Reflections on Colorado Startup Week 2026

Key Takeaways

• Community over content. The best part of Colorado Startup Week wasn't the sessions, it was how naturally people connected, with panelists and speakers mixing in as regular attendees throughout the week.
• Operational weight shows up after traction, not before. Founders don't feel the need for operational support in the earliest days of an idea. It hits once revenue or funding starts coming in, exactly the point where my work becomes relevant.
• The room wants AI regulation, and a slower pace. Panel consensus favored real regulation, paired with a broader sense that the pace of new features is outrunning what users can actually absorb.
• I struggle to call myself a founder, and I'm starting to understand why. My energy comes from being the integrator alongside a founder's idea, not from carrying the idea itself.

After spending the week attending events at Colorado Startup Week 2026, I walked away from the week energized and excited by the work happening in Denver. From civic leaders, non-profits, early founders, funded startups and growing organizations based in Denver, there is a lot to be excited about. 

While it was a tech-heavy conference, there were plenty of sessions focused on broader topics or where tech was the background solution and not the sole reason for existing. It also left me thinking more about my own role in this community than I expected going in.

The Community

What stood out the most this week was the community of people. It was one of the easiest conferences to engage with new people and make new connections. Outside of a few awkward moments with people pitching their idea to the clearly wrong audience, the people at the events were genuinely looking to learn, engage, and connect with people in the community. Many of the panelists and speakers were also heavy attendees at the events, so it was easy to bump into them later and have a conversation. 

The main HQ setup was nice to center more of the keynote events in one place. Events outside of this venue were a little more challenging. There were plenty of interesting sessions in other parts of Denver, but many weren’t possible to attend without being a complete one-off. For example, I had some sessions picked out that ended up being on Santa Fe, a couple miles south of the headquarters. One session that sounded great related to working with the city of Denver as an organization. Great topic but I imagine it was not as well attended as it might have been without an option downtown. My other critique is that many of the non-HQ events needed more guidance on where the session was being held. For many buildings, just having an address isn’t enough. I stood outside with a small group for an event in Rino because we were at the address, but the event was actually held at the space on the corner half a block up the street. Some additional notes in the event description would have saved people time and confusion. 

I had some great conversations with visionary founders who are running towards their idea and getting traction but also looking for help to keep the wheels on. I wasn’t sure what to expect for my work with Valdivya at startup week. Very early startups aren’t usually my client profile. What I learned is that once there is some revenue coming in and possibly some funding, the founder starts to really feel the weight of what they are building and operational support is critical. It was a nice surprise to make some strong connections and find areas I can help within the community. 

The State of AI Regulation

A tech topic that was very hot last week on panels and networking conversations was the state of AI regulation. Dario Amodei’s latest post, We Must Pace the Frontier, from the previous weekend called for the need for regulation. One of my favorite events from Thursday covered this perspective for regulation within Colorado. The session had State Senator Jeff Bridges, Jon Nordmark of Iterate.ai, Brittany Morris Saunders of the Colorado Technology Association, and Jake Swanton of Fathom.org. It was a nuanced discussion over the need for regulation alongside the need to find the right balance to keep Colorado an attractive place for startups and business in general. The consensus from the group is that regulation is necessary. It should be understood what the models are capable of, the impact they have, and how they are securely being released. 

Alongside the regulation conversation were multiple conversations and panel topics on the pace of AI. Should we slow down? Interestingly, there was a strong push toward a yes. The models are all clearly very capable. What we can do with the current LLMs is still not fully fleshed out. Everyone is feeling the pace of change from builders to users. End users of products are feeling it too. Every week it feels like a new list of features is piled on to the list from the previous week. I can safely say that I’m not always keeping up either. It seems like every time I open Jira, there is a new thing. 

I think this is where good product and organizational strategy can help with adoption. Instead of piling on features because you can, I’d like to see smaller iterations and improvements to service overall. Development time may have been the bottleneck a year ago, but more care should go toward the end-user. The move-fast-and-break-things ethos only works as long as your customers are keeping up.

Colorado's Funding Gap

The funding conversation was also prevalent throughout the week. While there are venture funding opportunities and the Techstars accelerator was re-launched at Startup Week, it’s clear that the ecosystem hasn’t strengthened to that level yet. It’s no secret that while Colorado has many success stories, the state hasn’t generated a large enterprise anchor tech company on the scale of Amazon, Google, Meta, or Salesforce. The money and the talent tend to be on the coasts. The money then leaves Colorado, so the community was fired up to raise in Colorado and fund in Colorado to help lift up the startup community. I spoke with many founders who successfully raised funds but outside of Colorado. 

This was a great way to kick off the Fall and get some renewed energy heading into the end of the year. Even though Valdivya was established over the last year, I do struggle with considering my setup as a startup or that I am a founder. I feel like I get the most energy by working with visionary founders on their idea as their integrator or operations person. My energy comes from building alongside someone with the idea. 

No matter how long you’ve been in business, I work to bring startup energy to your organization. If you're feeling that weight now, let's talk about what operational support actually looks like.