Today was Techstars Demo/Investor Day. The ten Techstars companies each presented their products and progress over the course of the summer.

For some, their progress was stunning, for others, it was disappointing.

It got me thinking about why. Why would some teams spend an entire summer, give up 6% of their company, be surrounded by dozens and dozens of mentors to finish the summer in pretty much the exact spot they started the summer?

Could it be that they lack passion? Are they just sending it in, thinking that at the end of the summer, there would be multiple investors waiting to give them hundreds of thousands of dollars just because they were in Techstars?

Here is what I came up with. They are too emotional. Too emotionally attached to either their idea, or their own pride at their ability to execute.

The difference between a person who starts a business and a real entrepreneur is the ability to separate passion from emotion.

Be passionate about the business. Be passionate about your team. Be passionate enough to get other people to become passionate. But dont get emotionally attached to any idea, product or even team member.

The path to failure is paved with emotional attachment.

If the only constant in a startup is a state of constant change, then the reality is that the value of all ideas will continually shift as well. Becoming emotionally attached to any one will almost always guarantee that your startup will stop being flexible and responsive to change. The focus of the startup will become the execution of the idea–regardless of its value or positive effect on the business long term.

At the end of Investor Day, it was this realization that rang true for me. The companies filled with passion and had the ability to share that passion put themselves on the right path towards success.

The companies that clung on to their ideas, that could not divest themselves emotionally, well, put themselves on a different path.

Be passionate. Share your passion, but remember, passion is not emotion.

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A couple of days ago, I was in a meeting with a Techstars company, 4 people from Boulder and a couple prospective investors and partners. As these meetings seem to always go, at some point one of the visitors utters the evil D-word.

“Denver”

Immediately, probably given my absolute hatred of that city, I correct. “Actually, its Boulder.”

And then a discussion begins about why Boulder has such a strong entrepreneurial environment. We talk about the number of startups in a small town; we discuss the entrepreneurial history of the region; we explain that Boulder is a weird town that is accepting of weird people, and that the weirdest people of all are entrepreneurs.

Then yesterday I watched the latest Founders video:

and read Brad’s post.

And it hit me.

What is helping Boulder grow, whats helping us become a entrepreneurial center is friendship.

Before you begin to think I have gotten soft, let me explain.

Think about your good friends. What are the core components of that relationship?

Truth.

Trust.

Reliability.

Consistency.

Loyalty.

Now if you apply the same concept to startups, it works just as well.

In Boulder, we all are friends (well, at least supportive). We treat our startups like friends. We treat each other’s startups like friends.

And, like friends, we expect the best. There is no suffering of fools in Boulder.

Extra added bonus:

I was meeting with a couple of friends who are looking for a startup concept to build against. When asked what I thought made a successful startup, here is the advice I gave them.

1) since the internet is about accelerating and facilitating communication and information, so should your startup;

2) it should solve a personal problem. It should scratch a personal itch you have;

3) you should be passionate about the idea. Passion breeds love. Love breeds focus.

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Take a look at this photo. New mom and dad looking at what clearly is the most amazing child in the history of children.

Kid is in some contraption that he has so mastered, and the parents are in complete belief in the greatness of that child.

Ok, the kid is me. Those are my biological parents. My mom was 21 at the time, my father 23. Me? I am still amazed that there is not a single picture of me without my mouth open.

I look at this picture a lot. Not 100% sure why. But there is something in the hopefulness of my parents and the dopey look in my eyes that just is comforting.

I see a kid put in some random contraption of the 1970s, probably invented to help children of the 1970s expand their horizons, or some latent hippie bullshit. Or perhaps, it was designed to drive the kid crazy just enough to leave his parents along long enough to not strangle the kid.

Pretty sure I was one of those “just wanna strangle” kids. Pretty sure I never really lost that personality trait.

Which brings me back to the picture. I lay this picture against where I am today, and I wonder if when my mom and father were looking at me in this picture, did they think about where I would be? I imagine this is a thought that most parents think of often. At that age, its hard to believe that your child would be anything less than amazing. Even if you dressed him in pink.  At that age, your dreams of what your kid is going to accomplish far outpace reality. At that age, you hope that your kid will, at the bare minimum, surpass anything that you have ever accomplished in your life.

I dont have any kids. Im still pretty young, and I feel pretty strongly that one day, I will have kids. After all, what greater gift can I give the world than a little Micah or two running around. (Thats, right, I said gift. Stop laughing.) Kids are important to me. Something I have always wanted. My two sisters are 7 and 9 years younger than me, so growing up, I spent a lot of time around babies and young children (the pedophile jokes just arent funny, dammit!) and realized quickly that I enjoy spending time with kids much more than adults.

Putting the psychological reasons aside, here is why I think its been that way. With kids, communication and expectations tend to be pure. There is no real reason to be manipulative or guarded. You just get to be, and they just get to be, they way you are. When I was in my early twenties, I actually looked into adoption, but gave it up quickly because clearly it was a really bad idea.

I found an outlet in coaching. (Again, no pedophile jokes, dammit) The communication and expectation one has with a team you are coaching is pure. You can see the impact you are having on the players. You can experience the joy of success, the pain of losing, and the satisfaction of helping kids realize the limits of their abilities.

From there, it was a natural extension, given my background in startups, to get involved helping out entrepreneurs where I could. I was lucky a couple of years ago to get involved with Techstars. The first year, I met most of the teams near the end of the program, and tried to offer help where I could. In a few cases, I think I gave some decent advice, and in other cases I gave a decent kick in the ass.

Year two, jokingly, David and I decided I would be a junior mentor. Mostly, it was to give me the opportunity to evaluate each company quietly, without a need for them (or me) to settle in on one or two companies. More importantly, it gave me the ability to be mentored while I was providing mentorship. Beyond the discussion of the importance of building community and communicating with users (which I did a presentation on), I found that I was pretty good at helping companies with their presentations. I was particularly proud of Adam, Dan and Kevin of Ignighter.

This year has been even more fun. I have taken a much bigger role in helping two companies, Take Comics and Next Big Sound (and a lesser role with Vanilla). This year, I look at Kevin and Thanavath of Take Comics, and Alex, David and Samir of Next Big Sound in much the same way my mom and father looked at me in that photo.

I am amazed at the work both companies have done in taking random contraptions and turned them into real, live viable businesses. Alex, David and Samir are the youngest founders by more than five years, yet their drive, focus and hope bely that age. They came to Techstars and threw away what they had built. An idea that had got me excited enough to heavily recruit and recommend them through the interview process. An idea that garnered national attention and some decent traction. Just tossed it.

They learned by building the Next Big Sound what the real pain points are in an industry that has been absolutely decimated by the Internet. Destroyed. Its impossible for music professionals to make the right decisions. Its impossible to know who the Next Big Sound will be. Not any longer. NBS has built something that is currently amazing, and has the potential to be market changing.

Take Publishing is not much different. The digital age has severely disrupted the print industry. We are seeing newspapers die daily. The comic book industry is no different. Print is no longer king. Marvel, DC and others have moved full force into the entertainment industry finding a retelling of Wolverine’s story more compelling and more profitable than printing more books. Take is on the cutting edge of this shift. Imagine getting comics on any device, pixel perfect, and being able to engage in the universe and community around those stories. Once Take launches, you will never have to wonder again.

Vanilla is focused on building customizable hosted (and self-hosted) forums. The original social media, forums have always been a place for strong community growth. Due to the explosion of profile based social networks like Friendster and Facebook, blogging and micro-blogging, forums, for many, have been forgotten. But for sites truly built around community (such as Mozilla), forums are the life-blood. Community doesnt happen in the stilted conversation of a profile-based social network, or the ephemeral microblog. It happens under the umbrella of focused affinity, which still are driven by forums.

Its impossible to know if teams like Filtrbox, Eventvue, Ignighter, Foodzie, Vanilla, Next Big Sound and Take Comics will be successful in the long term. And, like my mom and father, at some point you have to let the companies drive their own contraptions, hoping that if they crash, it will be full of learning.

But, one thing that wont change is the pride I feel in having been a part of their growth, and the excitement I feel at watching their journeys. I know that my parents feel the same way about their startup, regardless of the bumpiness of that journey.

To Ari, Tom, Matt, Ben, Rob, Josh, Adam, Dan, Kevin, Rob, Emily, Nic, Mark, Todd, Alex, David, Samir, Kevin and Thanavath, I am proud of you my friends, and your progress.

Now dont fuck it up.

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