Denver Startup Week is less than two weeks away from its 12th annual event.
This year, organizers expect the free conference centered around everything entrepreneurial in Denver to bring 10,000 to 12,000 people to the Mile High City. Last year, Denver Startup Week had more than 10,000 attendees and around 20,000 people in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic.
But how did an event of this magnitude get its start 12 years ago? It began with an idea to bring Denver's entrepreneurial community together. This idea, however, didn’t stem from just one person. It came from several entrepreneurs, executives and the Downtown Denver Partnership, a nonprofit dedicated to building and growing Denver’s center city.
Denver Startup Week’s core group of founders includes entrepreneurs and investors Erik Mitisek, Ben Deda, Danny Newman, Chris Franks, Josh Churlik, Jon Rossi, Bart Lorang, John Wilker and Andrei Tereschuk and former CEO of the Downtown Denver Partnership Tami Door.
In March 2012, Mitisek, Deda, Newman, Franks, Cherlik, Rossi, Lorang, Wilker and Tereschuk met at Wynkoop Brewing Co. to talk about ways to connect the local startup community, said Mitisek, DSW co-founder and co-chair. This conversation took place as Boulder Startup Week was preparing to launch its annual event.
Back in 2012, the Denver startup realm was lacking a community like the one found in Boulder, Deda said.
“[You didn’t] walk out the door and run into 10 other startups ... and next thing you know you’re having a discussion around something with your product or venture capitalist or all these things that really just happen a lot of times serendipitously in the community that you had up there in Boulder,” Deda said. “All of us were like, ‘Why can’t we have that here? We’re pretty sure there’s just as many companies here.’”
The group of nine entrepreneurs began looking for ways to mimic the startup community in Boulder by hosting an event or series of events to bring the Denver startup community together.
The result was Denver Startup Week (DSW) — a five-day conference for startups, large companies and entrepreneurs in Denver organized by the community. Deda said they wanted DSW to be similar to South by Southwest in Austin where people submit their ideas and companies can sponsor the sessions and panels.
While these conversations were taking place, the Downtown Denver Partnership was looking at ways to support and grow entrepreneurial opportunities in Denver, Door said.
“It was being pursued from multiple angles,” Door said. “One was looking at an entrepreneurial event supporting business growth in the center city, and the other was this group of entrepreneurs that were looking at building something from their vision related to Boulder Startup [Week]. … When we came together, it was a perfect match because our goal was to create something by the community, for the community and the future.”
After partnering with the Downtown Denver Partnership, Deda said event organizers had to prove to potential sponsors that this event could happen and that there was a strong entrepreneurial community in Denver.
So, DSW co-founders put together a demo event in July 2012. Deda and others raised $40,000 in sponsorships for the event, which was a one-night concert and party. About 2,000 people attended the free demo event, proving the concept and need for a larger-scale event.
Seven months after initial discussions, the inaugural Denver Startup Week took place in October 2012. The week-long event included 64 panels and sessions and about 20 volunteers, Mitisek said.
“We were all excited to celebrate the awesomeness of Denver and the startup community at scale, and that little humble group pieced together the first startup week scrappily,” he said. “And it’s been a community endeavor ever since.”
This year’s DSW will have more than 300 sessions and panels with more than 200 volunteers. The Downtown Denver Partnership still helps put on this event. Door, Deda and Mitisek are still actively involved in DSW and serve as the event’s co-chairs.
“This is really reflective of the Denver ethos,” Mitisek said. “There was an opportunity to do something, an amazing group of entrepreneurs bound together to solve a problem for the community and created something for the benefit of the community that’s been a lasting asset for the last 12 years.”
