Part of my EIR with LaunchVic in Melbourne, Victoria has been meeting with anyone who wants to meet to get a better feel for the community.

One of the more interesting meetings was with the entrepreneurs from Geelong. “Where is Geelong?” was my first question. I’m not from here and it shows. Geelong is a 45 minute drive from Melbourne and is on the other side of the bay. In Australia it is well known.

“How would I find you if I was new to Geelong?” was my first question. Later that day they set up a home for startups in Geelong.  It’s a home for news and celebratory points from the community. Share the wins of other companies and big moments of the community. It’s a welcoming place to let you know that there are others just like you. If you are a startup community you should have something like this that 1) is positive 2) is unowned, and 3) has a direct way to get involved (next meetup time).

“How do I know what is going on in Geelong?” was question #2. They invited me to a monthly founders dinner where 10 startup founders met and shared goals, hardships and wins. Being a startup founder is super tough and doing it alone is a suicide mission (source: I’ve been a solo founder). I attended this event. It’s hard to be in that room and not think of the early days in Boulder with a handful of founders and an “it can happen here because we say it can happen here” attitude.

“Is there really a movement here?” was my final big question. For one, they have a well funded quality accelerator from LaunchVic and others named Runway. They have a monthly dinner series run by Max Bush and funded by Nick Stanley. Those 10 startups that show up every month are welcoming and supporting of the realities of their efforts. I’m not sure if you will see 100 or 1000 founders come out of Geelong over the next few years but you are seeing an incredibly solid building block for them to succeed from.

In the end, that is all you could wish for.

I’m a fan. Keep up the amazing work Geelong.

 

I’ve always had a love for bikes.

When I moved to Boulder after college I had $300 to my name and a bit of that went to a 1984 Schwinn World Sport vintage bike. I rode thousands of miles on that beauty and fell in love with the town through that view.

This week I take off on the longest bike trip I’ve ever taken: a ride across the United States. I’ll do 3053.5 miles through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia (a very small section), and Florida. It has been on my goals list for a while and I’m excited to attempt it.

I’m heading off with Jeremy LaTasse from Berkley, California. We are planning to ride 70-120 miles a day and thanks to his wife Neen, will be able to have a supported ride. We are going for a fun > fast ride. Here is the general route:

General schedule:

San diego	April 20
Phoenix	April 25
El Paso	May 1
Del Rio	May 7 (then a break to go back to Boulder for 5 days)
Navasota	May 12
Baton Rouge	May 22
Defuniak Springs	May 28
St. Augustine	June 2

We’re raising money for a great non profit in Humanwire. I’ll put a link here when we have it.

When I tell people about the trip, I get two general reactions:
1) Why the hell would you do that?
2) I’ve always wanted to do that! What a dream trip!

I’m feeling both emotions a few days before the trip starts.

Here is to bikes, friends, epic journeys, and risk that makes life beautiful.

I just completed a big project of riding a bicycle across the USA with my friend Jeremy LaTrasse. We started on April 20th in San Diego, California and completed the project May 26th in Jacksonville, Florida. What a ride indeed.

We raised over $15,000 for two charities, one in Humanwire and the other in the ARC of Houston.

The Setup

Before the ride I’d never really been a huge biker. I’d never ridden a bike on two consecutive days and had only done one ‘century’ or over 100 mile ride. I was going to ride more miles on this trip than I had ever, combined. This isn’t a story of a pro cyclist going for a big trip by any means. There was a love of bikes and a few friends that stepped up to make it happen.

On December I posted a message online saying:

Jeremy replied and we were both cautiously talking dates and ‘in’. Jeremy and I had met via a friend for coffee, twice. We had never ridden a bicycle together, even for a mile. Looking back it is quite a trust first decision to go with Jeremy, but that is the theme of the trip looking back. Four months after posting online about the project we met up in San Diego to start.

I have to list the great friends who have introduced bike touring to me. Ryan Van Duzer, Zack Hale and Dan Pierson.

What Went Right

We chose our route based on time of year and weather. Starting in late April we were just on the bubble of ‘it might get too hot here’ going through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and the south. We lucked out and only had two days where we had to sag based on the weather conditions being too extreme (105 and up we decided it was just not worth it to ride).

Neen was our sag wagon support vehicle. Nothing short of a heroic effort to have support on a long ride and I can’t thank her enough. She had a knack of showing up with perfect timing. Because of Neen, we didn’t have to carry our full gear on our bikes and were able to focus on the road. Here is Neen at White Sand Dunes.

Jeremy was an amazing rider and I learned a ton throughout the trip from him. He also has one of the most interesting professional careers out there and was super interesting to chat with.

We were flexible and took great riding opportunities over strict project definitions resulting in a few stunning rides that I’ll never forget. Jeremy was a huge aviation nerd and I happened to know someone that gave us an amazing tour of an Air Force base (thanks Pete and Carrie).

One of the best happy mistakes was made when looking for a better route across Texas. We didn’t have a first few days and kept on running into dangerous miles and went online to check and see if there were any routes to know about. We didn’t find that but did find a charity ride taking off from Houston to New Orleans that turned out to be a huge highlight of the trip. We went from two guys riding near each other to being in 6 person pacelines with police escorts. It was a fun way to celebrate the halfway mark and we got to support an amazing charity.

I absolutely loved Skratch Labs for nutrition. I was sweat tested during training for this trip and I found that I need 600mg of sodium per bottle of loss throughout the ride. Skratch Labs Lime was our favorite and I was on top of drinking a bottle an hour and with two loaded bottles of Skratch I could get though the majority of the day with just one loading. I’d finish the day with their Chocolate Recovery Mix and found that to be the key to a good next day. I’d do two scoops or 400 calories to help with the glycogen reload.

What I Wish I Knew

Most of what I wish I knew came from just getting miles and experience under my belt.

• The traffic was actually quite nice and predictable. Commercial trucks were, well, professionals about it. They gave us plenty of room and didn’t pass in dangerous situations. Trucks are odd characters as we only saw them on the highway. Highway trucks are weird. “Tough guy” was our response to an aggressive driver showing off the vehicle they paid a few years of salary for. It was quite odd doing something quite hardcore (riding a bike 3000 miles) VS someone who was pressing their foot down to make an engine roar, on the highway.
• You have an hour after your ride to get protein and carbs in you to help your body recover and set up for the next day. Plan out your post ride meal or drink (see above with Skratch).
• When you stop riding, take off your bib and get dry immediately.
• Wear a clean jersey and bib everyday. I washed mine in the shower and hung it up to dry after ringing it out and rolling it up in a towel.
• Hydration. Super important.
  
• My bike turned out to be perfect for this trip. I had a 2016 Specialized Rouboiux and put on a pair of Specialized Armadillo tires. I started the trip with a pair of Continentals but felt much better with lighter tire.
  
• Nutrition and Seat Performance are 80% of the challenge. I lucked out and didn’t get sick the entire trip but Jeremy had his share of problems in Louisiana. We settled into eating early, then trying to have a meal at 10am and 1pm, and finish riding at 4pm. This was a classic “2nd Breakfast”
  
• Part of me wishes we did this project strictly and didn’t skip a mile but damn I’m happy to have completed it safely. Make sure to be on the same page with your group about when you should sag and when you should ride it out.
• Sometimes google maps is great, and sometimes it puts you on 10 miles of unpaved road towards the middle of nowhere.
  

Practical Tips for Riders Looking to Do a Big Ride

• You are going to have some days that just are not fun. This picture is me not enjoying a mile somewhere in Texas. That is a part of it.
• If you have not done a project like this I’d suggest going on a 5 day ride first. If you can do 5, you can do a bigger project with not really much more of a challenge.
• If you are planning our trip like this you can budget 10 MPH if you are fully loaded, 15 MPH if you are a strong rider and loaded, and 20 MPH if you are a strong rider with some support or are ‘credit carding’ your lodging. Do the math: 10 MPH x 10 hours = 100 miles. 20 MPH x 5 hours = 100 miles. 80-100 was our average day so we were able to end our rides about 1pm a few days.
  
• If you are looking to go cross country, Jeremy recommends doing a coast first. 3000 miles vs. 1500 miles and generally more interesting riding.
• The ACA routes are both amazing and maddening. When they are good they are super good but when the roads are shoulder-less and full of traffic they are where you take your anger out. They advocate for safe routes and I really should thank them for that (they don’t make the roads after all, just provide the best ish way through the long routes you want to go).
• Hemp CBD products like Clarify help recovery.

Five+ weeks later, we made it to the Atlantic. I said a few words to remember some great people that really pushed me to do big things like this.

Now, what is next?

Seems like everyone has been talking about CBD oil lately. TEDxBoulder had Josh Stanely of the Charlotte’s Web fame give a TEDxBoulder talk a few years ago and it has been growing on my radar since.

My friend runs a company that is an alternative to Charlotte’s Web selling CBD hemp oil online. I had one friend try it, then another… then it seemed everyone in my circle was using CBD in some way. It helps with sleep, anxiety and is anti inflammatory. Every time I talk about it with people there is the “it isn’t a miracle drug… but it kinda is.”

My friend Dagmara did a whole in depth write up on the health benefits of CBD oil.

CBD can be part of marijuana but it can be made from hemp. It is oddly treated as a controlled substance because the online community. Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, Reddit Ads have all rejected them from advertising. Running a company online with hemp is kinda impossible at this point, which is a drag because it could help so many people.

So I’ve been trying it. The 500mg CBD tincture is a daily dose for me. I use the CBD hemp solve for any injuries or even a sunburn. CBD from hemp (here is a CBD hemp oil 101) is quite amazing. Love seeing the entrepreneurship growing out of Colorado.

TEDxBoulder is happening this weekend. We sold out over a month ago with our fastest ticket sales rate in our 8 year history.

Show is at 4pm, doors open at 3pm. The TEDxBoulder site has a lot of the last minute details and meetups. 

Speakers include:

• Diane Sieber
• Kaley Klemp
• Isabel von Rittberg
• Laura Hockenbury
• Gia Medeiros
• Julie Comerford
• Sean Davis
• Erin Weed
• Peter Newton
• Kate Nicholson
• Yassmin Abdel-Magied
• Brenton Weyi
• Arthur Lee Land
• South Of France
• Ginny Mules
• Tania V. Chairez

The theme is Climate & Change.

As the seasons change we have another election in Boulder, the little mountain town that could.

I thought it would be good to sit down and endorse five candidates. The Boulder City Council is set up with 9 members, and 5 of them are up for grabs every two years. Oddly, this is a very progressive strategy for making sure Council is going in the right direction and can ‘flip’ at any election. I’ve been in Boulder since 2004 and have seen it in downturns and building booms. I’ve seen it in a few disastrous moments and glorious highs. I love it and love that it is home.

Daily Camera weighed in with their endorsement and I found the following paragraph in tune with the theme of the election:

We do not share the view that Boulder is going to hell in a handbasket. There is no question it has undergone a growth spurt since the last recession, in part based on pent-up demand from that slowdown. It could have done a better job encouraging creative design of new buildings that better fit their surroundings. We have high hopes that a new planning director, in concert with a new council, may improve this process.

There are two Boulders in my mind: pre-flood and post-flood. September 2013 was the moment when the City came together and helped each other unselfishly but also caused a ton of opportunity for rebuilding that, when matched with an economic boom, created a quick influence of new money and buildings.

I love Boulder being a place where you don’t have to be pushing your professional limits to survive. I like the arts and artists being given the room to breathe around concepts. I want the employees that work so hard making the downtown a great place to be to have the ability to live within the town.

This campaign is filled with fear. I hate that. I hate that we have people here who feel like they deserve more than others because they own a house or have a strong feeling on how a hotel should look. We should be as welcoming as possible and advocate for those that don’t match just how we are.

So, without fear, and with a bright view of the future of this amazing place, I endorse:

Jill Grano

Why Jill? She has been very active in policy in Boulder (Real Estate profession) and seems to have been the biggest community builder in the town around advocating for solutions that represent the sum of our parts. She also would be the first LGBT candidate on council in decades, and for a town without a gay bar, it would be a nice addition for those underrepresented.

Bill Rigler

Why Bill? Policy wonk with big world experience looking to give back in another way. Avid biker and also would be the only renter (non property owner) on council in a long time. Bill would be the broader connector on council with a bigger-than-town view but hyper-focus on the issues.

Eric Budd

Why Eric? 1) I’ve seen him biking around in multiple snowstorms. Tougher than me and I respect that. 2) Has a history of fighting for those new to town and those with lower incomes. 3) He might be the most Boulder person I’ve ever met who authentically likes policy and getting consensus.

Jan Burton

Why Jan? I think Jan and I are the most dissimilar of all the candidates I’m endorsing here and I like that. She reminds me of my all time favorite councilperson, Suzy Ageton, in her pragmatism. I love how she looks at the issues. She has been at several events and I really enjoy watching her really try to understand people and their issues.

Mark McIntyre

Why Mark? Daily Camera also endorsed him, saying he “wants to make Boulder as welcoming to newcomers as its aspirational rhetoric.” Boulder is only as strong as our newest member, let’s not ever forget that. He, with Budd and Rigler, are hosting a cyclists discussion on the issues. 

We are starting to post the videos from TEDxBoulder 2017 and this talk by Yassmin has got to be one of my favorites. It received a standing ovation from a crowd of 2200 and watch it to see just why:

More talks on the TEDxBoulder website.

My Ignite Boulder co organizer Mathew Sisson just released Ravine, a card game, and I highly reccomend it. I’ve known him for years though quite a few projects and this is simply my favorite. The Ignite Boulder organizers got to play it at a bar the other night and had a really fun time. It is collaborative, simple and even a bit challenging. A nice narrative game.

Looks like they reached their goal quickly, but still I’m chipping in. Join me?

I ran into long time Boulder friend Stan James the other day. He was just hired to lead the development on Origin Protocol. They are billing it as “The sharing economy without intermediaries” which is a very big, bold, audacious goal.

If you have spent time with me over the past few years I’ve always been trying to work on something about the notion of ‘future space booking’ or the concept of a reservation of time being a commodity without an open solution. We have these massive billion dollar companies that are simply helping you book something and making sure there is a customer service layer on top of it. Help me find an apartment to book and I’ll give you 6-12% of the booking in a fee so you can ensure that it is real and if it isn’t you will help me out. The sharing economy has played a huge roll in my last five years but it can do so much more. So much potential.

Enter blockchain.  

“We empower developers and businesses to build decentralized marketplaces on the blockchain. Our protocol makes it easy to create and manage listings for the fractional usage of assets and services. Buyers and sellers can discover each other, browse listings, make bookings, leave ratings and reviews, and much more.”

For all that new wealth created in bitcoin, how do you spend it? Beyond mining and investing how do you earn actual value?

Origin is super early on, but damn, if I can bet on a team and idea right now it would be them.

 

 

We are excited to announce our speakers for our 2018 Spring Event: Truth & Daring.

Spinphony

Phil Plait

Anahita Joon Tehrani

Gregg Deal

Aaron Stark

Liz Marasco

Shayn Bjornholm

Chelsea Rustrum

Cheri Felix

Susie Rinehart

Dan “Nitro” Clark

Dan Van der Vieren

Dave Krieger

Katie Breen

Jack Bonneau

What is real? How bold can you be? June 3, 2018 will be the Spring TEDxBoulder hosted at the amazing Chautauqua Auditorium. Tickets here.

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.