
731_ Entrepreneurs Unplugged: With David Cohen, Executive Director of Techstars
Brad Feld, Managing Director & Co-founder of the Foundry Group, Brad Bernthal, Entrepreneurship Initiative Director at Silicon Flatirons and Jill van Matre got to do something many of us would like to do...ask David Cohen, Executive Director of Techstars how he got to where he is including the 'learning experiences' along the way. Brad really got into some deep and important issues. David Cohen is the founder and Exective Director of TechStars. David has a soft spot for technology startups and enjoys helping innovative early stage technology companies succeed. He also has a passion for Colorado and believes it's a fantastic community for any startup. The TechStars program combines these passions with capital, connections and real-world experience to provide a unique opportunity for early stage startups. David is a founder of several software and web technology companies including Pinpoint Technologies (now ZOLL Data Systems) of Broomfield, Colorado. While at ZOLL Data Systems, David was also the CTO. The company was acquired by ZOLL Medical Corporation (NASDAQ: ZOLL) in 1999. You can read about it in No Vision, All Drive [Amazon]. David was also the founder and CEO of earFeeder.com, which was sold to SonicSwap.com in 2006. David is also an active startup advocate, advisor, board member, and technology advisor who comments on these topics on his blog at ColoradoStartups.com. If you want to learn more about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur listen to this live recording at the Silicon Flatirons Center 'Entrepreneurs Unplugged' event.
Related Links: Entrepreneurs Unplugged || TechStars || Colorado Startups || Foundry Group || Economy Builders || Photos from Entrepreneurs Unplugged 10/19/09 || Keywords: David Cohen, Brad Feld, Entrepreneurs Unplugged, TechStars, Colorado Startups, Foundry Group, Silicon Flatirons, Brad Bernthal, Jill van Matre, Pinpoint Technologies > Channel: Entrepreneurs 24509370 bytes 11/2/09 LISTEN









Social networking has gone mainstream. Larry sat down with Tom and Deb Frey of DaVinci Institute to discuss this phenomena. Tom is a well-known futurist and Deb is a 'Renaissance Women' and vice president of DaVinci. Deb is really into Twitter and one of the leading instructors on Twitter. It started with Tom following all the people talking about the iPhone, and he said I should follow this to get a feel for how it worked. Some of it was really funny, and I could watch all the dialog that was going on around the iPhone. After that, I just got hooked. I realized it was a great way to find out what was going on in the world in real time as opposed to waiting for the evening news or whatever. It was quite fascinating to watch the whole event unfold. Ever since then, like the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, since we were in Mumbai last year and we were supposed to stay in that hotel, that had a special draw to us. You only get 140 characters or less on Twitter. It is a cleaner form of communication. So it’s short bursts of information." Deb went on, "The younger people seem to enjoy MySpace more. I don’t use FaceBook as a business tool, but more for family relations. The nice thing about Twitter is it does update into FaceBook so I don’t have to type twice. Linked in tends to be more of a passive type of operation where nothing happens unless you initiate it." There's more...