Congratulations are in order to the newly announced summer 2013 class at company incubator and accelerator, TechStars Boulder. It’s hard to believe this is already the 7th group of companies to spend their summer in Colorado.

Having chatted with David Cohen back in July 2006 about his new “summer program” idea, I can remember that TechStars was exactly the kind of thing that young companies and entrepreneurs should clamor to be a part of: access to great mentors, help with raising funds, building a product or service around a market, etc. At the time I had no co-founders, no company ideas, and no good foundation to take advantage of the opportunity about to launch in the coming months…

Fast forward six years and having observed from the outside and made friends in TechStars and working with Alex (a Boulder TechStars mentor) and a very smart group of folks at at Crowd Favorite: I’ve learned a lot about successfully building a web application, designing a solid web experience, taking something from concept to implementation, hiring, iterating and dealing with feedback, making decisions, presenting to stakeholders, communicating, and so on.

Through a circuitous route¹, I’m happy to say that the newly-inducted team at Elihuu (pronounced E-lay-who) has asked me to help lend advice and mentorship around building their web-based company. The idea behind Elihhu is to use proven processes and allow technology to connect designers (with product ideas) and manufacturers (who have extra capacity) to create products together and sell them in lieu of the typical agency / brokerage model. I’m proud of what the team has designed and built in a few short months and it’s been fun to watch and be involved in. Now it’s time to turn it into a business… I’m excited for what the summer will bring!

Kudos class of 2013 and best of luck this summer…

• AdsNative
• Augur
• Brandfolder
• Elihuu
• Given Goods
• GoodApril
• hull.io
• LeChat
• Prediculous
• Shopventory
• ShowShoe