Startups  October 25, 2018

Tech Census shows Boulder’s culture is right but capital lacking

BOULDER — A new “Tech Census” from Powderkeg, a Web-based connections engine for tech entrepreneurs and professionals, has analyzed Boulder’s tech community, including which startups to watch.

Of the respondents, about 42 percent were founders and 29 percent were employees. About 74 percent were men and 26 percent were women; 15 percent were an ethnic minority; 4 percent were members of the LGBT community; and 44 percent identified as LGBT allies.

About 31 percent of respondents were in their 50s, 24 percent in the 40s, 27 percent in their 30s, 12 percent in their 20s and 6 percent in their 60s. Categories of companies represented  ranged from IT to analytics to cybersecurity to health tech to many other types of tech startups.

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The survey results were broken up into categories.

Tech community and culture

The survey of Boulder’s tech community found that when asked what word best describes its core value, most respondents answered with Give First, community and openness. About 83 percent of respondents agreed with the statement “we have a collaborative and open tech community.” Sixty-three percent of respondents agreed with the statement “we have an inclusive tech community.” But 57 percent of the survey respondents disagreed with the statement “we have a diverse community.”

When it came to social issues, 35 percent of the community responding to the survey said they would like to see the tech community impact issues related to diversity and equality. Nineteen percent said they would like to see quality education tackled the most, and 11 percent answered with affordable and renewable energy. Other answers included health and well-being, poverty and hunger, clean air and water, recycling and waste management.

Twenty-eight percent said they chose to locate their tech company in Boulder because of the local tech culture. Twenty-seven percent said it was because they had a social network here. Other answers included access to mentorship, an outdoors lifestyle, affordable talent, cost of living and other answers. The fewest respondents said it was for access to funding or government incentives to come here.

About 83 percent of respondents said there was access to resources such as community organizations, and 77 percent agree there was access to local service providers, while 73 percent agreed there was access to mentors and advisers. But only 40 percent agreed there was access to local media opportunities — 30 percent disagreed there was access to that — and only 29 percent agreed there was access to government incentives, with 37 percent disagreeing.

Startup performance

About 21 percent of companies surveyed were pre-revenue, with the other companies either having flat year-over-year revenue growth or some amount of revenue growth. Twenty-six percent of respondents are business-to-customer, 24 percent serve enterprise customers, 21 percent serve small- to medium-sized businesses, 21 percent served mid-market customers, and 8 percent served very small businesses.

Companies with the best startup culture were, as selected by popular vote and in order: Techstars, Boulder Bits, Dojo4, JumpCloud, MojoTech, TeamSnap, VictorOps, Bitsbox, Shinesty and Kapost. Honorable mentions went to Brandzooka, Yonomi, Kindara, GeoPalz, Uvize, BlogMutt, Canvas Technology, LightStanza, Wunder Capital and BubbleIQ.

Respondents also selected the most innovative enterprise companies who had a presence in the area. They were: Google, Amazon, NetApp, Twitter, Zayo Group, Cognizant, IBM, LogRhythm, Medtronic and WebRoot.

Startup talent

Seventy-three percent of respondents agreed with the statement that there is enough junior talent in Boulder, while 63 percent agreed there is significant technical talent and 44 percent said there was senior talent.

Twenty-five percent of those responding said their total salary, including bonuses, make between $140,000 to $170,000. As for annual household expenses, 27 percent said it was between $20,000 and $50,000. Twenty-seven percent of those that answered the survey said they were at their company for the culture. Options like passion for the product, the leadership team and having friends that worked for the company all had 14 percent.

Most employees in Boulder enjoy their job — in fact, 49 percent said they very much enjoyed their job, and 40 percent said they enjoyed it.

Tech-startup fundraising

Fifty percent of founders said they have raised less than $100,000.

About 10 companies said they haven’t raised capital yet, five said they haven’t raised but are trying, one has raised a Series C, none raised a Series B, two have raised Series A, seven are in their angel or seed rounds and five have raised from friends and family.

Respondents are pretty split on whether there is enough access to capital. Forty-four percent said there is enough enterprise partnerships, but 43 percent said there isn’t enough see capital, 33 percent disagreed there was enough government incentives, and 37 percent disagreed there was significant growth capital. And 65 percent of those surveyed said they have struggled to find capital in Boulder.

As to future growth, 35 percent said they saw potential in artificial intelligence and machine learning, 13 percent said they saw growth in blockchain and cryptocurrency. Other growth potential lies in analytics and big data, energy, IT and cybersecurity.

BOULDER — A new “Tech Census” from Powderkeg, a Web-based connections engine for tech entrepreneurs and professionals, has analyzed Boulder’s tech community, including which startups to watch.

Of the respondents, about 42 percent were founders and 29 percent were employees. About 74 percent were men and 26 percent were women; 15 percent were an ethnic minority; 4 percent were members of the LGBT community; and 44 percent identified as LGBT allies.

About 31 percent of respondents were in their 50s, 24 percent in the 40s, 27 percent in their 30s, 12 percent…

Christopher Wood
Christopher Wood is editor and publisher of BizWest, a regional business journal covering Boulder, Broomfield, Larimer and Weld counties. Wood co-founded the Northern Colorado Business Report in 1995 and served as publisher of the Boulder County Business Report until the two publications were merged to form BizWest in 2014. From 1990 to 1995, Wood served as reporter and managing editor of the Denver Business Journal. He is a Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder. He has won numerous awards from the Colorado Press Association, Society of Professional Journalists and the Alliance of Area Business Publishers.
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