Pitch perfect: Area’s allure spurs growing list of startup events

Slow economy? What slow economy?

You’d never know it if you joined the crowds at one of the growing number of pitch slams, entrepreneurial challenges, startup weeks or other similar events in the Boulder Valley and Northern Colorado. They’re places where youthful exuberance and optimism flow faster than craft beer from a tap, and dynamic presentations of creative business ideas have become a spectator sport.

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Pitch slams “are becoming a lot more popular, but in 2005 we really had to explain to people what the concept was,” said Aaron Mansika, a board member of Naturally Boulder. “That seems silly now. I think ‘Shark Tank’ had a lot to do with bringing it to the public as entertainment.”

In its fifth year, Denver Startup Week drew 13,334 attendees, up from 10,875 in 2015.

“These startup weeks are fantastic because they bring tons of people and resources together that serve entrepreneurs,” said Toby Krout, executive director of the Boomtown Accelerator, familiar for its “Demo Day” expos at the Boulder Theater.

Some events offer cash prizes for the best new-business ideas, others are designed to catch the attention of investors, and still others simply focus on offering advice from experts.

But why so many in recent years? And why so many here?

“Why not? It’s an ideal place to live,” said David Thomas, an assistant professor of management who directs the Monfort College of Business Entrepreneurial Challenge at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, an event now entering its eighth year. “We’ve got several universities in an hour’s drive, a cluster of universities that bring strong research. You have all those universities working hard to facilitate the transfer of technology from classroom to scale, to operationalize that research. We continue to attract people who want to venture out and see if their ideas are viable.”

And it’s not just technology. It’s the Front Range lifestyle, and the consciousness that comes with it,

“In the tech world, these events are everywhere, but for natural foods and products, Boulder’s pretty unique,” said Bill Capsalis, like Mansika a board member of Naturally Boulder. “This is a good place to start a food business because you can get a lot of help.

“Boulder is a state of mind, and we have attracted companies to start here because of the like-minded support. Pitch slams help that along,” he said. “You’re thinking, ‘Where should I relocate?’ and you’re in Brooklyn, Austin, Chicago — and then you come to Boulder and bump into people at these pitch slams and think, ‘This is where I want to start a business.’ It’s attracting a lot of new people to the state for both the schools and the businesses that are here.”

Mansika added that “Boulder continues to be magnetic. New companies are created here, but they’re also coming here from other parts of the country to be part of this ecosystem. Investors are looking at companies here. Now we have other national events coming right to our town to capture some of our attendees — FoodBytes! in the same location as our Naturally Boulder Pitch Slam the next day. That’s one more feather in our cap.

“We are making the Boulder-Denver corridor at the forefront of the natural-products industry.”

Organizers agree that new-business presentations have become much more sophisticated.

People have gotten way more prepared, more succinct,” Capsalis said. “Ten years ago, they didn’t know what to expect.”

Still, the key word of advice for pitchers is the same word New Yorkers give to tourists when they ask how to get to Carnegie Hall: Practice.

“We recommend making hundreds of slides and practices,” Krout said. “Tailor your pitch to the audience. Practice all those pitches hundreds of times, not just a couple times. When you’re a startup founder, you may think you are autonomous and your own boss, but you’re constantly selling people on what you’re trying to do. You’ll always be pitching.”

“Make sure you cover all of the salient points right up front, because you only have about three minutes,” Capsalis said. “Be enthusiastic. Believe in your product. Believe in yourself.

“When you see a compelling pitch, you want them to win, but they have to have a compelling vision about where they’re headed with their product, brand, company,” he said. “You can talk a good game, but you have to back it up with something.”

Naturally Boulder founding member Joan Boykin came up with the acronym USATCOM to guide new-business pitchers, getting them to focus on unmet needs, solutions, audience, competition, team, objectives and money.

The effort can pay off.

“Some really tremendous companies have sprung from us,” Mansika said, pointing to Phil’s Fresh Foods, which participated in Naturally Boulder’s pitch slam in 2006, changed its name to Evol Foods “and now it’s a household name, in every Target and Costco in the country.”

Bamboobies pitched its nursing pad “and now they’re in every CVS and Babies R Us in the country — all that notoriety from 60 seconds in 2011.” Goddess Garden pitched in 2009 “and now they’re the leading organic skin-care sunscreen in the U.S.

“And now there’s acquisitions happening,” he added, pointing to the recent acquisitions of 2013 pitch slam winner CompoKeeper, the maker of an odor-free kitchen compost bin maker, and 2014 winner Appleooz, a maker of fruit snacks, both of which were gobbled up in by Boulder-based investment group 1908 Brands.

“There’s so many products in kitchens and pantries that are all from Boulder,” Mansika said. “I love it!”

The Monfort Entrepreneurial Challenge offers time at its UNC BizHub incubator as a prize, along with a chance to win part of $50,000 in prize money.

“It’s incredible to think this program has provided prize money totaling $350,000 to local entrepreneurs since its inception,” said Thomas. “It helps Northern Colorado launch small businesses, because they can use that for seed money, including marketing, staffing and legal costs.”

The events give entrepreneurs “exposure of their idea to angel investors and venture capitalists looking for deal flow, looking to invest in companies where they can get good return,” Thomas said. “It helps them fine-tune their approach, their plan and what they need to do next. It gives them exposure and advice, and it helps them step up or accelerate the process for launching their project.”

“A lot of pitch events are a waste of resources if someone goes in thinking they’re going to sell based on the pitch,” Krout said. “They need to spend more time on the fundamentals of their business. But they are a way for them to practice their launch and prepare for the press, the public, investors, public speaking. It’s another milestone in their entrepreneurial journey.”