One of the first things that attracted me to Boulder was the TechStars program.  I haven’t applied to the program and have no plans to do so (although it seems like the very best summer camp ever!), but I loved the idea of living in a town with TechStars as part of the ecosystem.  The people, the tech, the energy–I’m enjoying the entrepreneurial contact high.

Tonight, I had the utmost pleasure of being introduced to a few of this year’s class of TechStars grads at the Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup.  The rest of the class will be presenting tomorrow night in a second session.  All of this is in advance of the TechStars Demo Day on Thursday.  Here are some of my thoughts about tonight’s crew.  Note: I’m not including anything that I think will be a ta-da moment for these guys on Demo Day.  I don’t want to steal their well-deserved thunder.  Onward!

Rent Monitor – This is an on point solution for a niche market that’s definitely feeling the pain.  Having experience in the property management business, this team built an app to take the pain out of being the landlord–automating and tracking everything.  I’d go one further, I’d want to rent from someone using this app.  I don’t think most bad landlords are bad on purpose–just overwhelmed.  I think these guys could take local markets by storm.  On the founders: I met Deanna Bennett a a couple months ago (I was ‘gate crashing’ a Tech Stars event) and keep running into her at local events.  I’m just getting to know her, but she and her hubby & co-founder Brett Yates seem like the kind of folks you want in your social circle.  This should be an asset when raising capital.

RoundPegg – This is the only product that I’ve used prior to tonight.  I’ve heard so much great stuff about RoundPegg already that I didn’t realize that they were a TechStars company this summer.  I thought they were already very well established.  RoundPegg helps you filter potential employees based upon fit with the company, team, and manager.  It also helps employees find employers that would be a good match.  You can go on their site right now and do a free assessment on yourself.  For me, it was dead on.  I’d love to give this a try in hiring and test myself against it.

Omniar – Omniar wants to “make the world clickable”.  They’ve built an API that allows users to take a picture of an item and learn more about it.  If I had some cash set aside for investing, this would be my pick of tonight’s presenters.  All of the teams were fairly solid, but I think these guys have the potential for a quick and very large exit.  Their model is licensing the technology, but it also means it’s been built in a way that it would be easy for another company to buy and make their own.  There are many possible applications of their tech, too.

BlipSnips – I want to love this tool, but I don’t think I’m the market for it.  Very rarely do I share videos with others, although that might change with BlipSnips.  I don’t know, but I’m going to give it a try.  I can definitely see this being a great tool for videos of family events, though.

Statsmix -These guys have built a drag-n-drop, plug in as you see fit dashboard for all the analytics, metrics, and reports you can throw its way.  On top of that, the tool points out insights based upon aggregating this data together and helps you visualize what’s important.  I’d love to get my hands on this and give it a go.

ScriptPad – Hands down, these guys had the best demo of the night.  They’re facilitating electronic prescriptions.  I love that they are putting this in the hands of docs.  I think they’ve bought themselves close to first to market advantage in what will probably be a crowded marketplace very soon.  If they can ramp up quickly and get a foothold, I think they will be in a very good place.  One thing to watch out for–consolidation of the medical industry.  I designed a similar application for pharmacies about ten years ago but bailed because of consolidation there.

If this is what TechStars Boulder 2010 has to offer, I can’t wait for tomorrow night! (Read the rest here.)

Be Sociable, Share!

•