Today kicks off the 9th annual Boulder Startup Week! Join in 250 free and open events building community.

View the Boulder Startup Week schedule & directory.

Two big events coming up in the next week in Boulder:

#1 is TEDxBoulder. Theme is Rise & Fall. There is an absolutely amazing speaker lineup. A few tickets are still available.

The next event is Ignite Boulder #36. It has been 10 years since the first Ignite Boulder and we are excited to celebrate some amazing events and years. Tickets here.

A huge thank you goes out to all the volunteers that make these glider.com events possible.

One year ago today Origin was founded!

Today, it launched onto Mainnet after raising $38M, building a world class team, and having a lot of fun along the way.

That is one bold year. 

I’ve often described Origin as a series of protocols that will help you launch sharing economy style applications on blockchain. You can see that in this Mainnet Beta. You can check it out live in our DApp playground where we have listings, messaging, identity, and booking. You can all that out in the demo here.

Have fun decentralizing.

I love when friends launch companies. I don’t like when friends are working on launching, I like when they go live just like I love golfing, not the thought of golfing.

My old friend Alex started talking about golf a lot on Facebook a few years ago. There are a few people I follow that talk about golf but for the most part discussion on the sport is about professional players but very few focus on the mass majority that just like to play.

As Alex puts it on the GolfTank instagram:

The Place For Details About The Newest:
• Golf Clubs ?????
• Golf Shoes ?
• Golf Tech?
• Golf Gear ??

So they are launching with a rolling raffle (of a souped up customer loyalty program) which is a very interesting way to kickstart the company. The main prize is a golf trip of your dreams. Cost to be a member / per ticket is $99 and comes with a dozen ProV1 balls and a few other gifts.

So as far as a review I’d say I’m thrilled that he is doing this. He has been around the game for years and is just honestly talking about why he loves it from what is on TV to getting out and getting a round in this week. The weekly instagram live chats are really informative. I bought a ticket for $99 (and that came with $50 of balls) and won a tee time for 4 already… so of course I love it. Support a fun project, stay for the community, and make sure to get out there and play. Enter for your chance to win at GolfTank.

This post isn’t sponsored, I just like Alex and what he is doing. I’d love to see it as a huge success!

If you want to golf, send me an email or contact me on twitter.

One of the joys of Boulder is the amazing talent and creativity here. Last year Pesha Rudnick spoke at TEDxBoulder with the bold idea that local theater is dangerous.

The new play is a musical, taking place at Trident. I’ve long loved Local Theater Company and this new play is stunning. Discount Ghost Stories is the musical and this is the world premier!

“These are ghost stories as you’ve never heard them. A lovesick miner, a legendary outlaw, a radical pioneer and an eclectic posse of phantom musicians make up Discount Ghost Stories, a unique musical experience weaving Rocky Mountain tales of life, death, and the beyond. Grab a cold brew from the bar, and immerse yourself in forgotten Colorado lore and original rock tunes under the stars at Trident Booksellers and Café.”

Buy your tickets to Discount Ghost Stories here. I’m going to the Wednesday the June 19th showing, all friends should too.

10 years ago we started this idea of a radically open and inclusive event to help people check out what it would be like to start, grow, or work for a startup.

The first year had 55 events in 5 days with a budget of $500. This year, 10 years later, we have 501c3 status, a massive volunteer group, and over 350 events. We have more volunteers this year than the 2009 event had attendees.

Wild to see how things grow.

Make sure to check out the entire 2019 Boulder Startup Week schedule.

Enjoy a photo from the first event:

Saturday, June 1st, 2019, TEDxBoulder returns for an amazing night at Chautauqua. I’m super proud of this lineup:

Tickets are on sale now.

Solana, the worlds most performant blockchain, announced a validator event.

This post is for my blockchain, cryptocurrency, and ethereum friends. Solana is putting on an event that is really interesting for validators: Tour de SOL:

We’re excited to announce Solana’s incentivized testnet event – Tour de SOL! Inspired by Cosmos’ Game of Stakes, we want to offer our validator community an opportunity to flex their validation skills, earn tokens, and help strengthen the Solana network as we approach mainnet launch.

There are 7 key innovations that make the Solana network possible:

• Proof of History (POH)— a clock before consensus;
• Tower BFT — a PoH-optimized version of PBFT;
• Turbine — a block propagation protocol;
• Gulf Stream — Mempool-less transaction forwarding protocol;
• Pipeline VM— Parallel smart contracts run-time;
• Cloudbreak — Horizontally-Scaled Accounts Database; and
• Replicators — Distributed ledger store

One of the most amazing tech projects of 2019 has to be Kong- Physical Crypto Cash. I met them in Japan while they debuted their project. Both physically and visually jaw dropping this physical bill contains a chip set that helps you verify the legitimacy of the currency. At a certain period the physical cash becomes worthless and the digital equivalent becomes the way to manage it.

The Kong project proposes a novel way to create sound physical cryptocurrency, or more appropriately crypto cash. There are two primary goals for Kong: (1) achieve a form factor that is conducive to circulation for the purchase of goods and services and (2) minimize the trust required in the issuer of crypto cash given the current state of the art in secure computing. Kong notes don’t store cryptocurrency directly, but rather are backed by cryptocurrency in a trustless fashion through smart contracts. The holder of a Kong note can transparently audit – and ultimately access – the digital cryptocurrency based on a predefined set of conditions.

Read the full paper here.

Nullius in Verba.

Amazing times. Depressing times. Times of opportunity, and absolute tragedy.

I’m a co-owner of Trident Booksellers & Cafe in Boulder, Colorado. With the unbelievable spread of COVID-19 we have been forced to close the bookstore. The cafe remains open for takeaway. How do we keep a storefront open when we just can’t be what we used to be? A lot of businesses are being asked the same question right now, perfectly highlighted with Sean O’Neill’s short film:

So what is Trident doing? We are selling books online. Mystery packs. You get 5 books picked out by us with coffee or tea for just $50. We made the ask to the community to support us in this way and I’m just grateful for all the support we have received.

If you are needing some amazing books in your life, let me know. It is an amazing time right now. As Peter said in the video “it is like we all got thrown into a gameshow where we had to launch a new business in 24 hours.” We had to get creative and the mystery packs was Step 1 of saving the business.

We are so excited to support our neighbors through these times.

The Boulder Startup Week 2020 schedule just launched and I’m excited to share it!

This year, as you can see by the logo, is quite different from the past. All online. No in person events.

Kinda crushing. Kinda what we need to do as our part. I’m ok with it. Looking forward to seeing everyone again.

See you all next week!

Just got an exciting email that the Mystery Bag project I led at Trident (I’m no longer an owner as of June!) just won a Silver in the Service – Community category for the 2020 New York Design Awards!

2020 has been a year of super highs and super lows… and I’m just going to take this as a super nice high.

What a fun time to rise up and try to save a local icon of a shop.

Today kicks off the 9th annual Boulder Startup Week! Join in 250 free and open events building community.

View the Boulder Startup Week schedule & directory.

Two big events coming up in the next week in Boulder:

#1 is TEDxBoulder. Theme is Rise & Fall. There is an absolutely amazing speaker lineup. A few tickets are still available.

The next event is Ignite Boulder #36. It has been 10 years since the first Ignite Boulder and we are excited to celebrate some amazing events and years. Tickets here.

A huge thank you goes out to all the volunteers that make these glider.com events possible.

I love when friends launch companies. I don’t like when friends are working on launching, I like when they go live just like I love golfing, not the thought of golfing.

My old friend Alex started talking about golf a lot on Facebook a few years ago. There are a few people I follow that talk about golf but for the most part discussion on the sport is about professional players but very few focus on the mass majority that just like to play.

As Alex puts it on the GolfTank instagram:

The Place For Details About The Newest:
• Golf Clubs ?????
• Golf Shoes ?
• Golf Tech?
• Golf Gear ??

So they are launching with a rolling raffle (of a souped up customer loyalty program) which is a very interesting way to kickstart the company. The main prize is a golf trip of your dreams. Cost to be a member / per ticket is $99 and comes with a dozen ProV1 balls and a few other gifts.

So as far as a review I’d say I’m thrilled that he is doing this. He has been around the game for years and is just honestly talking about why he loves it from what is on TV to getting out and getting a round in this week. The weekly instagram live chats are really informative. I bought a ticket for $99 (and that came with $50 of balls) and won a tee time for 4 already… so of course I love it. Support a fun project, stay for the community, and make sure to get out there and play. Enter for your chance to win at GolfTank.

This post isn’t sponsored, I just like Alex and what he is doing. I’d love to see it as a huge success!

If you want to golf, send me an email or contact me on twitter.

One of the joys of Boulder is the amazing talent and creativity here. Last year Pesha Rudnick spoke at TEDxBoulder with the bold idea that local theater is dangerous.

The new play is a musical, taking place at Trident. I’ve long loved Local Theater Company and this new play is stunning. Discount Ghost Stories is the musical and this is the world premier!

“These are ghost stories as you’ve never heard them. A lovesick miner, a legendary outlaw, a radical pioneer and an eclectic posse of phantom musicians make up Discount Ghost Stories, a unique musical experience weaving Rocky Mountain tales of life, death, and the beyond. Grab a cold brew from the bar, and immerse yourself in forgotten Colorado lore and original rock tunes under the stars at Trident Booksellers and Café.”

Buy your tickets to Discount Ghost Stories here. I’m going to the Wednesday the June 19th showing, all friends should too.

10 years ago we started this idea of a radically open and inclusive event to help people check out what it would be like to start, grow, or work for a startup.

The first year had 55 events in 5 days with a budget of $500. This year, 10 years later, we have 501c3 status, a massive volunteer group, and over 350 events. We have more volunteers this year than the 2009 event had attendees.

Wild to see how things grow.

Make sure to check out the entire 2019 Boulder Startup Week schedule.

Enjoy a photo from the first event:

Saturday, June 1st, 2019, TEDxBoulder returns for an amazing night at Chautauqua. I’m super proud of this lineup:

Tickets are on sale now.

One of the most amazing tech projects of 2019 has to be Kong- Physical Crypto Cash. I met them in Japan while they debuted their project. Both physically and visually jaw dropping this physical bill contains a chip set that helps you verify the legitimacy of the currency. At a certain period the physical cash becomes worthless and the digital equivalent becomes the way to manage it.

The Kong project proposes a novel way to create sound physical cryptocurrency, or more appropriately crypto cash. There are two primary goals for Kong: (1) achieve a form factor that is conducive to circulation for the purchase of goods and services and (2) minimize the trust required in the issuer of crypto cash given the current state of the art in secure computing. Kong notes don’t store cryptocurrency directly, but rather are backed by cryptocurrency in a trustless fashion through smart contracts. The holder of a Kong note can transparently audit – and ultimately access – the digital cryptocurrency based on a predefined set of conditions.

Read the full paper here.

Nullius in Verba.