Top Ten Reasons To Love Boulder

I fell in love with the outdoors while in school at Virginia Tech. The campus was surrounded by the Appalachian Trail and the amazing Blue Ridge Mountains. We camped and hiked almost every weekend. I couldn’t get enough.

After returning to the DC area upon graduation in late 1995, I knew I wouldn’t be there long. Having grown up there for 20 years, I was ready for a change and the city-life wasn’t cutting it.

In the summer of 1997 I came out to Boulder on a business trip and I fell in love with the town, the people, the access to the outdoors, the weather and well, all of it, really.

I then moved to Boulder on December 1st of 1997.

The reasons that people move to Colorado vary of course, and I acknowledge fully that Boulder is far from perfect in many ways. It’s become expensive in Boulder proper (though surrounding areas remain approachable), it’s somewhat homogenous and it’s City Council is confusing, but Boulder remains a very special place to a lot of us.

In honor of Boulder Startup Week 2018 (and David Letterman’s old-school Top Ten List), I thought I’d put together a list of some of the reasons folks love Boulder so much.

We welcome your thoughts on what Boulder means to you, and be sure to stop us on Pearl Street during #BSW18!

Top Ten Reasons To Love Boulder

10- It’s a Startup Mecca, period. From 2011-2017, Boulder had the heaviest density, per capita, in the nation, for high growth companies. Startups accounted for much of that. That’s seriously impressive. This article- How Boulder became America’s Startup Capital by Inc, Magazine story, gives a lot of context on how we got here.

9- Bikes, bike lanes and bikers. Boulder embraces biking like no other town I’ve ever seen. It’s ranked number two in the country, for mid size municipalities, for bikers- and for good reason.

8- The Music Scene– Boulder and Colorado’s music scene has really come into it’s own. That’s not a hard thing to believe in a college town full of artsy, smart(sy?)people. It doesn’t hurt that (IMHO) the best amphitheater in the world, Red Rocks, is 20 minutes away, and the bustling nightlife in Denver isn’t far either.

7- It’s Heaven for Foodies. Boulder has long been known to be home to nationally renown restaurants like Frasca and Kimbal Musk’s Kitchen – but there is so much more to find on and off Pearl. I can’t wait to find a new favorite happy place.

6- Delicious Beer (and ciders, meads and spirits). A close cousin to the Foodie movement- is the Craft Brewing movement. Colorado is home to more than 330 breweries, with 100+ applications to start new ones, in process, which is second only to California in the US. The progenitor of craft-beer-in-a-can, Oskar Blues/Dale’s Pale, is located in Boulder County and Boulder has an abundance of delicious adult beverages made in and around town.

5- Smart people attract more smart people…apparently it’s magnetic-thing, or something like that. There is no denying the facts that a preponderance of smarty-pants are migrating to Colorado, and to Boulder in particular.

4- The great outdoors, the active and wellness centered lifestyle is embraced by most in Boulder. Access to skiing, hiking, biking, yoga, meditation retreats, whitewater rafting and more. As noted, this was actually number one on my list- Boulder’s Flatirons are a sight to behold and they are just the beginning of the access to National Forests, National Parks, Bureau of Land Management Open Space and more.

3- GREAT Coffee and Tea shops – Caffeine is your friend. I know it’s mine. There are some truly great coffee shops in Boulder including Trident, The Cup, Ozo and Boxcar.

2- The GiveFirst Ethos – It’s the real deal. When we first learned about the simplicity and elegant idea behind #GiveFirst as a business related philosophy in 2008, listening to David Cohen and Brad Feld from Techstars, we smacked ourselves in the head that we hadn’t been living by this ethos for years already. To give of yourself, your time, your expertise and your efforts with no expectation of anything in return- is truly a life-changing mentality. No joke. We built it into our DNA as an organization in 2010 and life has been a rocket-ship of goodness ever since.

1- Happiness – I’m not sure any of us really know what the definition of happiness truly is, but apparently Boulder is full of happy people. It’s hard to argue. Codementor also points specifically to Boulder as the happiest place for engineers in the country…

So, there you have it! Thanks for reading.

We welcome your thoughts and feedback, and we look forward to having an intellectual conversation about the meaning of it all, on Pearl Street, over coffee, followed by a great meal and an adult beverage- and perhaps some live music.

Cheers!

Dave and The TI Team

Categories: Featured, SponsorshipsBy admin May 8, 2018

Top Ten Reasons To Love Boulder

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