{"id":3301,"date":"2018-01-18T23:59:50","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T23:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/52.10.1.109\/?p=3301"},"modified":"2018-01-19T02:11:23","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T02:11:23","slug":"focusing-on-startups-for-changing-economic-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/?p=3301","title":{"rendered":"Focusing on startups for changing economic times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Economic Forecast Breakfast, Part II<\/i><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By Jan Wondra<\/strong><\/p>\n

Had the South Metro Denver Chamber\u2019s economic forecast breakfast occurred in a different year, the speakers may have been the same, but the message may not have been. As it was, the speakers at this annual economic worship session were bullish on 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cColorado is the fourth fastest growing economy, eighth in terms of state population growth,\u201d said\u00a0 Dr. Richard Wobbekind, executive director of the Business Research Division and senior associate dean for academic programs at the University of Colorado. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen strong employment growth across every sector except energy and mining. In fact, the category of greatest growth is software programming.\u201d<\/p>\n

The standing-room-only event featuring Wobbekind, Peter Adams, executive director of Rockies Venture Club; and Jane Miller, president and CEO of Charter Baking Company, was a who\u2019s who of business categories and leaders from across the 6,000 members of the South Metro Chamber. They listened to a series of positive economic statistics from Wobbekind, with two cautionary notes. While the state is forecasting a 10-15 percent growth in employment, the state\u2019s available, in-state labor force is anemic, ranked No. 38 in the nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re back to the pre-recession employment numbers, but with 30 percent less workforce. The talent shortage is a key theme across all categories,\u201d said Wobbekind. \u201cWe\u2019re struggling to back-fill. The other concern is education funding; TABOR limitations mean that cutbacks loom and higher education is necessary to raise an educated workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s real GDP increased 3.8 percent in 2013, the latest year for which data is available, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The top five states for employment growth include Colorado, Washington, Utah, North Dakota and Texas.<\/p>\n

Wobbekind says they share an important commonality: \u201cAll of them are in high tech and oil.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funding startup activity\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Filings for new companies are considered a good indication of job growth, and Colorado. Specifically, metro Denver is among the top five states in the nation for business startups, according to the Kauffman Index report on startup activity. This is up from No. 7 in the 2014 index.<\/p>\n

\u201cColorado is a national leader in startups, with Denver leading the state,\u201d said Adams. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing 500 to 1,000 Colorado companies a year looking for funding. We pitch maybe 80 to 100 to venture capital groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

While startups occur across a broad array of companies, Adams says health care, especially digitized software, has been a fertile source of startups.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome 17 to 18 percent have been in the related healthcare groups. And while we may not be thrilled about it, the cannabis economy is a reality,\u201d said Adams. \u201cThe cannabis capital summit has been held for the last three years. Leadership is becoming sophisticated, backed by Harvard MBAs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adams says that the country and Colorado need to remain welcoming to startups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some 4.8 million startups each year worldwide, and 2 million of them are in India. We need to foster an innovation culture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Startup trends have shifted over the past few years, says Adams.<\/p>\n

\u201cFour of the top 10 metro areas for startups are in Colorado. We see startups like Uber, which are actually service companies, they don\u2019t own a fleet. The other huge trend in the last four or five years in startup funding is crowd-sourcing to support early-stage companies,\u201d Adams said.<\/p>\n

Our biggest startup problem in Colorado, says Adams, is capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a huge supply of startups and not enough capital in the state. We have 20,000 accredited investors here and fewer than 1,000 of them are investing in this state.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Economic Forecast Breakfast, Part II   By Jan Wondra Had the South Metro Denver Chamber\u2019s economic forecast breakfast occurred in a different year, the speakers may have been the same, but the message may not have been. As it was, the speakers at this annual economic worship session were bullish on 2016. \u201cColorado is the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chambers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}