FoCo Startup Week Preview: Improv, mental health, scale-up day and more

FORT COLLINS — This year’s Fort Collins Startup Week takes a deeper look at how small business owners can scale without sacrificing their mental health, alongside a slew of other panels on how to succeed in the Northern Colorado startup sector.

Organizer Jana Sanchez said this year’s event has a few tweaks based on surveys of the city’s entrepreneurial scene, including a 15-minute quiz to tell visitors what sessions would best fit their needs. 

The third annual Pitch No.CO competition is also set to run through three rounds on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday nights between 12 startups vying for more than $40,000 in outside services. (Editor’s note: BizWest is a sponsor of Fort Collins Startup Week and publisher Jeff Nuttall is a judge for the pitch contest.)

Here’s what else is shaking out to be major themes for the week:

Freelancer focus and Scale-up Wednesday

Sanchez said a large portion of the week’s patrons are either freelancers or small business owners wanting to grow their businesses after establishing the basics and building a revenue stream, making that the focus for several events during the week.

“We have a lot of solopreneurs and freelancers here who are trying to build six to seven-figure businesses, so we’ve refocused specifically to make sure they have sessions and tools to help them do that,” she said.

Wednesday’s events are pointed entirely toward companies that are already pulling in $100,000 or more per year and looking to reach the seven-figure mark. That day will be capped off by a keynote from Charles Fred, founder of Denver scale-up incubator TrueSpace.

Improv for creativity

This year’s slate includes three sessions showing how startup owners can apply the skills of improv theater to business, mental health and overall communication. It follows in the footsteps of last year’s ArtUp Week events for workers in Fort Collins’ creative services industry in an effort to show how right-brain creative thinking can intermingle with hard business skills.

“Improv is a brilliant way to help you figure out how to handle sales calls,” Sanchez said.

Mental health for solo businesses

Startup Week is also dotted with events focused on helping business owners figure out how to handle the particular stressors of running their own operations. A survey by the Canadian Mental Health Association last summer suggests nearly half of entrepreneurs there have some sort of mental health issue that affects their ability to work, and more than 60 percent of respondents said they feel depressed at least once a week.

Sanchez said those sessions will focus on self-care, addressing impostor syndrome and managing or preventing burnout.

For the full event schedule, visit https://startupfoco.com/schedule/.

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