World must come to Feld’s door – or else

“If you’d like to have an in-person meeting with venture capitalist Brad Feld,” wrote the Harvard Business Review last month, “there’s only one place you can do it: Boulder.”

The decision to give up business travel entirely was a major one for Feld, the angel investor who co-founded venture-capital firm Foundry Group and startup accelerator TechStars. Both organizations have helped shatter the misperception that Boulder is unfriendly to business by propelling it to No. 1 nationally for density of high-tech startup companies. Feld told Inc. magazine that he used to travel for business 50 percent to 75 percent of the time but “I woke up one day in January and realized I couldn’t – and didn’t want to – do it anymore.”

Feld said he now relies on teleconferencing, using the Mezzanine system developed by Los Angeles-based Oblong Industries Inc., in which Feld’s Foundry Group has a stake.

An account of Feld’s decision in The Economist notes that “Mr. Feld is no dummy, and he’s not just benefitting emotionally and physically from dropping the business travel; he’s also winning great free publicity for Foundry.”

By extension, he’s conveying another message as well: If you’re in Boulder, why would you want to leave?

That consideration probably should apply to Colorado in general – especially given some new statistics released by WalletHub,com, a Virginia-based social network devoted to personal finance.

Its 2014 report on the “Best and Worst States to Be a Taxpayer,” released this month, analyzed how the 50 states and the District of Columbia compare with the national median in terms of 10 different categories of taxation, ranging from state and local income taxes to alcohol and telecom taxes. The study found Colorado tied for first place in the nation for lowest local income tax (none), lowest auto property tax (none) and lowest state food tax (none), and in 10th place for lowest real estate tax (0.63 percent.).

WalletHub ranks Colorado 10th overall for best tax climate, and 14th based on cost of living.

You can take a complete look at the rankings online at wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-taxes/2416 – a task that shouldn’t be too taxing either.

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