I’m sitting in Avanti, adjacent to the Boulder Theater, hiding in a back corner because I can’t seem to get a quiet, undisturbed spot to write this post. Downtown Boulder is filled with Techstars people here for Foundercon: alumni, executives, staff, mentors, and previous managing directors. I can’t walk 5 feet without seeing someone I haven’t seen in years. On Monday, over 30 ex-Managing Directors, unofficially called Techstars Mafia but officially called the Techstars MD Emeritus, gathered to share tips and help each other grow our funds (most of us run funds now, with a few operators and 2 bankers). It feels like déjà vu. With David Cohen back as CEO, hopeful, cautious optimism is the shared sentiment, with a sprinkling of other complex emotions for this org that we all loved. Love.
Shay (pronounced shy, but he’s definitely not shy) has raised capital, built teams from scratch, scaled products to millions of users, and experienced both the highs and lows of startup life. As Managing Partner of Techstars Boulder, he’s focused on helping founders navigate those same challenges — from finding product–market fit to building resilient teams to scaling without losing their edge. He brings both deep operating experience and strong ties across the startup ecosystem, here in Colorado and globally.
Most importantly, Shay is deeply aligned with our mission to keep Techstars rooted in this community while evolving it for what founders need today. He believes, as we do, that when incentives are aligned locally, we can spin the flywheel of growth and opportunity for the next generation of Colorado startups.
You will see a lot of Shay in the coming weeks, months, and years. Please help me welcome him to the role. Wrap your arms around him. Ask him “how can I help” and support him as he works to build an accelerator and community that reflects the best of Colorado’s startup spirit.
This is just the beginning, and we’ll have more to share soon. In the meantime, if you’re interested in getting involved as a mentor, investor, sponsor, or member of our future space, sign up here.
After two years of soul-searching, experimentation, and saying no to everything, I’m finally saying yes. I’ve joined Natty Zola, Ryan Broshar, and Shannon Shroyer at Matchstick Ventures. Like a moth to the flame (pun!), I’m getting back into venture capital.
That’s pretty much my news, short and sweet. However, I’ve had several people ask me how I’ve thought about this next chapter in my life (looking at you, Alex!) – so if you want to learn more about why Matchstick, and how I got here, keep reading.
What I Did During My Pause
After leaving Techstars in October 2022, I wasn’t ready to make any commitments or moves. I felt broken, exhausted, cynical, and incapable of making decisions. I needed space from venture, an industry that is broken itself. I needed to clear my head, to do nothing for a while and figure out what I wanted to do next. I promised myself I wouldn’t make any commitments for an entire year, and I estimated it would take me about 2 years to figure out what’s next. Luckily, I had the privilege of time.
In that timespan, I learned that I don’t idle well. (Who knew?! Don’t answer that.) I helped start Colorado’s first women’s professional soccer team, and I ran a 6-month performance program for early-stage founders. I traveled, biked, read, journaled, and wrote. I invested. I reorganized my whole financial world. I re-engaged as an active parent with my kids. I sit on 4 boards. I have a few consulting clients. I took a few classes (writing, coaching, AI). I ended up as busy as I was before, and I had no one to blame but myself. I have Jerry Colonna’s annoyingly insightful question in my head: “How am I complicit in creating the conditions I say that I don’t want?” Turns out, I DO want the conditions I say I don’t want. Or rather, I want what they represent. So this launched me into exploring what I actually want and don’t want.
I did a lot of reading during this exploration, but there are 2 books and exercises I’d like to highlight.
Designing My Life
The first book I read (well, re-read actually) was Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans, specifically the Odyssey Planning exercise. The goal was to come up with various versions of interesting careers, each option condensed to 1 piece of paper, and include some information to help make a decision. Here is my full list, for the curious – and don’t judge – you have your own list too!
Run an entrepreneurship center
Start a gym for people over 45 (I know, Boulder, gah…)
Start a software company (at that time it was around a CRM)
Start my own venture fund
Become a partner in a venture fund
Run a B&B in a tropical foreign country
Run a cohort-based program for early-stage founders
Become a writer, public speaker
Join an existing company as CxO
Own a professional sports team
Run a 15-bedroom house on a lake with a dock and a staff, a farm-to-table regenerative farm, sustainable energy generation, and a retreat for families and startups
Launch a think tank around social entrepreneurship
Start a town (yes! I even looked at buying an existing town, no not Schitz Creek)
University professor
Start a larger-scale co-living community
After a few months of diligence each plan, I discovered that some of those paths were things I romanticised about but didn’t actually want to do. Run a B&B in a foreign tropical place? OMG bugs & laundry! This exercise allowed me to dream, to figure out what I needed to do for next steps, to figure out what questions I needed to answer, and then confidently throw out potential versions of my life without having to wonder “what if”. If you’re in a time of transition, I highly recommend this exercise.
But Odyssey Planning alone didn’t do it.
Morning Pages and Facing Myself
The second exercise was to read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, a book from the 1990s about helping artists unblock and become more creative regularly and sustainably. (A strange choice, perhaps.) The unlock for me was the concept of Morning Pages, which was to write 3 pages every day, in a stream of consciousness format, longhand. Some days, I just vented. Many days had to-do lists (insight!). Some days, I had no idea what to write about, so I just wrote “what to write about” over and over again. I wrote 3 lines of a poem once and then spent the rest of the pages expounding on what a terrible poet I was and how much I love Shel Silverstein. I wrote a scathing letter to sugar. I found myself complaining a lot, over dumb stuff. Over time, some themes emerged that allowed me to redirect my own inner voice, or realize that when I verbalized something, it wasn’t that big of a deal, or that likely to happen. I could dream freely, identify what was energizing, what was infuriating, and what patterns were on repeat in my head. Morning pages were (are) magical for me.
Between Morning Pages and Odyssey Planning – I had themes. And I wrote those out in my Morning Pages to highlight what I wanted and what I didn’t want. Here’s a snapshot:
What I didn’t want:
To be by myself, to be solely responsible.
A boss, someone I had to go along with if it was against my values, a thing I couldn’t imprint upon, or any sort of power dynamics.
To be repetitive or heavily process-oriented.
To be distant from my family, mentally and physically. I only have a few years left with my kids at home. To be a slave to my calendar, to other people’s demands.
To be around people I don’t trust, who don’t trust me.
To be one of many.
To start from scratch, again.
What I did want:
Partners, equals, people that I love, know, and trust who are values and lifestyle aligned.
To be inventive, to experiment with “how to do it differently, better”. To challenge the status quo.
To be in charge of my calendar, to spend these last precious years with my kids.
To work in a zone of genius, something I can be best in the world at (turns out, that’s working with founders)
To be on the cutting edge of technology, the world is changing too fast to be in the stands and not the arena.
To learn, to grow, to be challenged.
To positively impact the world around me, to give back what I’ve been given 10x.
This list became a decision matrix, so as I explored each Odyssey Plan, I could evaluate it through that lens. I went deeper on some of those plans (like ‘own a professional sports team, run a cohort for founders, writer/speaker) – but they were lacking for me for various reasons.
One day, Natty called me up to talk about the Techstars Colorado reboot – and it just so happened that my Odyssey Plan of “Become a Partner in a Venture Fund” page was on top next to my desk. And as I was talking to Natty, the very famous TS Elliot quote popped into my head:
“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time”
TS Elliot
It became clear very quickly what move I should make.
Why Matchstick
All of the things I was looking for were right here in front of me, the whole time:
I’ve known Natty and Ryan for over a decade. We worked together closely at Techstars, so we have deep trust with each other.
I could have partners without power dynamics.
Natty and Ryan are eager to experiment, to challenge the status quo.
I can be in charge of my schedule, not have to live on planes, and be here for my kids for the next couple of years.
I can work in my zone of genius, with founders, investing in teams and helping them succeed – and this translates directly to economics for the founders, our investors, and me.
There is nothing repetitive about venture investing – each company and deal is unique.
I will be constantly learning and growing every day.
I can have a platform to be highly impactful in a positive way, not only in venture, but to startups, the people they hire, and our communities. Startups are a key leverage point for change in the world.
That brings us to today. I am so grateful Natty and Ryan are willing to give this a shot, to take a chance. Bringing on a new person in a small firm can be very disruptive, and I’m not exactly a wallflower. But I am sensitive to what they’ve built and will hold sacred what works, while helping to uplevel what can be improved. I aim to be a multiplier. I want to be one of the best in the world at this, I think I can be – and if that works, it can multiply my impact and allow me to still do some of the options in my Odyssey Plans that I haven’t yet crossed out.
So watch out world, I’m baaaack. If you are a founder between the coasts with an innovative approach to a problem or an opportunity using technology, and you have some product developed and some early signs of market interest, reach out. Let’s make something exceptional together.
A little less than 2 years ago, I joined Ben Hubbard, Tom Dunmore, and Jordan Angeli at ForDenverFC, an effort to bring women’s professional soccer to Colorado. And today, that dream is realized!
My story began with the nudging of a friend Jaclyn Hester, who suggested I watch the Angel City documentary. In that video, there’s a scene where Abby Wambach is interviewed about receiving the ESPY Icon Award, next to Kobe Bryant and Peyton Manning. She laments that instead of feeling pride in what her accomplishments have brought her, she felt rage at not entering into retirement with a similar financial situation as Kobe and Peyton. While she didn’t begrudge them their success, she couldn’t understand why she didn’t have similar opportunities as those two, in spite of similar career accomplishments. And honestly, I got angry. Angry for Abby, angry for female athletes, and just angry for women in general. Any woman who sees that video should be angry. So I started digging.
At that time, there was not one women’s professional anything in Colorado, despite Denver boasting 6 men’s professional teams. How can that be in such an athletic, pro sports state? If I was going to start a women’s professional sport team here, it just had to be soccer. While other sports could make sense, soccer has a much more global presence, and the US Women’s National Team has been ranked #1 for most of the last 10 years. So our ladies win on the global scale, where men’s soccer is ‘meh’ globally. Even more impressive, Colorado is well represented in the starting lineup for the USWNT, which means we’re producing the best talent globally right here in CO, but they can’t play here because we don’t have a team? Insane! So let’s start a women’s soccer team!
I got connected to Ben Hubbard, Tom Dunmore, & Jordan Angeli who had been working towards this goal for a little under a year and we started ForDenverFC – a grassroots effort to pull together Colorado’s first women’s pro soccer team. We recruited a contingent of almost 150 ForDenverFC Ambassadors who organized community events around Colorado to help spread the word. Together, we made huge strides on the marketing and community front, the facilities front, and the financing front. Together we identified Rob Cohen as an ideal anchor owner for this effort, and were delighted (if not surprised!) by how quickly and eagerly he said yes. Rob stepped in and brought the dedication, heft, resources, and influence to get the effort over the line. We couldn’t have done this without Rob!
So Colorado – I am so excited to share with you that ForDenverFC has realized it’s dream. Presenting – Denver NWSL!
Back in March, I wrote about the departure of Techstars Boulder, and on the back of the Foundry announcement, it became clear that we, as the Colorado startup community, needed to evolve and step up. For those of us who have been around a while, we remember what it was like in the early days – we knew how magical it was. People, whether representing themselves or representing different entities, got together to help the founders succeed. From mentors to law firms to CU to individuals to investors, we all participated. We were small then and could fit into one room (hello Wolf Law!), everyone knew everyone else, and we often hung out socially and had a ton of fun together. But we all had one thing in common, we wanted to help startups succeed and believed that a rising tide raises all ships.
But today isn’t like it was back then. Colorado is different. We are different. Those of us OGs are older now, there are awesome new people here, the startup ecosystem is bigger, and it needs to change and evolve. We, as a startup community, need to keep what made it magical but evolve to accommodate different times, markets, and talents.
Well, we’ve been working on just that. In part of a broader plan, I’m pleased to share that I, along with Natty Zola, David Cohen, and support from others along the way (you know who you are) have worked to launch a Techstars accelerator program experiment here in Colorado, leveraging what we know works, and trying to evolve some things that didn’t work. For example, this instance of Techstars will be locally owned, governed, and operated while still having access to the global Techstars resources. While Techstars will be an anchor investor, and David will sit on the board alongside me and Natty, the vast majority of the capital will be from the local ecosystem, governed by a local board of directors that Techstars influences but doesn’t control, with a staff that reports to this local entity. This allows the economic incentives to be fully aligned, to keep the returns and control here in Colorado, for Techstars to support the success of the local activity, and for the local program to take advantage of all that Techstars has built over the years. The accelerator has and can generate phenomenal outcomes when incentives are aligned, because when the returns are kept locally, it spins the flywheel of growing future companies here. Techstars got a lot right in the early days, and we plan to capitalize on that here, as the first community with this arrangement called Techstars Colorado, a startup community partnership.
But it doesn’t stop there, because Techstars was never the community, it was just a part of the community. In response to a ton of feedback that we need a place to gather, we are working to secure a building to be a nexus for this next generation of startups. Assuming we are successful (and are getting closer by the day!), it will house not only Techstars Colorado, but other venture funds, startups, founders, mentors, and organizations committed to helping startups succeed. We have big plans for support and resources for startups, not just at the pre-seed and seed stage, but well into the growth stages. Our goal isn’t to be the community here either, but rather to be an anchor in it, designed to live well beyond us and our influence, and to reunite the ecosystem so that we can raise the tide again here in Colorado.
It’s still early days, these things don’t happen overnight, and we will need the community (that’s you!) to step up to make this happen – which in today’s market isn’t an easy undertaking. But we have most of the key stakeholders committed and we anticipate launching sometime in 2025.
If you’re interested in getting involved, here’s what we are looking for!
Hire a Managing Partner to run Techstars Colorado (correct, I’m not running it). If you or someone you know has been a founder CEO or CTO of at least 1, ideally 2 venture-backed startups and are interested in investing, please click here for more information and to apply.
Office space or membership for a dedicated space for startups (likely in Boulder)
Investing in startups
Just would like to stay ‘in the know’
I’m excited to play a key part in uniting the startup community and helping Colorado take a key step forward in our own evolution. I’d love it if you joined us!
May 13th kicks off the 15th annual Boulder Startup Week 2024 – a volunteer-organized weeklong celebration and conference for startups in Colorado. It’s a free event (thanks to all the generous sponsors), with over a hundred sessions for every topic important to startups, and is designed to include anyone who wants to participate, while engaging the entire entrepreneurial stack.
Almost everyone I know in Boulder will be participating in some fashion, whether it’s presenting, attending, hosting, or sponsoring. The energy around town is palpable! There is a ton of great content, something for everyone so make sure you look through the whole schedule, and if you don’t see something that suits you, just come hang out. Serendipity is a powerful force when you put yourself in it’s flow.
I’m hosting 2 events and on 2 panels, so come find me:
And on the unofficial schedule (and shameless plug), on Friday after the happy hour, we’ll head over to the St. Julien at 6pm for a free concert by Peak2Peak – my husband’s band who does mostly Grateful Dead covers. Hula hoops and tie-dyes welcome, live music for the win!
For the past 48 hours, I’ve been fielding texts, calls, emails, and mentions, non-stop, due to the post from Techstars about Techstars 2.0, the closing of the Boulder accelerator program and others in key cities, and the shifting of the HQ to NYC from Boulder.
Techstars has been slowly changing and adapting over the years, and yes of course some of that makes me sad. Many of the best moments of my career and life were in the magical early years there. Techstars has been such a gift, not just to me, but to all the early communities.
We all bonded not just over the mission of the company, but over its values. We lived, ate, and breathed the values of the company – and what made Techstars so remarkable was we believed we could not only create shareholder value, but instill VALUES alongside it. Everyone close to the company, alumni and employees alike, they still carry those values and work to uphold them personally. And it’s why I believe the reaction to the news has been so strong!
But Techstars needs to evolve, it needs to iterate, it needs to reinvent itself because what works on a local community level is very difficult, dare I say impossible, to pull off on a global scale. The values haven’t changed, but how they execute them has to.
I say this as I think about my daughter who is turning 14 shortly, and is one of the reasons I left Techstars back in 2022; I wanted to spend more time with her before she leaves for college. When she leaves, I will be indescribably sad, unbelievably nostalgic, but also incredibly proud of her as I watch her reinvent herself, as I watch her evolve and grow. She’s going to leave ‘home’ in search of her next chapter, but her roots will always remain here in Boulder, here with me. And when she leaves, it’s then time for me and my husband to reinvent ourselves too. For everything, there is a season.
So go Techstars, go reinvent yourself, go create the 2.0 version that kicks the 1.0 version’s ass. Thank you for all you’ve given us, for showing us what’s possible, and for paving the way. Please keep spreading those values far and wide, and remember always where you came from.
And for all the communities that feel vacant now – it’s a chance for us to reinvent ourselves too. We can reignite that entrepreneurial spirit that’s true to our communities and not in service of anything else. We’re already working on it in Boulder.
In a post I wrote last year, I hinted at a couple of projects I’ve been working on – and I’m excited to share one with you now.
Along with my partners Ben Hubbard (the entrepreneur), Tom Dunmore (the professional sport and soccer expert), and Jordan Angeli (a previous NWSL player) – we’ve launched ForDenverFC – an effort to win a women’s professional soccer team expansion slot here in Colorado. This is Ben’s vision, joined by Tom, then Jordan, then me.
Why soccer? Good question – especially since I don’t know much about professional sports and my soccer career was limited to one season as a kiddo, one season on a club team in college, and a couple of seasons as a spectator when my daughter played.
I was introduced to the concept by my friend Jaclyn Hester over at Foundry Group, who urged me to watch the Angel City FC documentary on HBO. Two things stood out for me; first was one of the founders of Angel City, Kara Nortman, who is a female VC, not unlike me. The second was this scene with Abby Wambach (please watch it!) who was reminiscing about getting an ESPY Icon award on stage alongside Kobe Bryant and Peyton Manning. In that scene, she was lamenting that she should have felt proud because she accomplished everything these other titans of sport had accomplished; but rather she felt rage because she had a job interview because she couldn’t afford health insurance or her mortgage. She didn’t begrudge them their financial success – she just didn’t have the same financial opportunities even though she accomplished the same level of mastery. I hope that clip boils your blood as it did mine.
Abby’s frustration was an inspiration to me, just like the founders of Angel City, and pretty much any other female who has watched that clip. So I started looking into women’s pro sports teams. Did you know that as of this writing, Colorado has all 5 professional sports? Football (the Broncos), baseball (The Rockies), basketball (The Nuggets), hockey (The Avalanche), and soccer (The Rapids). We even have a lacrosse team (The Mammouth) – which makes 6 men’s teams. But not a single women’s professional sport? And this is in the heart of a demographic who loves their sports!
Also, weren’t the female soccer players in the US head and shoulders above the men in terms of wins? In fact, the US Women’s National Team has been called the most successful in international women’s soccer, winning 4 Olympic Gold Medals, 4 World Cup titles, and 9 CONCACAF Gold Cup titles. Furthermore, the team was ranked #1 consecutively from 2009 – 2014. The men’s team doesn’t hold a candle to the women’s performance (sorry dudes).
Furthermore, the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL, the premier league in the US) has 19 players from Colorado. Three star players from the US Women’s National Team call Colorado home. Colorado is producing talent that can not only play on a national level but win on a global level – and they can’t even play here? Additionally, women’s pro teams are decades behind their male counterparts in terms of equity values (how much the teams are worth) – but women’s sports are catching up FAST when it comes to viewership.
So, yes. Let’s help fix that, shall we? I’m not one to look backward or hash out all the reasons why this is the case – but I love to be part of solutions. So when I started looking into what it would take to launch a team, Ben, Tom, and Jordan’s efforts emerged, and I’ve been lucky enough to be included in the effort.
The great news is that we’ve assembled a killer team of owners whose vision aligns with ours. Furthermore, we have a world-class team of support (legal, facilities, consultants, marketing, etc) to help us put together a winning bid. We’re up against some stiff competition, but we have a real shot at this and we’re going to need Colorado’s broader support to win it.
Want to get involved?
Sign up for our email list – the more signups we have, the more the league sees how we can mobilize a community into season and regular ticket holders. The NWSL wants teams playing in full stadiums to a passionate fanbase!
Come to a watch party! It’s where we gather the community to watch women’s pro soccer and talk about the update to our bid process. Plus you get to hang out with cool people, like me (cough cough).
If you *really* want to get involved and have ~5 hours a month to volunteer, consider joining the existing 100+ FDFC Ambassadors.
Follow ForDenverFC on X, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn and please retweet and reshare our content to help spread the word.
If you run a soccer club or team anywhere in Colorado, we’d love to know you. Reach out!
And if none of that is your jam, try attending any women’s sporting event. I don’t even care what it is – but let’s sell out all women’s sports here in CO. High school sports are fun to attend and the area universities have a robust lineup of women’s athletics. In fact, one of the best basketball games I ever saw was a women’s game at CU. The tickets are affordable, it’s a great outing with the family, and it helps instill a culture of supporting women’s sports.
A small crew of ForDenverFC Ambassadors gathered in San Diego to watch the National Championships in November 2023.
I have a crystal clear vision in my head of sitting at the Colorado season opener, in our dedicated stadium, with my daughter beside me, along with all other young girls and boys in Colorado, excited for them to see what women can do, both on and off the pitch, and feeling humbled to be part of the FDFC journey. It might not work. We might not win the bid. It’s going to be a ton of work with no guaranteed outcome. But for me, this effort isn’t just about soccer, but about all women’s professional athletics, and more broadly giving women the same opportunities as our male counterparts. I hope you join me.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
African Proverb
I’ve always loved this quote.
Last week, I kicked off a program for venture-backable early-stage founders in Colorado. I have 14 CEOs participating in 2 groups that meet every other week for 3.5 hours for 6 months. This program was designed to help them go farther together and is an experiment I’m running to see whether or not the framework I’ve developed can help them move the needle on performance.
That’s 14 founders of startups who believed in what I’m trying to do, who signed up for an experiment that takes significant time and effort on their part, with no guaranteed outcome. When I let myself think about it, it’s humbling, daunting even, and I feel so incredibly lucky and grateful to have pulled such a winning lotto ticket.
This effort is the culmination of a lifetime of stars aligning, 20 years of professional experience, 10+ years of rumination, and 4 months of running at it as hard as I could. But really, it’s the culmination of a network of people who have helped me go far, rather than just go fast.
I’m not going to talk about the program today, rather, because I’m feeling sappy, I just wanted to take a moment to sincerely and publicly thank those who have been so helpful these last 4 months in the background. May we all have those who help us get farther than we ever could alone.
If you’re an entrepreneur interested in raising venture capital, or maybe you’re an individual looking to get into venture capital, I cannot recommend this course enough. When I was learning venture, the book Venture Deals was my bible, and luckily I had the authors Jason & Brad to call as friends. Now it’s been turned into a free course thanks to the effort of the Kauffman Fellows and Techstars, and I was honored to be included as part of the team.
The course starts on February 22nd, and it’s free – no strings attached.
I’ve known the founders of Simple Energy, Yoav Lurie & Justin Segall since 2011, when they accepted my offer to go through the Techstars program in Boulder. Back then, they were driven, focused, intelligent, and passionate about changing the face of the energy industry. I was hooked. Over the years, I stayed in touch with the founders, watching them evolve from a startup to a well-run company whose customer base features some of the country’s largest energy utility companies. They had raised a bunch of capital from investors like us (Techstars), Vision Ridge, and Westley Group.
Nearly Nicole 