Category: Blog

Leslie Na is the founder of TruthBomb, a customer research company that focuses exclusively on small businesses and solopreneurs. Her insights into customer research and consumer behavior will knock your socks off.

Leslie’s startup week panel is called Customer insights and research (why it’s mission-critical, how to conduct your own) and will be Thursday February 28th, 3:30pm-4:30pm @ CCC Gallery.

*A full transcript of Leslie’s podcast is coming soon.

Seth Silvers is an expert in business storytelling. The founder of StoryOn, Seth knows that businesses have far more stories than they think about on a day-to-day basis. Seth is also the host of the Small Business Storytellers podcast which features stories from small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Seth’s panel at startup week is called The Blueprint For Building a Lasting Brand Through Storytelling and happens Thursday, February 28th, 12:00pm-1:00pm @ Downtown Artery Performance Venue.

*A full transcript is coming soon!

Ethan Bach is the artist behind Alt Ethos, a design firm behind some of Fort Collins’ most iconic technology art installations. He’s passionate about teaching fellow artists ways to treat creating art like a business.

You can get to meet him during the ARTup Week Panel: Notes from the Field: Using Technology to Advance Artepreneurship – Thursday February 28th, 3:00pm-4:30pm @ Downtown Artery Performance Venue.

*A full transcript of Ethan’s podcast is coming soon!

Katrina is a creative catalyst, an empath, and a writer. She’s a creative’s creative and the founder of Creative Katrina.

You can check out Katrina’s Startup Week panel: Find the Root of Creative Blocks and Learn to Break Free on Thursday February 28th, 2:00pm-3:00pm @ The Articulate.

Let’s get to know Katrina!

I’m Katrina Pfannkuch and I’m the owner of Creative Katrina. What I’m passionate about is using my professional writing skills and my coaching skills to help people tap into where they need to grow in their own life so they can be more successful in their business.

I know that sounds nebulous, but in essence, I’m helping support business owners on their transformational journey. The cool part is that as a professional writer, I can help them with the content part and then as a coach I can help them with the mindset part and the two of them go together really nicely.

Do you find that it’s more useful to start creative coaching early on in the business vs later on in the business?

A lot of people, when they’re starting out, feel stuck and that’s a mindset, right? If you can shift that mindset in the beginning and get more clarity, then you’re using your creative energy towards the things that you really want to build rather than deconstructing a lot of stuff at the same time.

When you’re building something, we can work on that. If you need to deconstruct, we can work on that too. But the sooner you get in the game, it becomes clear what you need first.

What would you say to a business that doesn’t necessarily associate themselves with a creative industry? Can they still use your services?

Every entrepreneur needs to be creative in their own business. Whether it’s how they’re approaching their marketing, the way they connect with their clients, the way that they want to present their services, or even just how they create the services they offer.

Each of those have a creative element and even when you have an entrepreneurial spirit, sometimes it just feels unnatural for people to get that creative juice going. We can connect with each other in a way that shines a light on where you may be stuck and to me, there’s always a creative solution. Creativity is an option in all elements of a business.

What’s been your toughest creative challenge so far to tackle?

Creative people will ask, “Am I really doing something that someone wants? Is there a value in my creativity?”

Your heart breaks a little when you hear that because you want people to feel really authentic in expressing themselves. That’s a process for everyone. For entrepreneurs across the board, there’s always an area where they don’t feel they are enough or that they can’t authentically express themselves without either having to put on a show or fall in line with what everyone else is doing.

That’s a struggle for a lot of entrepreneurs, me as well. I sometimes feel I should be on social media more, but I eventually remember I’m just very selective about how I do that. Every business is different.

When it comes to creative challenges, who’s just smashing it out of the park in terms of Northern Colorado businesses?

I don’t think there are really enough eyes on creative businesses. I don’t necessarily see many people asking, “Who are the really creative, talented people here in the community that are doing a breadth of different stuff?”

How can a musician influence your business even though you don’t have anything to do with music? Maybe you need a jingle or maybe you need just some inspiration.

I recently met a coach that helps people write little mantras through songs. He plays music and they make up a little mantra just to help coach them through whatever challenge they’re working through, it’s an amazing idea.

Unfortunately, that’s in Boulder, not Fort Collins, but there are opportunities for creative crossover that I don’t think we’re leveraging as well as we could. In essence, that’s just the communities that we’re sorted in to: you’re a creative person, you go over here, you’re a business person, you go over here. Well, that’s not helping creative people thrive as businesses or business owners thrive creatively and I’d like to see more crossover.

Beyond cross-collaboration, what do you see as the biggest challenge for small businesses in Northern Colorado?

Networking. People are afraid to do that. Sometimes those communities are contained and it’s not that you can’t intermingle, but the feeling is there are very few events that I can go to that are a mix of both business and creative things and creative people and business people together.

I would suggest if you’re in a position where you’re feeling bored, why don’t you start a new event? Create one of your own. We need more diversity in the way that business owners and creative people are connecting with the community.

Many creative business owners are multipotentialites or active across a number of different fields. How do you get a client like that to settle down and focus?

We work on a unique process that works for their lifestyle. For some people, I ask, “Are there certain days of the week that you focus on certain things?”

It’s one of the simplest things that multipotentialites can do right now.

For example on Mondays, I write my own blog content, work on my own podcast, editing, do all of that stuff for myself. I don’t take client meetings, whereas other days of the week I schedule and plan for that.

If someone has multiple talents, which means as a result that they’re meeting with a variety of people and doing lots of different spaces, first I ask, “Are all of these skills viable and how do they fit together?” We create that picture, that clarity first, and then we set up a way for them to integrate it in practical terms.

It must be a little bit draining as a creative yourself to constantly help fuel other creatives’ creativity. Where do you get your inspiration from to help your clients?

I love yoga. I do a lot of yoga, walking, nature, and animals.

I created a podcast: Flirting With Enlightenment. It’s a creative expression of mine where I get to really connect with who I am and what I want to say.

It’s awesome when I look at the numbers; I realize people really listen to the podcast and that’s awesome. There’s a certain love in that when you’re creating something that someone else shows love by listening to it.

All the different options for creating content can be overwhelming. Creating a podcast for a lot of people is a big project because there’s so much stuff that goes into it. How do you sort of get past those creative blocks and guide them to a content or a medium that works?

Part of what I do is not just listen to the words that are coming out of someone’s mouth, but also actively listening: what are their facial expressions as they’re talking, what excites them versus when do they look deflated. Some of this is the intuitive work that I do.

There are so many tools and options. I help you pick the right ones where you know that you can shine right now. You don’t have to do everything, but where do you have a propensity to really get excited about doing something or really enjoy doing something. Start there and let’s work a plan so you can really connect in that space.

There is a limitation of what one human physically can do. There are only so many hours in a day.

What resources do you like to recommend for creative or small business owners that are just looking to get started or getting more knowledgeable about adding creativity into their processes?

I would say read my blog because I’ve been writing about creativity for years.

I’m not trying to promote myself specifically, but I do write about how to overcome specific obstacles. There’s the creativity piece that matches directly with your mindset piece and if you aren’t really tuned into how your mind works and how to get yourself relaxed, it’s really hard to tap into the creative piece unless you’re in that late night manic inspiration mode.

When you’re like, “I’m super inspired. I’m going to do everything right now,” that works sometimes. You don’t have to do a lot of work to get there, but if you want that consistency, it definitely helps to develop a mindset. “Okay, I’m going to do a little meditation, I’m going to listen to some music, I’m going to build a little routine about it.”

The tricky thing that I love, I don’t like being stuck into a schedule and that’s why crafting a schedule that you know works for you is so empowering as a creative person because you’re willingly stepping into this and not feeling resentful of having to do it in someone else’s way.

I am not an advocate for waking up at five in the morning, but maybe that works for some people. There’s a different way for everyone to craft a schedule.

There’s a time and a place for everything that you haven’t gotten to yet and it’s called 4:00 AM.

Yes. I’m generally pretty asleep by then.

What would you say to a small business owner just getting started? What would your number one piece of advice be?

Observation and listening. You already know in your heart the things that you’re excited about and what you want to do. Start going out into the community and ask, “Who else is doing what I’m interested in doing? How do they talk about what they do? How can I connect with it? Is it necessarily doing the exact same thing but has a support service or has worked with similar folks?” I want to say in a way it’s not necessarily shadow them but sort of from a distance and see, “Okay, well if I was going to be them for a day and do all the things that they do, is that feel good for me? Is this something that I’m interested in doing?” I feel like that goes a long way with sort of shadowing someone before you have to jump in with both feet because I know that I’m probably not the only person here that has tried other things before I came to do what I’m doing now, like we all have to put our feet … Get our feet wet and figure out some things and observation and listening is the best way to do that because it helps you get a little bit farther ahead than just going forward and not really having a lot of perspective.

The SBDC, the LCBD, the SVA, they all recommend having certain documents. What would you say to a business owner who’s just like, “I don’t like doing it that way. I’m not going to do it that way. I don’t need that document. I don’t have it. I’m just not going to do it”.

Those resources are great because they give you all the things and then you get to pick what works for you and maybe something that doesn’t work right now, six months from now you’re ready because you’ve gone through the process. You’ve gotten straight and clear in your head about like, “Okay, I’ve tried it my way. Maybe I do need a little extra support” and honestly, timing really is everything because when we’re fighting something, there may be a fear underneath that that we don’t realize is there and that’s what’s creating that pushback for us or a really old pattern that we’re stuck in our head about that we don’t realize is there and having a little time with it can certainly support that. But I would absolutely suggest when it comes to legal documentation and setting up your business, you definitely want to be right about that. You don’t what to mess around with the paperwork because they can come back to bite you.

When helping develop creative processes for small business owners, how do you keep them focused on some of the boring tasks?

There are obviously ways that you can outsource some of that stuff. Like for me, I love my bookkeeper. She’s the best human in my life because I do not want to do any of that stuff. But at first I had to do it myself because I didn’t have the funds to support someone to do that. So I think when you’re in that space and you can look at your budget and say, “Okay, there are a few things that maybe it would be best that someone else can help me with or do for a short period of time or just in on-going in the future, that’s when we’d look at it”. But in reality, I think it’s really important for all business owners, whether you’re a creative person or doing like straight up business stuff that you have to really look at having your fingers in all parts of your own business.

Because let’s say I never checked in with my bookkeeper, she can be doing all sorts of stuff. Like you can’t be that hands off. You need a base understanding of how all the pieces of your business work and when I invite people to look at it that way, it’s like, “Hey, you have options”. Like we’re all different as business owners, so it’s really important to identify what that stress is behind that thing and then find a way to deal with it. It’s just we often just get caught up in the feeling and the emotion of it and that we don’t even know why we’re blocking it out or neglecting it.

Who are you paying attention to in the Northern Colorado community in terms of their creative capacity?

I love Franklin Taggart. He’s so lovely and he’s agreed creative resource I think for not only the community because he works at the Loveland Business Development Center, but just because he has a lot of really great perspective and he can support people in that way. I would also say that Patrick, at the articulate. He’s very multitalented and he’s also trying to openly create a community where creatives or fellow creatives can be together and just shine and doing what they do and being next to each other doing it. I think that and of itself like spaces where we can teach and learn together or be together with other creatives is an expression of the most creative thing that we can do in this community.

Which leads us right into startup week. So tell us about your panel for startup week.

Well, I submitted a topic on breaking free from those limitations in our mindset. Like how do we break through those creative blocks? We don’t always know if they’re from our mindset, if they’re from emotions that are stuck within our hearts that we don’t see or they’re just a fear there. So the presentation I’m going to be giving has a little workbook with it and I’m going to help people sort of change their perspective on how they see where they’re stuck and why. Because when we get too hung up on our minds about it, we don’t move forward or as if we can embrace and look at the block in a different way, it might open up in a whole idea and understanding that we didn’t realize was already there.

What are you most excited about in terms of startup week?

I love the topics this time round. There’s a lot of really good niche-related topics, especially when it comes to the artistic parts of things.

Any last things that you want to tell a small business owner or a creative in our community?

I’m excited for you. If you’re in the space where you’re ready to learn something and explore more of who you are and share that with the rest of us, we’re excited to meet you. So come out to startup week, connect with us, learn, ask questions, and just be part of the community that you want to learn and grow from.

Raj Kumar is a dancer, an engineer, and a technology developer for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. He’s a dance instructor for the Kalapriya School of Dance in Fort Collins teaching Bharatanatyam and Bollywood styles. His story is a fascinating one and you can hear it in person at the ARTup Week Panel: Sharing Your Personal Culture: Where Dance and Music Intersect on Wednesday, February 27th, 5:00pm-6:30pm @ The Music District Living Room.

Raj, tell us about yourself!

My name is Raj Kumar. I am originally from Bangalore, India, where I was born and I grew up there doing my degree in dance. I lived there until I was 22 years old. Apart from doing dance, I also completed a degree in engineering and I also had a dance class of my own where I taught students after obtaining a degree in dance.

Then I moved to United States in 2008 to Indiana and the University of Pennsylvania for a cultural exchange program. Then I decided to move to University of Wyoming to pursue a master’s in engineering as well. For a semester or two I taught dance at the University of Wyoming Fine Arts as an extra credit course, but then the recession kicked in and then I had to stop teaching there.

I also work as a technology developer for the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.

Between engineering and dance, which is the thing that takes up most of your time?

When I was 16, my decision was that I would choose dance as a career, but as I started to grow in that domain, I realized that even though there were not a lot of male dancers.

I did get a lot of attention from several different dance groups all over the country, but I saw that in order to keep myself unique I had to learn skills that most commonly the dancers wouldn’t have.

I looked at people who were performing abroad and realized that their knowledge about technology was what they used in their dance which made them a lot more consistent and better performers. That’s when actually I decided to go into engineering. I had my degree in dancing when I was 17 or 18 but after that I decided to take up engineering. My original goal was to support dance.

When I came to the United States through cultural exchange program, I spoke to quite a lot of dancers and engineers and I realized that there’s a small part of me that also wanted to do engineering. That’s how I decided to pursue my masters. I’m trying to at least spend an equal amount of time for both dance as well as the engineering.

Do you find that the two skills complement each other?

The dance keeps my focus. There’s a lot of stress in engineering. Being a technology developer isn’t a stress-free job. It comes with its own huge amount of stress. Dance helps me de-stress quite a bit. It allows me to remain calm even under the most stressful situations.

The engineering appears most of the time in my choreography, I try to use a lot of different patterns and the logic that comes from having a strong engineering background. It does help me think outside the box.

What are the biggest challenges when it comes to being a professional dancer?

I came from very poor family. We were not even middle class when I was a kid and started learning dance. The fundamental barrier right there was paying my fee while I was learning dance, but as years flew by we were better off financially, we moved from a lower class to a middle-class family.

I could still learn, but now the problem was I couldn’t get better-performing stages, meaning to say for example, every song that you learn typically in India is priced, and it’s not easy for a middle-class person to actually buy all of these songs or buy the teachers time to do individual or a personalized choreography.

I had to learn mostly from common choreographies where the teacher choreographs for a general class, not specifically for your strengths or effectiveness. This taught me how to actually look into myself and see how I can modify some of the movements to suit myself at an earlier age than most people would.

I couldn’t use live music because of the fees as well, so, I mostly went with recorded music, which again cuts down the amount of creativity you can express or the amount of individuality you can express in a dance.

It’s more relaxed now, but back in the 90s and early 2000s, I had a lot of advice from very different people not to pursue dancing as a career because they sincerely believed that dance is not something that a male would actually pursue as a profession.

It was kind of down looked upon. Even when I entered engineering and I used to perform, the first thing that the cultural coordinator mentioned was that I’m going to get booed off the stage and it’s going to be very embarrassing.

There’s a lot of stigma that comes from society trying to push you away from this particular barrier.

It also has advantages since there are a limited number of males, you’ll always have a chance and you’ll always have opportunities, you’ll always have people asking you to come down to perform new roles, new characters that allow you to grow as a dancer. The downside of it is, there’s a lot more pressure for you to quit this particular dream.

At some point, even my parents felt that the dance was not something that they would like their son to pursue. I had to overcome. Finding a strength to keep up with the stigma and also find innovative ways to personalize and have better teaching experience despite having shortcomings in finance.

Do you see those shortcomings happening here too for your local students?

Financially, I’ve not seen somebody come to me and say they’re not in a position to pay for the class, because the classes at this point are not as expensive as one would expect. I believe it’s affordable to the communities at least in Laramie and Fort Collins.

As to the stigma, I actually haven’t taught a male dancer at all either in Wyoming or in Fort Collins, so, I guess that’s the other side of it. People here, instead of a stigma, the default assumption is that male students probably do not learn classical Indian dance here. I’m not sure I understand the psychology behind it, but I haven’t had the opportunity to train any male dancers in the United States yet.

Have you seen an uptick in interest in dance as pop culture dance shows take hold?

The amount of students that you see in a cultural dance class is relatively fewer. Most importantly, the amount of floating population, people who come try it out and then don’t continue in this particular art form is higher.

The kind of dance we do is very methodic, very penalizing on the body, especially for beginners. You often see a lot of people who come in not stick for multiple years, because it takes a lot of commitment from you, it builds a kind of muscle memory and some of the students who come in also go to other classes. The muscles that we train don’t often complement their other extracurricular activities that they love to do so the students have to prioritize which they really want to do and sometimes they quit for that as well.

Pop culture and the other extracurricular activities that happen inside Fort Collins do have an effect on us. It plays a significant role keeping the number of students in these classes low and not as high as one would expect.

Tell us about your Startup Week panel.

I want to present on how challenging it is to actually keep a startup company going from a classical dance point of view, how hard is it to actually keep this class open, how much a company has to modify teaching so that it actually fits the modern era students who actually use technology and who like to keep things simple, and also how to actually keep your muscle memory trained despite the fact that most of these kids don’t have enough time to actually come in three or four times a week to develop the muscle memory.

I’m trying to present those challenges that would help any other startup company coming up for teaching this class to be better prepared when they open the class so that they can continue sustaining students and sustaining their business.

In terms of your business what is the biggest challenge? It sounds like turnover.

Yeah, that is correct. One of the things Ranjani and I have been trying to do is find a balance between what the students need to learn the dance versus what the students expect out of this dance.

We have had students come back and tell us that cultural dances don’t enjoy typically the amount of enthusiasm from the crowd that you would get from let’s say, a K-pop song.

There are a lot of claps, a lot of sharing that goes on when you look at a very beat-full song. We really have to make these dances more attractive to the crowd, a more applause-gathering kind of dance that one would expect. That’s kind of hard to make, we have to maybe deviate from the general rules of dance in order to gain the additional beats. For example, we sometimes add in modern music equipment that cultural dance does not actually allow you to have.

The other challenge here is keeping up with the expectations of the parents and the kids with respect to the current age.

Most people want something fast paced with fast learning curves, so, it’s very hard to build muscle memory in a very short period of time, especially when the number of classes are pretty low.

If you could tell a startup business that is similar to your dance company, what would you tell them?

Mingle well. In order to move this art form to non-Indian communities, we need to modernize dance to be more catchy for people from other countries to come in and learn.

Jenny Morse is an expert in business communications and the CEO of Appendance, Inc. When she’s not teaching the generations to communicate more effectively and convey their credibility in written form, she’s contemplating the deeper meaning of emojis and trying to make emails more human.

Jenny is presenting an interactive panel on improving your email skills: 5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Email (and other business writing) on Tuesday February 26th, 11:00am-12:00 pm @ The Articulate.

Let’s get to know Jenny! 😀

I’m Jenny Morse and I am the founder of Appendance, Inc. Appendance means to add to in writing. It’s a little weird as a name, but then with the explanation, I hope it helps explain what we do.

We started originally freelance writing and editing, project-based stuff, and that sort of morphed into training in business writing, so offering seminars, full-day and half-day sessions in anything from grammar to how to write an email at companies around the state and that’s grown to around the country.

We also offer one on one coaching, so working with individuals to help them advance their skills, their communication skills.

Do you offer an emojis business writing class?

Not yet.

I do talk about emojis in my class because that’s sort of where we are right now is trying to figure out how to write professionally while writing nicely.

I developed a new class two years ago called Write It Well: how to write more positive and more concise messages.

Basically, if people write too short, it sounds curt. Writing already has this negativity effect where it sounds meaner than we intend, which is why we invented emojis so that you can see people’s faces in their messages and not interpret it too negatively. I’m sure we’re headed to an emoji class at some point, but not there yet for professional writing.

Do you find that there’s a generational component to help folks interpret different messages?

The generational part is that our culture has gotten more informal over time and writing changes. I mean, written language is this sort of infinite system and this moving system and it reflects cultures. It changes over time and it changes fast enough that we experience the change within our lifetime, which is sort of fascinating, but slow enough that differences develop in what the expectations are.

A lot of what I’m teaching people is what are, right now, the standard expectations in writing. How do you approach people, build relationships with people that you don’t know?

Most of that depends on establishing your credibility, which means engaging in a formal way, a professional way at the beginning, using all of the rules and things to show people that you know those roles, that you can be trusted to understand those roles, and then adapting to that audience as you build that relationship.

A lot of it is about understanding the standards for professional writing. Things like, we don’t use emojis right now in professional writing.

The one thing that younger people have is this amazing ability to adapt to their audience. Because they’re used to interacting on different platforms with all kinds of different people, they have a really good understanding of the idea that we shift our language depending on who we’re talking to. It’s just they don’t know what the rules are for making themselves seem professional to older generations, which means engaging in a more formal kind of way.

They get that they have to change how they’re speaking and writing. They just have to be taught what the expectations are for the generations before them.

Who do you see who’s doing the best job teaching their employees to communicate well?

Government organizations seem to recognize this, as well as a lot of really big banks. I worked for CoBank down in Denver and a few other banks who depends on their ability to demonstrate that every single one of their employees is credible and trustworthy.

There are groups that invest in professional development that way on a regular basis, but a lot of the companies that I’m working with are really trying to think about how they can build their credibility.

If there are new businesses like we’re working with at startup week, they’re thinking about how do they build relationships and what does that look like and how can they use techniques and writing to establish their credibility?

Whether that’s the copy that they have on their web page or the way that they communicate in an email, or the way that they communicate on LinkedIn or other sorts of networking platforms. We can help with how to present yourself as credible before you know the audience or they know you. From there, once you have an in, it’s a lot easier because you just start adapting to whatever that other person is doing. If they start using emojis, then you can start using emojis.

How about templated communications – like phone system menus. “Our menu options have recently changed so you’d better listen carefully” and the like. What types of templates are helpful versus harmful when it comes to communicating with customers? A lot of this communication is repetitive, but templating out the communication seems like it would also be not super helpful for a customer service perspective.

I haven’t been asked to work on any of those, but I do find templates to be really risky. It’s one thing for us to have sort of standard greetings that we use, which is something that I teach. The most formal greeting that we use in writing is dear with the person’s title, like Dear Mr. Smith, slightly less formal with Good afternoon Mr. Smith, and then less formal, Hi Mr. Smith. Those are sort of standards and we have that kind of templated out. Everybody’s going to use a greeting within that sort of range.

Because templates aren’t adaptable, they don’t really work beyond the basic formal things that we expect to see in communication. Just think about like when you start a conversation with somebody and you run into them in the morning and you go for like, hey, what’s up, or hi, how are you?

That’s sort of the standard way that you start a conversation, but then the conversation takes on its own individuated subjects and you sort of move as that conversation evolves into other things. There’s ways that you can start it and end it that can be templated, but beyond that you’re sort of reacting to the other person.

One of the things that we know about how people communicate is that face to face, those faces give us so many cues for responses that we don’t have when we’re writing or we’re not face to face with people.

How do we read or respond to other kinds of cues that are not physical, that are not facial expressions or body language? We still get those hints in writing. We still get some kind of sense of how a person wants to be communicated with. They’re just not what we do on an everyday basis, because mostly when you have a conversation with somebody, you are naturally responding to their body language.

We don’t use enough questions when we write to each other to imitate the conversation, but questions have a literally more positive tone. They go up at the end. When you use them in writing there improving the tone of your overall message, if you use a question or two, but they also show that you’re thinking about the other person, right?

Just by using the question mark, they show that you’re paying attention to your audience and thinking about how they’re going to respond and expecting them to respond so that you’re putting something out there and you’re going to wait for them to write you back in some way and communicate with you.

When it comes to humor, beyond just be careful with what you say, what advice would you have to incorporating humor into your writing?

Be careful with what you say is a good one. Humor really doesn’t work until you know your audience in writing, and especially because what we teach is professional writing.

Written records mean that people can look at it later, then it can be passed around. There’s a lot of danger with that. People can’t understand, they can’t read humor in the same way, which is why emojis become so important. I would say don’t use humor unless you can also use emojis.

If it’s that audience, you can get away with it, but otherwise, you probably shouldn’t be doing that in writing, especially at your business, which is a little depressing, but it encourages face to face communication. Get up from your desk and go talk to your coworkers.

You’ll be less legally liable in that way.

Exactly. That’s a lot of what I do is teach people how to avoid legal liability. It’s even in grammar.

Get up and talk to people. Otherwise you’ll be talking to lawyers.

Right.

Tell us about your panel for startup week.

My business partner Katie Hoffman and I are running a workshop actually, where the two of us are going to help and go through some just quick tips for how to improve email, things that matter, so going over how you write a good subject line that’s focused on what your audience needs to know from that subject line.

What are some standard greetings and closings to use? How do you organize the screen so that people are more likely to read?

One of the concepts that I use a lot in my seminars is the idea that nobody wants to read anything, which is a little sad, but true. We’re inundated by information constantly and no one wants to read anything. What are some strategies we can use to organize the words on the screen in order to encourage people to read? We’re going to go over those things to help people sort of tailor their email a little bit.

There will be interactive content and then us helping people just sort of revise some emails, reading over their shoulder and giving them, try this, what do you think about this kind of strategies, so that people can walk away from the workshop feeling like they can immediately write emails a little bit better than when they came in. That’s what we’ll be doing.

They’re literally coming in going, “I have this really mean email that I need to send a client, can you help me?”

Yes, sure. We can work on the how do we make it sounds like it’s a nice email even though it’s demanding?

I really don’t like you, but please pay me. Right? That’s the goal.

Right. I do that all the time. You think about, how do you motivate other people? Instead of saying, you know, I did this work, you need to pay me … That’s not motivating to anybody else. You have to tell them what they’ll get out of it. Right? I did this work and you need to pay me so that I will leave you alone. You think about what can you offer to that audience that will help them sort of comply with whatever it is you want them to do.

If you could tell a start up one thing, what would it be?

It’s think about credibility. From the very beginning, think about how you are presenting yourself. Every single thing that you’re doing is about demonstrating that you know what you’re doing.

The biggest thing is just to make sure that you know how to present yourself as credible. Whether that’s dressing the part or being able to speak about it appropriately, having your references sort of in your head, like who knows you or who have you worked with, and also just being comfortable selling yourself.

Over the weekend, I was meeting a lot of new people. This group of people were talking about how uncomfortable they are selling themselves and that’s what being a startup is. You’re selling yourself all the time. I think the idea is focus on what’s objective, what’s factual. Your credibility is established by what you’ve done. We’re all looking for that so much.

We each deal with a lot of big corporations on a regular basis. Just think about companies that we have to call the customer service and all you need is one tiny little question answered and you’ve got to talk to five people and go through all the lines.

Most of us are just looking for like where is the person? Where is the person here that we can trust and have a real conversation with? I think startups need to be that person. They need to be personable, that we can trust them to do whatever it is that they’re saying they can do.

Where can we find out more about you and your business, Jenny?

Probably the easiest place is our website, Appendance.com. It goes through all of our services, the writing and editing projects, one on one coaching. Then what we’ve been doing the most of is the consulting, so going into businesses and doing half day or full day sessions, training a group of employees in a writing or communication related subject.

Candyce Edelen knows her stuff when it comes to growing your business to the next level. Her company Propel Growth specializes in scaling companies beyond the $5M revenue mark.

You can check out Candyce’s panel: LinkedIn Prospecting for B2B Sales on Tuesday February 26th, 11:00am-12:00pm @ Cohere Coworking.

Let’s get to know Candyce!

Hi, I’m Candyce Edelen, I am the CEO of Propel Growth. We’re a 12 year old company doing marketing consulting. We work specifically with financial technology companies, and especially with commercial real estate tech companies, although we’ve worked with other markets in the past. Our primary focus is working with companies that are at that stage in their growth where they’ve made it past that $5 million mark in revenue, and now they’re trying to scale up to become bigger and maybe do an exit. About 12 of our clients in the last 10 years have had successful exits, and so what we focus on is helping companies get the messaging right for their sales and marketing strategy, and scale, build the business, land the customers, and build a sustainable business.

One of the challenges in Northern Colorado, in particular, is scaling up a business into something bigger than just a startup.

Yeah, True Space did some research, and they’re actually extending the research with a partnership with Gannet right now, that they just presented. And it was scary.

What they were finding in terms of consistent growth, they’re looking for consistent increases in revenue, free cash flow, consistent growth over a protracted period of five or more years. And they were saying that Colorado has a pretty poor startup to scale up success rate. And this is really lowering the growth rates in Colorado, especially in the startup world.

They’re finding that only 4% of companies that startup ever get to $1 million in revenue. Out of that 4%, only 10% of them make it to $10 million, and only 15% of the 10% manage to get into a growth phase going over $10 million and even growing past $50 million.

That is the type of sustainable and repeatable business that we need in Colorado. We need a lot of those, and I’m not seeing it happen, and I don’t really understand why that’s happening. We’re recent transplants, we’ve been here for about three and a half years coming out of New York, and you definitely see a more vibrant startup world there than you do here.

Do you see that happening in multiple industries, or is it specific to a subtype of startup?

True Space looked at 1,500 companies. And then they worked really closely with 150 of them over a period of five years. And all of those companies were growing and wanted to grow, and all of them were forecasting growth. But only 14 of them made it past $10 million.

From what I understand, they were looking across multiple spaces. There were some in tech, manufacturing, and services businesses. 60-80 said they were tech, three were manufacturing, and the rest of them were services.

I don’t think it’s specific to a given industry, I think it’s more about the resources available. One thing they said in that research was that 75% of all venture capital is going to three areas, California, New York, and Boston. So, we’re not getting it.

I even talked to somebody from the Rockies Venture Club, who was commenting that they’re not even investing here locally, even though it’s the Rockies Venture Club, that doesn’t mean that they’re trying to build sustainable businesses here in Colorado.

I also don’t see a desire in startups to grow organically. And I think organic growth is ultimately more sustainable than venture funded growth. So, I think there’s both a lack of venture funding here, but there’s also a lack of a sense of being able to grow something organically.

Maybe it’s impatience that lends itself to that, where we see that money going elsewhere.

Do you think that Fort Collins is having trouble attracting the right talent to staff these startups?

That’s a fair question. I think the bigger problem is retaining talent. Is it’s easy for a startup to find talent to begin with, since we’re a college town, it’s easy to pick up a really talented college student, grow them through the process of starting the business.

But, keeping them here comparatively to a salary in Bolder, or a salary in Denver, is really difficult. And we’re seeing a lot of these commuter towns pop up where you might work and play there, but you certainly can’t afford to live there. That’s one of the main struggles of Fort Collins I suspect across industries, startups, and even artists are struggling with this, that they love to work and play in Fort Collins, but some of them just can’t afford to live here any more.

One of the key things as we grow as a city will be maintaining our ability to retain talent, retain core artists, retain our community. And I think that that, as we grow, is going to be not just a business challenge, but a community challenge.

I totally agree with you, and I think one of the biggest problems is there’s a lack of good paying jobs. I mean I’ve talked to so many people that have three or four gigs that they’re doing. It’s like a part time job here and a part time job there, because they cannot afford to pay rent on one job. The jobs that seem to be here in abundance don’t pay exceptionally well, and then the housing market is starting to price out.

I was talking to a woman who’s a teller at a local credit union. She’s full time, she’s been there for a while, so she must be making a reasonable salary. And then her boyfriend is full-time employed too, they have a child. All they’re looking for is a two bedroom apartment, and they cannot afford to live in Fort Collins on two probably lower middle income salaries, full-time salaries. They can’t afford rent here for a two bedroom apartment.

That I think is a serious problem for being able to retain people, because it’s like eventually people are going to move out if they want to try to get ahead.

Is that a challenge that you think is addressable? And will it come up during your startup week talk?

That’s a great question. So, my startup week talk is actually going to be all about business development. So, taking a business, and I’m going to assume that the people that are attending it have a good, viable product market fit, you’ve got to start there. But, I’m going to be talking about how to use LinkedIn to generate sales opportunities. I’ve been really successful in my own efforts to drive new business in quite a large pipeline based on just doing LinkedIn outreach. I’ve had over 125 sales calls with new prospects just in six months of about five hours a week of efforts. So, that’s what I’m going to be teaching at startup week.

Have you seen this play out well elsewhere?

We have got a client that is doing it right now in Chicago and having great results with it. But it’s also something that is working across multiple markets. Because I’m in the tech and that’s where I focus, I’m seeing it be really effectively deployed with technology companies. Anybody who sells B2B with an account based strategy where there’s more than one buyer persona involved in a decision process at the company that they’re targeting, and they have a very specific target audience. It works best if you’re targeting vertically I find, although I’m also hearing that it’s been fantastically effective for investment advisors who are going out looking for high net worth and mass affluent prospects to do financial planning for.

It works across markets, it works across business types. It can work B2C, what I would consider an investment advisor. I’m finding it to be super powerful in B2B complex sales.

In terms of startup week, what are you most excited for?

I want to see people come in and get an education that will really empower them to be able to take the next step with their business, because there’s a lot of smart people in this town, and we need to start creating jobs. And we can’t create jobs if we don’t have successful businesses. And we can’t create successful businesses if we don’t have the tools to learn how to build a successful business. So, that’s what I see as super valuable about startup week.

It’s a real hub of getting everybody in the same room together to talk about those cool resources. And also hopefully figuring out ways to get paid.

That’s the important part, we need to generate revenue. It all comes down to that.

If you had any advice to relay to a newbie startup, what would you say?

Find your market. Find a need in a very tight niche market. Focus carefully and find that need and fill it really well. So, I’ve had five startups. Some of them more successful, some of them complete failures. We were building a technology business, this was back in 2000, and we were building a technology business around enterprise application integration. Zero consistency in our pipeline, we’re an eight-person company, we can’t possibly learn what we need to learn to serve all of those types of clients effectively. But we didn’t know that.

We sat down and looked at our pipeline and made the decision to focus. Focusing on such a tight niche market, we very quickly grew. We were in scale-up mode. We didn’t successfully scale it, but there were other reasons for that.

But the point being that focus was what really got us over the hurdle. Every one of our clients ended up looking very similar, that meant that the value proposition was similar, which meant that I could message it, and build a marketing platform around that. And I could train a sales team on how to sell it. We never would’ve gotten there if we’d been so horizontally focused.

Find your market.

And focus, don’t be afraid of really tight niche. People always say the riches are in the niches, it’s true. And the tighter your niche, the more likely you are going to be at being successful at that, especially in tech.

Where can we find out more about you and your business?

PropelGrowth.com. Or you can find me on LinkedIn, I’m Candyce Edelen.

A public speaker, a gifted career coach, and a passionate advocate for service-based entrepreneurs, Chrysta Bairre‘s efforts have created connections and opportunities that span throughout Northern Colorado.

Chrysta will be presenting FIVE sessions at Techstars Startup Week Fort Collins:

• Business Beyond Privilege on Monday February 25th, 12:00pm-1:00pm @ Downtown Artery Gallery

• She Leads Social on Tuesday February 26th, 3:00pm-5:00pm @ Cohere Coworking

• How To Fire Clients and Say No In Business on Wednesday February 27th, 9:00am-10:00am @ Innosphere

• Breaking the Silence: Mental Health and Entrepreneurship on Wednesday February 27th, 11:00am-12:00pm @ Innosphere

• Price Your Service Right on Thursday February 28th, 11:00am-12:00pm @ Downtown Artery Performance Venue

Let’s get to know Chrysta!

I’m Chrysta Bairre and I’m excited to be a repeat speaker at Fort Collins Startup Week.

This will be my third year speaking at Fort Collins Startup Week. I hate the whole elevator pitch thing. So, instead of boring you with that, what I’m going to tell you is something that I’ve done in the last week that I’m proud of.

This is a question that I ask of everyone answers at the beginning of every meeting that we have for She Leads, the women’s leadership group that I run here in Fort Collins.

Last night, I spoke to a room of over 100 people in Denver about imposter syndrome, and it was an amazing night. It was at General Assembly, and the event was put on in collaboration with Denver Women in Tech and Ladies Who UX Denver. I was blown away by how many people were in the room and the responses that I’ve gotten, and I’m still getting tagged in people’s Instagram posts today. People are talking about the things that I talked about last night. There’s been several people who have posted stories of their takeaways from the event, and it’s just something that I’m super proud of and felt like that was better than saying a really canned, here’s my elevator pitch so that you know who I am.

Do you get a lot of pushback when you reject people’s elevator pitches?

I don’t actually get a lot of pushback. Most people are caught off-guard, so that counteracts the pushback. People tell me usually that they find it really refreshing, actually.

She Leads has become a major force in Fort Collins.

I created She Leads to be the group that I’ve been looking for, for many years, in my professional career. Wanting to come together in community and collaborate with a variety of women from across different professions in a supportive and introvert-friendly environment, where it wasn’t about … Some traditional networking groups really have the energy of let’s do business with each other, or it’s a very transactional relationship. As an introvert, that’s something that has always been challenging for me.

My very first She Leads event, I thought to myself, “I’m going to be really happy if five people show up to this event.”

The day before the event, there were 35 RSVPs, and more than half of them were people that I did not personally know. The day of the event, we had about 23 people show up, and what it said to me is that there were a lot of people actually wanting this type of environment where it was about connection and building community as opposed to just this more hard-core pitch-focused networking.

Most of the women that are coming to She Leads on a regular basis are really coming for the connections, and it’s not necessarily about creating future business transactions. It’s a space where we get really filled up personally and professionally so that when we’re out there doing the amazing work that we’re doing in the world, we’re able to do it with a little bit more support and grace and ease and confidence.

A lot of your efforts are aimed at elevating female business owners. Is that a major trend that you see in Fort Collins in particular or beyond?

A lot of my efforts are focused on that, and I haven’t really seen it as that much of a trend.

I was involved with the Larimer County Women of the Year, and I was a participant as well as a facilitator. There are a few programs out there that are doing this type of work, but I don’t think it’s really widespread. I don’t know that this work is as accessible to all women as I would really like it to be, and that’s absolutely something that I’m hoping to shift and change with She Leads.

I absolutely encourage anyone who has an idea for a group or a program that supports professional women to take that idea and see it through to fruition because there’s a lot of room in the Fort Collins area for more than one group that is supporting women in this way.

You’ve focused a lot on public speaking. Is that something that you see has helped push the message forward for some of your other efforts as well?

I really want to help others grow personally and professionally and be better versions of themselves. I want to help people work happier and get paid a lot more money, and one of the easiest ways for me to reach people with that message is to do speaking.

What are some of the primary ways that you go about doing that?

A lot of times when people think about making more money or being in a better position career wise, they think about, “Well, I need to find the right job first of all,” so they think it’s their external situation that is going to really impact those two factors.

Oftentimes, in the work that I do with people, it’s less about the external situation and much more about our internal situation. It’s absolutely about how we’re showing up in the world, how we’re showing up at work, how much do you value yourself, and how are you communicating that with others?

Not just communicating it in a job interview or in a sales conversation, but how are you communicating what your value is day-to-day in everyday interactions that you’re having through your work?

When you can shift that, when you know that what you’re providing is worth something, and then you can communicate that more effectively, other people see you as more valuable. It’s a lot easier for them to want to pay you more.

You’re not just talking about crossing the Ts and dotting the Is. You’re talking a lot about situational awareness and attitude and approach when you come to a communication or a meeting?

Absolutely, yeah. It’s how do you say, “No,” when it’s appropriate? Or are you saying, “Yes,” to things that you shouldn’t be saying, “Yes,” to? And what happens when you say “Yes” too much is you’re letting other people down or yourself down because you have way too much on your plate.

If you’re an entrepreneur let’s say, are you firing clients that are just terrible to work with?

I cover that in one of my sessions at Fort Collins Startup Week. It’s a pretty vulnerable thing to think about firing a client, even if that client is making you absolutely miserable, and you’re not making very much money from it.

In terms of a 9:00 to 5:00 career, it seems like these are issues that directly feed into the gender pay gap.

Absolutely, these issues do feed into the gender pay gap. One thing that surprises me is how often I speak in rooms where there’s both men and women and that I hear from men that they experience these things as well as women. The impact on men is a little bit different. It’s shows up differently for them.

Last night when I spoke in Denver at General Assembly, this event was put on by Denver Women in Tech and Ladies Who UX Denver. So, I was expecting a primarily female audience, but in fact, it was about 50/50.

Everyone was there because of the topic. It was imposter syndrome, and every person in that room could identify and felt like they were some version of an imposter professionally. Across genders, it was a similar issue. It just shows up a little bit differently.

What do you think is the best way for a startup to combat imposter syndrom from day one?

The more that you are doing the work that you want to be doing in the world, the better and better you’re going to get at it, and the getting started piece is huge.

Particularly for entrepreneurs, and I put myself in this category years ago, who treat their business as a hobby business. You flirt on the edge of actually having a business, but you’re not really treating your business like a business. The focus and the clarity is not there, and so getting started is a huge piece of that, for sure.

What do you see as the biggest challenge for startups in Fort Collins or Northern Colorado?

A voice that I’ve really been trying to elevate in the Fort Collins community is the voice of the service-based entrepreneur. I’ve observed that there’s a lot more support in our community for tech and science businesses and for retail and brick and mortar type businesses, but there’s a lot less support for service-based businesses.

Interestingly enough, service-based businesses tend to be primarily female- and women-owned. So, when women go into business, it’s usually in a service. Or, they’re doing some kind of maker business, but they’re doing it on a small scale.

A lot of the resources that you’ll find, for example, through Innosphere or through the SBDC are really focused on or, I believe, benefit more those type of brick and mortar businesses or the tech businesses or the science-based businesses rather than the independent service provider. I feel really strongly about providing more resources to service-based businesses, which by extension elevates women entrepreneurs since that space is predominantly women.

When it comes to resources, who’s doing the best job providing for those service-based businesses like you’ve said?

If it was anyone, I would say you’d find it at Fort Collins Startup Week.

I would absolutely love to see more organizations being mindful in the services that they’re providing, that they are supporting a more wide range of entrepreneurs and businesses rather than maybe just the traditional ones.

Speaking of Fort Collins Startup Week, what are you most excited about?

I am most excited this year for the theme, which is diversity and inclusion. I got so excited when I saw that that was going to be the theme for this year because I feel like these are important conversations that we need to be having if we really want to elevate entrepreneurs in Northern Colorado across the board.

When we create a space for diversity and inclusion, we do a much better job of giving those people an opportunity to be heard and inviting others to the table that maybe aren’t speaking up for themselves right now.

If you could tell a startup business owner one thing, what would you tell them?

I would tell them, “Don’t do it alone.” I am a firm believer that none of us really do an effective job totally in a vacuum, and so find those resources and find the support that you can. They are out there, and it might be in places that you wouldn’t immediately think of going to.

I once heard from a female entrepreneur that her experience as a business owner was that she didn’t think that there were many female entrepreneurs in Northern Colorado, and I said, “That’s absolutely not true. I could name off probably 50 of them for you right now.”

If you’re not finding them in the rooms that you’re going to or in the spaces that you’re in, the resources that you need, keep looking. Keep asking and keep being curious, and if it doesn’t exist, go out and create it because if there’s a need for it, people will show up.

Have you seen any cool projects come out as a result of that?

Yeah, absolutely. Define the Line. Define the Line is a comic book form of sexual harassment training for the workplace, and Tina and Nikki have just done an amazing job of putting this together. I just am such a huge advocate for this project that they have. I was one of the early supporters of the project. In fact, I’m a character in the comic book.

Having experienced the training that Tina and Nikki are doing to support Define the Line, it’s just so incredible. Anytime there’s an opening for me to tell someone about Define the Line, I tell them about it.

Define the Line was drawn and illustrated by Moriah Hummer, a local Fort Collins artist, who is behind Flat Track Furies.

So, Chrysta, what’s next for you? What are you most excited about in Fort Collins and Northern Colorado?

I am working on releasing my first book, which will be coming out in May.

What I’m most excited for what’s coming up and what’s happening in Northern Colorado is I really do believe that we’re seeing more and more spaces where there is more diversity and inclusion happening. It’s happening slowly, but it’s happening surely. There’s some cool stuff going on here if you know where to look, and I’m hoping that some of those programs become more well-known and more accessible.

Give us some examples.

Dr. Cori Wong at CSU has released a course on feminist friendship and you can take that course through CSU-Global. She did a presentation at She Leads about it. She also did a TED Talk at TEDxCSU around feminist friendship.

It’s about having the discussion on how we can better support each other as women and not just speak for ourselves in the space of advocating for women but also speak for women who are different than ourselves when we’re advocating for other women.

There’s also the Women’s Foundation of Colorado has a Northern Colorado little branch that often has events that meet and discuss pay equity issues.

They discuss the state of what politically is impacting women in Colorado, and there’s a lot of opportunities there as well to get engaged and be involved in some of these conversations.

Do you find that access and inclusion works better in a community where we actively make that a goal and explicitly state it as opposed to assume or take for granted that, yes, of course, that’s the goal because why wouldn’t we want to have more access, more inclusion, more diversity?

It absolutely matters that it’s spoken out loud and that it’s intentional.

What happens is sometimes we assume that we’re supporting people who have less access and inclusion when maybe we’re not really.

How we know that we’re supporting them is I’m listening. But in order for us to listen, we have to first shut up ourselves, and sometimes, it looks like we really do have to invite those conversations.

We really do have to challenge ourselves to think differently about issues that we may believe we understand how it impacts people who have less access and inclusion. When we create space to have those conversations and to actually listen, oftentimes, I think we can find out, “Oh. I had it wrong. I didn’t understand how this impacts you as well as I did.”

Just hearing from one person isn’t enough because it impacts us all differently. Pay equity issues, for example, we’ve talked about that a couple times. It impacts all women, but it impacts women of color differently. And even among different races, you find that it’s wildly different. Having those conversations and listening and creating an opportunity for people to have those conversations and to listen is really important.

Marj Hahne has a degree in engineering, an MFA, and she’s a copy-editor “by income”. But, most importantly: she’s a poet, and a bad-ass entrepreneur in her own right. Alongside Kathleen Willard, Marj brought together Ray Martinez, Leslee Becker, and Vauhini Vara to discuss creating literary art in Fort Collins. You can check out the panel 4PM Wednesday, February 27th at The Forge Publick House.

Let’s get to know more about Marj!

Hi, I am Marj Hahne, a local poet/writer/writing teacher. I moved to Fort Collins in mid-October from Boulder County. I’ve lived in Colorado on the Front Range since 2006.

My partner, who is co-facilitating our events for Artup Week, Kathleen Willard is also a local poet in Fort Collins.

We’re co-creating an organization called Paragraph to bring hybrid literary arts events to Fort Collins and beyond. We both have a lot of experience and years creating community events around literature and science. Our goal is to find out how many lenses can we put on literature to create conversations that feel hospitable to non-writers. We writers are usually only talking to each other. So, that’s our commitment. We wanna re-engage folks in literature. I personally am heartbroken that our English teachers destroyed poetry for most folks. So, that’s my agenda.

When you say “hybrid literary arts,” do you mean different types of literature?

I mean: how can I have a conversation about the literary arts and science or the literary arts and food, together?

When I lived in Boulder County, I paired beers with poems and spirits with poems. I had poem pairings and it was sort of synesthetic.

How do I talk about a beer in the same way I might talk about a poem? How are these sensuously the same, sensually similar? And, that’s actually one of our events for Artup Week.

We’re having a post-panel mingle where we’re gonna have entrepreneurs who are creatives like artists, we are very similarly minded.

How can I refresh my concept of my business story by thinking about it like a poem, like a painting, and like a beer? So, we’re doing that after a panel featuring writers of diversity who live and work in Fort Collins.

Do you find that in your events, that people have some sort of impediment to the poetry component? In your business, do you experience that same aversion?

Whoever’s showing up at poetry events have already bought in. If they didn’t buy in, if they came with a friend, something about it turned them around.

I used to do a literary series in Boulder called Atomic Circus. We had a water panel and we had a poet (a lawyer from Denver) who wrote about the Colorado Rivers. I had a guy who made business and home water testing devices. I had an underwater photographer and a woman who was a hydrotherapist. So, it wasn’t all writing related, but one of the panelists was a writer.

That’s what I mean when I say “hybrid.” That’s my sneaky way of getting non-writers or people who think they’re not artistic to show up and engage in the arts in a way that is meaningful. I wanna be an ambassador for the arts. People get that theoretically, the arts are important in our culture, and where the money goes doesn’t support that. They already have a pre-conceived notion of what poetry is, so we’re wanting to stealthily seduce them.

Do you find that interdisciplinary approach is vital to your business interests?

It is. Because I have an engineering degree, I relate to a pragmatic way of being in the world. I don’t think it’s separate. I don’t think these are distinct domains. I think it’s all one, big humanity.

What are some of the unique challenges of being a poet in Northern Colorado?

It’s not specific to Northern Colorado. Northern Colorado has a vibrant literary scene. Truly, truly my favorite that I’ve experienced while living in Colorado.

Poetry isn’t a money maker, not even for a publisher, unless it’s a poet laureate type or the big folks who make it, a Billy Collins, a Mya Angelou.

Most of us are making a living by teaching or doing something else, and writing is our, well, we don’t wanna call it our avocation. We feel more strongly about it than that, but it’s not something we put on our tax returns, you know?

It presents a lot of different challenges in terms of time that you can dedicate and how you can proceed in terms of business planning. What are some of the ways that you adapt to that sort of unique challenge?

I’m a copy editor by income, so I have a lot of authors approaching me ’cause they’re wanting to self-publish.

I have them think broadly about who their audience is and what the platform is. If someone has a comedic instinct and they seem to be theatrical and they don’t really wanna sit alone in a room, write a book, and not know who bought the book, I say, “You’re comedic. Why don’t you create a one-man show, and then let people buy your book and take it home ’cause they wanna take a piece of you home, like a postcard?”

That becomes a different way of monetizing ourselves as writers, as crafters of language and presenters of language. That’s what I’m considering, how do I use poetry as a way of talking about something else? And, so I’m developing myself as a public speaker. I’ve done a lay sermon at a Unitarian church. I’m just being sneaky that way and I feel alive when I do it, which is how I know it’s what there is to do for me as a poet.

You have an MFA. You have an engineering degree. You’re a copy editor. It sounds like you’re a multipotentialite. You have a lot of different skillsets to draw on. Is that vital for survival as an artist?

It’s vital for me. Some folks are just completely single focused, they succeed on that merit. That has not been my case.

When I heard the notion of 10,000 hours from Malcolm Gladwell, I said, “I don’t wanna work on poems for that many hours in my life. I wanna do other things.”

I know that about myself. That’s the first thing an artist has to do is tell the truth about who they are, who they wanna be as an artist, and then how do you create that world to serve what you know is true about yourself? It’s doable. Artists are start-ups.

You’ve talked a little bit about the integration of technology with the artistic process. What are some of your favorite ways to integrate technology into your process?

I have to confess that I’m a little bit of a dinosaur with tech, even though I have an engineering degree.

I’ve been writing poems to the elements in the periodic table of elements. So, there’s the science, right? Yes, I do my research on the element, but much more so it’s a doorway into my own life.

There’s another poet named Jena Osman who has done the same thing. Very different, her poems, but she set up a periodic table of elements online and you can click on the element and it links to a window for you to read the poem. So, in that sense, poets are getting really creative about how to present their work.

We’re also seeing the application of art and poetry and music and design in a lot of different fields as well. Can you talk about going the other direction and helping businesses, small businesses, start-ups, other entrepreneurial types understand the creative process through art or through poetry?

Businesses are now hanging art on their walls. They know that to create a climate of humanity, of creativity. Any environment needs creativity no matter what you do.

We’re all being creative in how we interact with people. So, the arts create a more humane, enjoyable work environment, and businesses are seeing that, hanging art on the walls, etc.

I absolutely would love that businesses hire a poet to do a staff meeting where they get the staff writing poems. That we have to shut off our personal self to show up in our office, it just never made sense to me. We are a whole person. We are better at what we do when our whole self shows up to do it. Businesses would do right to let artists come in and do in-services.

I think that you’re absolutely on the right track. I, myself, write weaponized haiku whenever I have to deliver harsh feedback.

Excellent!

It’s along that same track, you’ve touched on a few things that sound a little bit like impostor syndrome. What do you think are some of the best ways to get around that impostor syndrome?

I love that question. I’m gonna answer it by way of my having gotten an MFA at 50. That was a lot of money to go into debt for, and what I got out of it is that there’s something about declaring to yourself who you are and who you’re gonna be.

That is the woman who applied at 47 to grad school. All of the time before that fearing being an impostor, being found out, not a good enough writer, I should be writing every day. This is what writers do, they write every day. All of that changed during my three-year program.

So, at the end of it, did I become a better poet? I think so. I know so. What I became better was clearer about my identity as a writer. Period, the end.

I know who I am. I know who I’m not. I know what I’m willing to do as a writer. I know what I’m not willing to do as a writer. So, my identity’s shifted. And, now I don’t have the noise about, “Oh, I should be writing every day.” I just do what a writer does.

There’s this notion of be, do, have. If you be the writer in your identity, if down to the cells you know, you will do what a writer does. Then you will have what a writer earns, which is a book or poems or maybe a whole career. But, I’m clear about it, that impostor syndrome goes away the minute you declare on the cellular level who you are.

What are you most excited about in terms of Startup Week?

Meeting new people. I’m new up here. I know that my peeps are the start-ups, are the creative folks because they get stuff done. That’s how I say it. They get stuff done.

I love Fort Collins because it seems like the city very much is supportive of the people. It walks its talk, “Yeah, we’re an arts town,” and you sure act like one, Fort Collins.

Who’s absolutely doing the best work in Northern Colorado and Fort Collins?

I love FoCo Café. I went to a fundraiser when I first moved here. I love the Museum of Art. I am really enjoying a community of entrepreneurial women called She Leads, led by Chrysta Bairre, and they actually have some events during Startup Week.

My poetry critique group meets at Wolverine Farm Letter & Publick House, and that is a beautiful space for the literary arts. I’ve had a good time with The Lyric Theater. They had a brewmaster film with a panel of the breweries. The brewery people are wonderful with the music.

As far as our panel, our speakers have done fantastic work. We have CSU English Department professor, Leslee Becker. Ray Martinez, who was a Fort Collins cop for many years in the police department, a three-time mayor, and now a city councilman. And, we have Vauhini Vara who is newish to Fort Collins, and she’s a prominent national journalist, so we scored.

We got three folks, three walks of literary life, and the Forge is putting together a special flight of beer for our start-up people to use to inquire into their start-up story. And, Kathleen and I will be providing artwork and poetry. Not our own, by national poets. Just the creative process even of causing this thing turned out to be a panel that feels richer than our original intention.

What is the creative process like for you?

What’s true for me is that I have to find the first line. A first line has a certain rhythm and musicality and a way of saying, diction. It’ll interest me because it somehow is related to whatever existential grappling is going on. And, it’ll have metaphorical possibility. There’ll be something that shows up in my world that has struck me, upset me, whatever. It could be a national issue, or a local issue, or a personal issue. And, somehow that incident, I can work into being a metaphor for a larger existential grappling, a larger concern. And, I meander my way into it. I can’t do it if I don’t find the first line.

Tell us about your Startup Week events.

Kathleen Willard and my two Artup events are Wednesday, Feb 27th. 4:00 to 5:00 is the panel, and 5:00 to 7:00 is the mingle.

Where can we find out more about you and your work?

My website is www.marjhahne.com