Office Hours and Coworking

What’s the saying? “Great artists steal.”

I’ve been fortunate to hear Brad Feld speak at several events recently. He often credits his “random day” as a key part of his success. So I’m stealing it. I’ll call mine Office Hours in honor of my academic roots, when professors used to try (and fail) to get me to stop asking questions and leave their office. I won’t do that. We do have a schedule to keep.

Earlier in the fall, I also put on a Founder Coworking & VC Office Hours day at my Boulder office. With summer in the rearview, it felt like the right time to lock in and set the pace for a strong finish to the year. It wasn’t a boondoggle. It was a chance to get real work done alongside other great builders, with organic interactions mixed in. The space had phone booths, quiet corners for calls, and a large open area for coworking. The vibes were immaculate.

Then on October 30, I hosted my first open office hours: an afternoon of rapid-fire 20-minute meetings, first-come, first-served. The meetings were all delightful in their own way. Plenty of pitches, some pretty interesting, but more interesting were the tough questions about gender inequity in venture funding, and even a conversation on how film techniques remind us that people tend to see whatever they want to see. That last one’s true far beyond film.

So we’re running it back. Twice. December 3 in Golden at the Beck Venture Center at Colorado School of Mines, and December 4 at my office in East Boulder. Same format: 20 minutes, no pitching. Bring the toughest problem you’re wrestling with and teach me something new. I’ll bring feedback, intros, and whatever else might be useful.

If you’re building something that deserves to exist in the world, I’d love to hear about it.