entrepreneurship program talks about, it's really exciting to see that we're making strides to actually do that. I mean, I know we're doing that in my classes. I think more than half of my students are from outside the business school now. And the first time I had a guest judge and who'd been coming for years, when this started to happen, she's like, Oh, my God, well, you must become like such a better teacher this year. I was like, No, probably not. What Why do you say that? Like, these ideas are so good, like, no, it's because they're cross disciplinary teams this year. They're not all business is not any at each other and say, Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah. And you get the engineers involved, you get policy people involved, you get people from the people from the arts involved, that actually know how to create a message and, and transmit it in a meaningful way and touch people emotionally. All those disciplines come together. And I think that's really part of the huge potential of entrepreneurship is bringing together people into different things to solve one problem.

 

Brad Werner  22:00

And the benefit of going to the University of Colorado, or our place, but I'd love to hear you guys know that. But to have the flexibility to be able to do that within the galaxy is really extraordinary, and very, very different than a lot of other schools.

 

Jeff York  22:15

It is it is and it's something we're just trying to do more and more of. So we're we're pirating and taking over the boulder tech podcast. So I guess we could talk a little bit, Eric, you know, as the executive director of the Deming center, essentially, bad mines boss, we thought we just cut where we had the dean. And so I guess we can't do too much. Maybe we can? I don't know, we'll try it tell us a little bit like, you know, I don't particularly you know, I often have students who are doing sort of tech based businesses, almost always, and I'm aware of the boulder tech community. But could you just tell us a little bit about what are some of our ties into what you think of as the boulder tech community from the business school perspective? Or CEO perspective? Yeah, you

 

Erick Mueller  22:58

bet. Jeff. No, I think it's a great question. It's actually a really part of our secret sauce, as a university is the way that we connect with our tech community, we do it in a number of ways. You know, one is fairly traditional ways in terms of having the local CEOs come into our classrooms and guest lecture, be on a panel, judge our students presentations, you know, etc. Second of all, is through mentoring. We have our tech community, mentoring, our teams, counted the other day 172 businesses have been created at Leeds. And so we have mentors that obviously helped coach and provide guidance to all of our student venture teams. So that's been a huge connection with our tech community. And some other ways that I think have been pretty creative as well is, you know, we tapped the tech community to be on boards and actually take a much more active role right board of advisors, or directly involved in making connections with investors, you know, etc, who make that deliberate ask like, you know, you can be more engaged, more involved, if you would like as well. And one other thing I'd like to mention in terms of how we're engaged, is applied to and relevant to this COVID time. So we created a program called co venture forward. And this directly involves our tech community. And this was spun up to help our small businesses or entrepreneurs that are really suffering, as we all know, over 20 million unemployed businesses are really struggling. And I'd be happy to share the experience I have with our own business in that regard as well. But we we split up co venture forward, which is a mentoring platform, where anybody from a nonprofit to an artist to a software development company can talk with a seasoned expert that's been through a down cycle, or, you know, has expertise in their area, to basically just provide a fresh perspective and say, Look, here are the three Things you should look at right people places, you know the money, you've got to really shore up your your cash flow, whatever that may be. But so valuable to these businesses that are just absolutely shocked that their business has gone to zero literally in like a week or two. So that's another example of how we're connecting with with our local tech community. There's so many other ways that we we connect, but those are really kind of the key ones.

 

Jeff York  25:24

Yeah. So I've done a couple of those mentoring sessions. And it's really pretty powerful. And I feel so my first mentee was a Pilates studio. And, you know, I vaguely know what that is. And now I do, I was just like, gosh, how am I gonna help this Pilates studio? Like, what the hell can they possibly do? I mean, this is terrible, like you. And it was, it was an awesome conversation and not being I mean, I worked in the.com, boom, that's how old I am. But you know, I'm pretty familiar with web technology. And I was able to help her come up with just a high level, you know, tech strategy, like, Hey, you know, you could you could do these online sessions, you can do one on one coaching. But it all goes down, like you were saying, It boils down to people at the end of the day is like, so who are your current clients? You know, and who are the people you have connection with? And why not just reach out to them, and see if there's something you can do to help them and, and I think she's been able to help quite a few people and actually develop a whole nother, as you were saying earlier, Brad, I think this is, you know, we can look at, obviously, there's so many horrible things happening with the COVID pandemic, I'm not trying to downplay that, or anything. But at the same time, there are so many opportunities and innovations that are going to come out of this, I mean, just the efficiency with which people are able to deliver their services. I mean, it's gonna be a massive change in education, our industry, for sure. But I think all

 

Brad Werner  26:44

industry. And the other thing is, is that you could take a terrible event like we're going through right now, and reimagine your world. In a sense, we've had a full stop, how do we want the world to look when we come out of this? And most people don't have that opportunity in a lifetime as a society we do right now. And right, what does that look like, and from where we live, and especially in the boulder area, Eric was referring to I come from Chicago, you guys know. And collaboration in Chicago means Put your hands up without a fight. Collaboration in Boulder, his people really are helping now I've heard of this before I moved here. But seeing it really is true, oh, to be to be entrepreneurs in this the ecosystem that the startups that we have in town here and declarative mentality is truly amazing. And I'm really excited to see what happens truthfully.

 

Erick Mueller  27:38

And sorry, just one other thing to add about our connection with the tech community in Boulder, I forgot to mention, you know, we even have a lot of our tech CEOs and investors come in and teach class and lead a class, they'll either coach along with another faculty member, or they will lead a class. So for example, Jim Franklin, he's gonna reengage and teach a class for us. He's the one that took sendgrid to the next level. Great example. So our students get to learn from these tech CEOs and founders directly. So it's another connection that we have with with the community as we bring these amazingly talented tech folks in our community into the classroom to actually teach and lead classes, you know, as well.

 

Jeff York  28:21

It's just so weird for me, I'm not arguing about a research paper, I really don't know what to do, like, just because you guys will beat the hell out of me, this paper, but I will say this, I will say that, let me just tell you about this paper. I'm right now. I'm just kidding. So no, I think I think what Eric's talking about, and he and I have known this for years, we've taught together and actually taught back to back sections. And we've always talked about, like, what is so I think neat about what we do in Boulder and at CU, is that we do bring together people who are heads down in the research writing papers, you know, studying entrepreneurial phenomenon, we have those people teach, but then we also will have your next class taught by somebody who has had three successful exits, or vice versa. And so you get the the sort of best of both worlds. And what I love about our faculty is like, you know, I would just assume hang out with our teaching faculty who are all actual entrepreneurial experts, as I would have my fellow researchers. And I think that's something a bit unique. I mean, this isn't the pump up see you show or anything like that. They'll never let us take over their podcast again, if we do that, but uh, but it is, I mean, and I think it's also an was to get to is, it's also something about Boulder, because you do have all of these amazing entrepreneurs, you have all this startup activity, but you also have multiple national laboratories and institutes based here. I mean, you just, it's, I don't know. Now I sound like I'm trying to pump up over but it's real. It's true, and it is even persistent during the pandemic.

 

Brad Werner  29:53

Well, let me tell you one more thing that's real that I just find amazing is we have a member of our faculty who started a company In 2008, and as of two weeks ago, his company just bought Raytheon. So if you think about going from zero to that, it's really amazing. And he's in the classroom, students love them. And all he wants to do is give back, talk about his experiences, and really just just amazing. And come on guys. We're lucky to be where we are. Because of the people that we get to meet. It's really talk about fulfilling work this is it?

 

Jeff York  30:27

Yep, I agree.

 

Erick Mueller  30:29

And I'd say we've got a great connection with the tech community. Could it be better? Yes. And so for those that are listening in our boulder community, definitely let us know, as well. Some other ways we can make connection even deeper. One of the things I forgot to mention too, is we're developing programs that better prepare our students to make an impact in the tech community, for example, our high growth venture Fellowship Program, which is teaching students how to scale not just start up, but also how to scale so we really listen to our tech community, I think in a pretty good way. Could we be better? Absolutely. But I'm thrilled to be on Joel's podcast here to share that. We're doing our part, as part of our ecosystem as the university to help our tech community as much as we can again, are we perfect? Absolutely not. Could we be better but but I think, overall, I am so appreciative of our community. Like I mentioned, from the very beginning of this discussion, that's really the secret sauce to what we offer to our students and entrepreneurship. Is this connection with the tech community and, and how our students can learn directly from these amazingly talented CEOs and investors and others.

 

Jeff York  31:37

Yeah, I was just looking at my final tally. I 28 guests from the community in my class this last semester, and one class got a crazy, and that class actually is all based around, requiring teams to consistent business students and we love engineers. So as much as possible, getting engineers and business students working together, and they were able to do some really cool stuff. But anyway, so it's boulder Startup Week. It's virtual that Eric, you're involved in this right. What are you up to during boulder startup? Yeah, I

 

Erick Mueller  32:06

love BSW. And I'm glad and thrilled to hear that they wanted me to go virtual. I've been a part of BSW since the beginning. When we had just a few dozen panels, gosh, what is it 910 11 years ago now, something like that. So yeah, I'm thrilled to be a part of the university track. Tomorrow I'll be hosting a session called entrepreneurial at every age, creating impact from kindergarten through retirement. I'm actually super excited. I've got a sixth grader that's going to join. I've got a ninth grader, I've got a college student myself and then I've got a retiree, so we're covering most of the generations. And Quinn, who's going to jump on who's my sixth grader. She's quite the the enterprising young gal she does like the typical lemonade stands. But she makes jewelry she sells it online. She's got an Instagram that she sells on. She's you know, at sixth grade. So we'll be able to hear what entrepreneurship means from a sixth grader to somebody that's retired. So anyhow, running a session tomorrow as part of the university track and love BSW I love the sense that, hey, let's all come together and help each other. I think it's pretty, it's a pretty special week.

 

Jeff York  33:17

It is.

 

Brad Werner  33:18

You know what, though, think about it, the general population, the average person, when they hear startup, they think about these young people, tech oriented doing something right. And you see these big, the big names, you know, the Facebook's and all that. But entrepreneurship and startups is a much bigger universe than kind of that narrow focus. And I'm also really picking up people 50 and older. Now, transitioning people that worked for IBM and the kind of the the general track that you would have started in the 70s, maybe the business track, they're now starting their own ventures, and really, this world is opening up. And the thing is, is age doesn't matter. It's all about validation, and understanding your target market and all those things that we talked about. And whether you're six years old, or 65 years old. In a sense, the process is relatively the same. And I would say that everybody's created equal on that playing field. And I think that that's really cool.

 

Jeff York  34:12

I gotta do one quick, actionable insight here, since that's our charge based on what you guys are saying. So what the research shows is, it used to be a real fallacy, and that you would try to look at the success of entrepreneurs by their various characteristics. And some of the stuff just downright offensive. And it's all pretty much every finding you can find is all entrepreneurs are extroverts, or even worse than hell, or whatever nonsense. Turns out you can find the exact opposite finding, so they don't hold up. I'll tell you what does though, is people having failed at starting an earlier venture. And so when you look at an entrepreneur, I think this hopefully this is useful to you. Why not Eric, but the daily, when you're talking about that when you're talking to all these people of different ages. I think that's a really that's the way we have to think about entrepreneurship. It's something that occurred at multiple times at multiple stages over your lifetime, and it's a way of taking action and thinking, it is not, this person's an entrepreneur, and this person is not an entrepreneur, or this person's like young and is going to start a new app. And oh, this person retired, so they can't be an entrepreneur. All that stuff is nonsense. Like the research shows, it's nonsense. So if there's anything I would say back to him, I don't mean to be a cheerleader here, but none of it matters. What matters is thinking about what is the opportunity? How are you going to pursue it? Who do you know, that can help you? And how do you take action right now? Think of it that way? That's awesome, Jeff.

 

Brad Werner  35:38

But you know, what? Have you done I, I like it. But even one more thing. Entrepreneurship is always associated with risk. But in the time of COVID, there is no risk by going and helping your neighbor, right, just outside and helping one person, right? If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Lisa tries helping someone. And if it works, you all sudden end up scaling, maybe something even by accident, and I think that we will see things that will kind of grow out of this situation that actually do happen by accidents, but out of good hearted people. And I think that that's gonna be really interesting as well.

 

Jeff York  36:12

Okay, we've talked about border tech border tech community, we've talked about relationship.

 

Brad Werner  36:16

Yeah, I have a question. Go for it. So Eric is an entrepreneur as well, he started many businesses mentioned. But But beyond that, can you make a prediction? If there was one change that you see coming, that we could maybe rewind this podcast five years from now, what would that prediction be?

 

Erick Mueller  36:35

Well, that's a great question. prediction, I guess there's, there's a couple of things that come to mind. As a teacher, there's no doubt that technology is going to be more integrated more than ever, right. And even when we get back into in person teaching, we're gonna use what we've learned during this time, moving forward, no matter what in terms of technology, video technology, collaboration online, you know, it's cetera. Here's a prediction. Here's the other thing I'm going to predict. And this could be an old fuddy duddy type prediction, right, a lot of people I just just an old guy. But I think that more than ever, the in person human connection is going to be valued. I think we're all holed up around the world, in our in the same walls. And we're doing the best we can with these remote tools. And I think they're fantastic and amazing. But I'm starting to feel that people are starting, it's almost like we took it for granted that we could get together for beer, we took for granted that we could go over to our mother's house and give her a hug. Right? We took for granted that we could go play with other folks in the park and let our kids play soccer without thinking, you know, my gosh, are they going to get sick, right? So my prediction will be that we're going to value even more. So the human in person connection. And I think there's gonna be a lot of businesses are going to spin out of out of that sense.

 

38:01

Really cool.

 

Jeff York  38:02

I'm curious, Brad, what would what would your prediction be? I want to I want to hear what you would say, well, so

 

Brad Werner  38:06

I have I have a lot of predictions. Well, first of all, I think entrepreneurship, you can actually change the future, a lot of small steps. So you'd have that vision. But I just want to go into this, the sense of retail is going to be different. And I'm not talking Amazon, it's gonna end up being Amazon, and Walmart. I think that the mom and pops. Yesterday, I picked up a hiking backpack for my granddaughter to go on the trails with us and went to the local Moose Jaw called them, they'd taken the credit card, I pulled up into Moose Jaw in three seconds later, they had in the back of my car didn't touch anything, wave goodbye. And that was it. Now if I'd gone to buy that at Moose Jaw, it takes 20 minutes just to get through the register line. Right. So there's so many inefficiencies that we've become complacent with that I think are going to go away. And it's going to be really interesting to find how that works. But I actually think it may be the rebirth, a little bit of some mom and pop businesses where you can do the research online. And in a sense, they'll fulfill your order right now. Right? You don't wait for two days for Amazon, it's better for the environment to be able to do that, right without the packaging and all these types of things. So I'm thinking that we're gonna see a real big change in the way retail is done. And one of my loves also is hospitality, and hotels. I've been brainstorming what that might look like. I'm still uncertain about that. But they're going to be big changes in hospitality as

 

Jeff York  39:27

well. Yep. So I got I got one for you. I wrote it up two weeks ago in the conversation. And the title was COVID-19 is a dress rehearsal for an entrepreneurial approach to climate change. And I think we're going to realize, at least I hope, we're going to realize just how insignificant human effort is in the face of nature, and that we are going to have to figure out entrepreneurial solutions. What I mean by that is things that don't exist right now. The problem with cooking changes brought a clock that's taking it as it's that it's slowed down for just a second, basically. But it's speeding right back up. And my hope is coming out of this, people will realize just how big of a problem that is. Because this really is, you know, well, God willing, we will have a vaccine, you know, within the foreseeable future, we think about more long term problems, like climate change, like income inequality, like social unrest, I mean, these are things that it's going to be actually harder to solve than this. So I'm hoping that this crisis gives current entrepreneurs and future entrepreneurs like our kids a sense of like, Hey, I can do something in the face of really, almost seemingly insurmountable odds. So predict what's going to happen to be optimistic. Boy, I

 

Brad Werner  40:48

hope I hope you're right. But I'd look at places like India and China that are effectively going through their industrial revolutions, like we did 100 years ago. technology can help them and in a sense of hoping that we develop it and give it to them. Because otherwise there is no incentive for for some of those folks to change.

 

Jeff York  41:05

Well, someday we'll actually talk about my research, I'll tell you why I think that's probably going to happen. So anyway, I'm not sure if the United States will create somebody will, though. Anyway, we could talk about that different time.

 

Brad Werner  41:15

And also, Joel, right. You've been doing these for a long time with boulder Startup Week, maybe some of your takeaways, I'd actually love to hear your prediction as well. Something fires.

 

41:23

Yeah.

 

Brad Werner  41:26

I mean, you've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs, right? Yeah. Anything that's ever resonated with you that was really helpful that didn't, or something that you've heard now that you're hopeful for that, in five years, we could really change some lives.

 

Joel Davis  41:39

I feel like I should have a better more cogent answer for this than I do. But I don't. Well, one thing that jumped out at me was I saw an article the other day about the founder of Pandora and Westergren, how he really regrets how Pandora, the direction that it went, because he started it to help the artist and connect people with new artists. And it just didn't really go that way. And the least served of all the people involved with Pandora are the artists, for the most part. And so being a music guy myself, mainly And personally, I was interested to see that he's got a new platform started called sessions, which is basically going to be a way for artists to perform live streaming, which is already happening a lot right now, during this pandemic crisis. And it's probably going to have to be part of our everyday musical lifestyle, for the time being is these remote concerts. So I'm really curious to see what that looks like. I haven't even had a chance to take a good look at it yet. But as a music, I'm really interested how this is going to affect artists and how artists are going to continue to survive in this world more locally, I've just been really inspired to see some of the changes people are making. For example, you know, it's the student who actually introduced us, Brad Rachel sharp, and he told me about and who is been 3d printing, protective masks during the pandemic, I interviewed her for the border tech podcast a few episodes back, but really inspired to just see the response from her to see downtown boulder partnership, really working with a lot of local businesses that support them through this and be there for them, whatever coming out of this on the other side looks like and the different ways that businesses are serving their customers. Now during this time, I personally love curbside pickup like you Brad I'm hooked on it like I never want to step foot in a store again. And I'm also seeing a lot of talk about basically turning pro street into a pedestrian mall all the way to Folsom. And then that allows restaurants to build out little patios and terraces stood outside so they can start serving people. And that's the kind of progressive thinking that boulder as a reputation for but hasn't really been expressing in the last several years, I think. And so I feel like I agree that this is a big opportunity for us to change the way we do things. And I'm just really excited to see how all of this looks and remaining optimistic that we are going to come out of this as a better people better economy better society in general.

 

Brad Werner  44:22

Right. I actually read last week that there was a big fight with AMC the movie theater chain, and Paramount because Paramount went directly to video for one of their big ticket launches. And AMC is looking at this as a threat to their business. But personally, I don't want to go and sit in a movie theater with 200 strangers, but I do think I mean, that's a big business and I think is really going to be altered.

 

Jeff York  44:44

Yeah, I think so too. All right, well, so boulder startup week.com creative distillation, you can find us at the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at elite school of business. Anybody have any final

 

Brad Werner  44:58

words they want to? They want? Yeah, it was great. Have an Eric as a guest today, Jeff. So Eric, thank you. We like to leave an open invitation to hopefully come back and join us.

 

Jeff York  45:06

Yes, we can argue about research.

 

Erick Mueller  45:09

Well, thanks, gentlemen, for allowing me to jump on your podcast. It's awesome. What you're doing. I look forward to what is it a 10th millions of of listens and impact around the world.

 

Brad Werner  45:22

We're gonna get there. We're

 

Jeff York  45:22

gonna get there's a lot like, this is like being a bluegrass musician where you can make literally hundreds of dollars every year.

 

45:32

No matter what, there's

 

Erick Mueller  45:33

gonna be a tasty beverage involved. That's all I know.

 

Brad Werner  45:36

Yeah, that's right. Oh, yeah. Thank you to you as well. Thank you for all the work you've given us. Thanks for

 

Joel Davis  45:47

anchoring an episode of my podcast for me.

 

45:55

Yeah, yeah,

 

Joel Davis  45:56

we have to do this again next week. So thank you very much,

 

Jeff York  45:59

guys. Take care. We'll see you soon.

 

Erick Mueller  46:01

Thanks. All right.

 

46:02

Thank you. Bye.