I was thrilled to talk at Boulder Startup Week this year.

Boulder Startup Week, aka BSW, is an annual celebration of startups, technology and Boulder. It’s been going on for a decade (and a few things have changed about startups in the past decade). This year there will be over 350 events and about 10,000 participants, almost all free to the public. You can check out the full schedule to see if anything piques your interest.

I’ve participated in four or five of these weeklong events. I find them to be useful at getting introduced to a variety of topics, and always thought provoking. Plus, it’s fun to meet new people who are interested startups, technology and business. Ironically, when I was at a startup, I didn’t participate much in BSW–I was too busy working. I have found that the people I’ve chatted with in the audience are often in the same boat; that is to say, not working at a startup. Instead, they are interested in startups or are service providers (like Culture Foundry). That’s OK, learning as much as you can before you take the leap can help foster success at a startup.

The talk I gave was called “10 Things I Wish I Knew As a New Developer”. You can see the slides here. Aimed at people who are zero to two years out of code camp or school, I talked about elements of the developer career beyond coding that help you succeed. Things like understanding the larger business problem, keeping your network active, and learning your editor.

If you’re in the Boulder area, please check out the BSW schedule and enjoy the breadth and variety of discussions. You can also follow along on Twitter, too. If you aren’t in the Boulder area, I believe that they have an ambassador program. It’s obviously too late for 2019, but for 2020 you can be flown in and learn about Boulder (contact them for more details, after this week). There are also Fort Collins and Denver startup weeks, which I’ve heard good things about but never attended.