Boulder Startup Week 2025

Startups move fast, and founders often prioritize growth over compliance—sometimes at their peril. Seemingly minor missteps in legal and financial planning can snowball into costly problems that jeopardize funding, ownership, and long-term success.

In this session, experienced legal and accounting professionals will break down 10 common pitfalls that catch entrepreneurs off guard, covering issues like:

• Structuring your business entity the wrong way (and how to fix it)
• Equity mistakes that can derail fundraising
• Tax traps that lead to unexpected liabilities
• Contract missteps that expose startups to unnecessary risks
• Intellectual property oversights that can cost you your brand
• Compliance gaps that could lead to regulatory trouble

This interactive discussion will offer practical, real-world guidance for founders, early-stage employees, and investors. Attendees will walk away with a clearer understanding of how to avoid common legal and financial headaches, ensuring their startup is set up for success from the start.
Whether you're launching your first venture or scaling your startup, this session will arm you with the knowledge to navigate common pitfalls before they become expensive problems.

Transparent and vulnerable conversation about mental health, neurodivergence, and how that plays out in the crazy startup journey. Hear from founders, support systems, professionals, ally’s, mental health enthusiasts and the mental health curious welcome.

Join two Boulder founders for a detailed and personal look at what it REALLY takes to build a $1M+ revenue company. This session isn’t about sales, marketing, pricing or product - it’s about the Inner Journey that all founders go through as they find product-market-fit and scale their companies.
Alex Raymond, Founder of AMplify and Host of The Conscious Entrepreneur Summit and Ret Taylor, Co-Founder and former Co-CEO of Ned, will discuss:

• What does it really take to be a successful entrepreneur?
• How do we deal with the Inner Demons like self-doubt, burnout, impostor syndrome?
• How must founders evolve as our companies grow?
• What happens if we don’t build a unicorn?
• When is it time to hand over the reins or pivot?

This session is for current, former and future CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs who want an unvarnished look at the ups-and-downs of building a company.

Brad Feld and Jaclyn Hester will have a fireside chat about the evolution of a startup community. They cover topics like the importance of existing leaders to hand off the torch to the next generation, why the development of the startup community is not a straight line up and to the right, and how to incorporate concepts from Brad's upcoming book Give First: The Power of Mentorship into your daily activities in the startup community.