#StartupsEverywhere Profile: George Hristov, Community Manager, Colorado Startups
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Finding New Ways to Build a Collaborative Community of Innovators
George Hristov has found himself in a number of different roles within the startup ecosystem. Currently, he serves as Community Manager for Denver-based Colorado Startups, a community-building organization for founders, investors, and others to develop their startup network and share resources that can help them in their career pursuits. We spoke with George about what led him to Colorado Startups, how they approach building their startup community, and how policymakers can help develop environments that encourage innovative entrepreneurship.
Tell us about your background. What led you to joining Colorado Startups and what is the work you all are doing?
My background is in digital marketing. I founded an e-commerce business before COVID. I actually dropped out of school to pursue that business, but I had to shut it down because of COVID-related challenges. Since then, I've been working as a digital marketing freelancer. I wanted to get more into the startup scene and found my way to Colorado Startups. At the time, when I moved to Colorado, everyone was rebounding from the pandemic, so there were more startup community events being put together on a regular basis. Through that, I met Paul Foley, the founder of Colorado Startups, and I basically just asked him, “Hey, do you need help?”
I've learned a lot. Paul has a vast wealth of knowledge about the ecosystem here. He was involved with a startup that participated in the early years of TechStars and he has a really big network here in Colorado that he has leveraged to build an organization dedicated to giving startup founders the supportive network they need. Our role in the startup space centers on community-building. One of the principal ways we do that is by putting on a ton of events. Denver has Denver Startup Week (the biggest startup week in the country), during which we put on a big event called “Party on a Tuesday” to connect founders, investors, and others attending Startup Week in a low-pressure atmosphere. We also recently started hosting founder's brunches, an event focused on getting startup founders together. We host these events per cohort: 30 people for three months and then we move to the next cohort. We also have social media networks for our communities to connect. Our social groups are open to everyone in the Colorado startup ecosystem—investors, founders, people interested in becoming founders, etc. We really try to provide the entire community with the opportunity to learn from one another.
How have you all approached building your startup community?
As a community-centered organization, especially one that's trying to connect community members with one another, it's important to base your efforts on what the community looks like at a given moment. For us in Colorado right now, there are a ton of startup founders and companies being built, but something like 80 or 90 percent of the startups founded here go on to raise capital from outside of the state. And that's especially true for startups that are past the seed round. So that’s one dynamic we keep in mind with all the events we put together and the social networks we manage.
We also know that one of the most sought-after opportunities for new founders is the chance to bounce ideas off one another and share lessons they’ve learned. There’s a need, especially coming out of COVID, for community members to connect and talk, which is why we have those founder brunches and similar events that I’d mentioned earlier. As the investor community in our state starts to grow, there will be a really good opportunity to continue to bring them more into our founder community through networking events and investor panels. A lot of our work is following community trends and providing services that are specifically tailored to where it's going.
Are there any particular trends you see in the startup community that you’re building that you think are important for policymakers to be thinking about?
I think there are several trends that have converged recently in the ecosystem that we have seen. Right now, we’re seeing what I'll softly call, the diminished need to build startups in traditional tech hubs, the emergence of crypto and blockchain technologies, and the explosion of remote work. I think one of the most prominent examples of this as a microcosm of these trends is the city of Miami. The Mayor there started by publicly stating how much they want startups and innovative companies to build their businesses there. Then, the city put in place all these competitions and financial incentives for startups and, in particular, crypto companies who come there. On top of that, they can boast a lower cost of living than cities like San Francisco and New York City for employees and founders who often aren’t making a lot at these companies when they’re just starting out. And now Miami has seen massive startup growth numbers that were practically manifested into existence through constant innovative thinking and support for the ecosystem.
All of that is to say that I think we're in an environment where capital allocators and local ecosystem factors are what move a lot of these markets. There are startup founders everywhere. And I really think having policymakers at all levels just put their weight behind startup innovation is key. Startup founders and investors are gonna see that support and want to be a part of that environment. We're very fortunate in Colorado to have our Governor Jared Polis be very startup-friendly and crypto-friendly. He actually recently announced that Colorado would allow the opportunity for people to pay their taxes in cryptocurrency. That sent a very important message—that we are a state that supports innovation and we're going to embrace new technologies here. But, going back to my Miami example from earlier, we want to see even more of that type of effort from state and local leaders here in Colorado. And we’re going to try to support and capitalize on positive examples of policymakers supporting an innovative economy to help push for an even stronger startup ecosystem here throughout Colorado.
What are other policy issues that surface in your startup networks when it comes to challenges founders face as they scale their businesses??
In the crypto space, policy is a constant question. And it’s understandable because it's a very new, complicated space. This technology and its uses are evolving very quickly, but it is now a major issue for people that want to innovate in this space despite its novelty. The dialogue about taxing cryptocurrencies as securities has raised a lot of questions for these companies and the people that buy crypto, especially those who have no previous experience in the securities space. There are also a lot of questions currently around organizational structures in “Web3”—internet structures based around blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies—that will require a response from policymakers.
As an example, in Web3 there's an idea of “DAO”s, which stands for decentralized autonomous organizations—essentially collectives of token holders that can get together and basically use their tokens to vote and take actions as a company. Colorado’s neighbor Wyoming was recently the first state to recognize DAOs as being able to incorporate, register with the state, and are granted the same rights as LLCs. In other states, like Colorado, DAOs are not recognized as legal entities and, therefore, have to be centrally owned by an LLC. The whole governance idea of a DAO is that the token-holders should be the ones that systematically make decisions. These are spaces where we want to see policymakers have conversations in Colorado so we can begin to provide certainty and opportunity to these new innovators in our state. Getting adoption of laws and recognition of these new companies that will emerge with these innovative technologies is critical so that these types of enterprises can know that they are operating within a stable legal framework.
What are your goals for Colorado Startups moving forward?
Currently, we’re in a really good position as one of the leading community organizations to connect startups with one another in Colorado. One of the conversations that Paul and I are having is that we're in a really unique position to be a liaison between the municipal and government bodies that want to get more involved in the startup community since we've been around for a while and have natural entry points to connect them to. So I think our goals for the future center around that liaison role and to help connect all stakeholders in our community with one another and to the resources they need.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
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