Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City

IGNITE BOULDER

There is nothing particularly interesting or remarkable about delivering a PowerPoint presentation. It’s a fundamental business skill that most professionals develop during their careers, alongside plugging data into a spreadsheet, sending a thank-you note, and buying donuts for the team.

However, what if you freed the presentation from its office shackles and let it watch zombie movies, indulge its pop-culture vices, and transform itself into a fast-paced jolt of pure human expression? The Ignite series of events, founded in Seattle in 2006, took the staid PowerPoint slideshow format and affixed a rocket to it.

The Ignite format of public speaking is simple. Each speaker gets 20 slides to get their point across, and those slides automatically advance every 15 seconds. The result is an evening of five-minute blasts of perspective, imagination, creativity, hilarity, and pure genius.

Andrew Hyde, Ef Rodriguez, and a few others brought Ignite to Boulder in 2008. Following, in Ef’s words, is how it came about.

The first Ignite Boulder was held in a classroom on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus in October 2008, hosted by entrepreneur and author, Andrew Hyde. Over the course of the next four years and almost 20 events, Ignite Boulder grew into a staple of the startup community, emblematic of Boulder’s creative, innovative population.

Ignite Boulder is held together by a small band of volunteer organizers, nearly all of whom have spoken at the event. I was ...