Our sixth event since launching Beta over 365 days ago lived up to each of its predecessors. And three weeks later, I’m here to make a few announcements…

The Crowd Favorite!
Their voices being heard through a pile of 115 poker chips, attendees named Ubooly as the favorite startup of v3.0.6. Congrats to Isaac and Carly, and thanks to all who voted! If you’re itching to contribute to their growing success, head over to their Kickstarter project and help fund the first batch of toys!

Of course, I’d like to commend the rest of the companies – each of which pleased the crowd in their own right. The quality and mix of startups was as good as it gets.

Boulder Beta 3.0.7 – Startup Week Edition
Our next event will be held Friday, May 18, as part of the many festivities of Boulder’s annual Startup Week. Boulderites, come meet our out-of-towner startup junky brethren; hopeful-Boulderites, come meet your future neighbors and see what Colorado entrepreneurs are building!
Early bird pricing available if you buy now.

Awesome event next week!
Silicon Flatirons Center’s annual entrepreneurship conference is  next Thursday, March 22.

This year’s conference, Angel Financing: Understanding the Early Outside Money In, convenes leading investors, entrepreneurs, and academics to explore favorable strategies and pitfalls associated with early stage investments.  Confirmed speakers include nationally recognized super angel Jeff Clavier of SoftTech VC, David Cohen of TechStars and Bullet Time Ventures, Foundry Group’s Jason Mendelson, JP Morgan’s Chief Private Economist Anthony Chan, and Jeff Sohl, Director for the Center for Venture Research at the University of Hampshire.

The conference should be of interest to entrepreneurs, early stage investors, service providers, and CU faculty and students. More information and registration available here.

We welcome back Meeps, a Boulder Beta alumni, for an exclusive launch of their shiny new iPhone app, which just became available in the Apple App Store on Tuesday!

Meeps is “a place to share and talk about your interests with others around the world.” So, download their app today, sign up and look for the special conversation dedicated to Boulder Beta – you can now chat with others before, during and after the event! The Meeps team has decided to use Boulder Beta as their official launch party, before they introduce it to the rest of the world at SXSW next week. So get in early, grab that special username you’ve always wanted and experience a social app that will change social apps.

And to top that all off, Meeps is celebrating with the community that has supported it all along by treating us to free shots of Patron! Visit their table to get in on the launch party on!

Serial entrepreneur and long time community member, Eric Marcoullier, will announce his latest venture, which aims to bring together the people in and around Boulder who want to make stuff. You might have noticed a few “different” companies (Ubooly, Boom Cube?) in our demo lineup, each of which will be presenting physical products. Eric has been working with both of these teams and has a vision of helping more people like them who want to build new things for the world. Come learn what Eric has up his sleeve, and get the chance to provide direct feedback!

In addition to all this, with hundreds of smart, like minded people gathering in one place, a chance to win tickets to awesome concerts (thanks, Technical Integrity!) how could tonight not be the best night of startup madness you’ve seen in 2012?

If you haven’t already signed up, do so before it’s too late!

If you’re already on board, but you know some friends that might really dig what we’re doing, bring them along.

See you tonight, friends!

In case you missed our email followup, we’d  like to re-recognize our “Crowd Favorite”, as decided by your poker chip voting…

Our esteemed community members selected Fan Mix as the top demo of the night! Congrats to founders Char and Alex on creating something awesome, and good luck to them as they continue to build the product.

While FanMix managed to garner the most votes, we would be remiss to not acknowledge the other seven demos – each of which collected respectable stacks of poker chips themselves. Be sure to continue following the rest of the crew as well: Acheevos, Lokalite, Mobile Igniter, Next Big Sound, Open Snow, Rafflecopter and TagWhat.

Finally, we owe our sponsors one more shout out for bringing the gifts and making the whole shebang possible – Softlayer, Google, SendGrid, Boulder Startup Weekend and Silicon Valley Bank. Plus, check out our in-kind sponsors, PosterBrain and StickerGiant, for all your poster and sticker needs.

Stay tuned to our twitter and Facebook feeds for more info on progress and special offers from our demo companies.

Thanks for all your support in 2011, and we look forward to seeing you again in 2012 for more Beta goodness. 

Tomorrow is the big day – the holiday party to rule all holiday parties. You and your startup are invited to share some cheer and celebrate a great year of entrepreneurialism in our great state of Colorado. Folks are coming from all over – Boulder, Denver, Ft Collins, Steamboat Springs and more!

And in the spirit of the season, we wanted to make a few more announcements for you to prepare to make the most of your evening.

The Boulder Beta Food Drive

Tis’ the season to be giving. Bring a can of food to Boulder Beta and help us collect 400 lb of food on behalf of the Community Food Share.

Recommended Donations:

• Canned Fruit
• 100% Fruit Juice
• Cold & Hot Cereal
• Canned Tuna/Fish and Meat
• Canned Chili and Stew
• Pasta Sauce
• Peanut Butter
• Money (see below)

Money is also great way to help. Community Food Share can buy food on the wholesale market, so your donations buy 4 times the food you could at the store. Make checks payable to Community Food Share.

Gifts for our guests

The Boulder Beta Santas (i.e., our sponsors!) have delivered a number of special gifts to be given away at the event. Drop your name tag or business card at the registration table, and we’ll do a random drawing to see who gets the gift-wrapped goodies. Gifts will be a surprise (hint: if you’re a geek, you’ll want one), and you have to be present (pun intended) to get one!

Vote on your favorite demo company

When you arrive and check into the party, you’ll get 3 poker chips. Each chip represents a “point”, and it’s up to you to award your 3 chips to your favorite startup demo. You can distribute these however you want – all three to one company, one chip to three different companies, etc. At the end of the night, we’ll count them up and announce the winner as the night’s favorite startup in an email the following morning.

Dress in your season’s finest…whatever that means to you!

Whether it’s the ugliest, most festive sweater on earth or your nicest evening wear, dress however you want – just be ready to meet some amazing startups, thank our awesome sponsors and enjoy the company of your community!

Last week, Giga Om took notice of all his hard work and announced the global expansion of SF Beta to five additional cities. Within the next 60 days, Beta events will take place across the globe, from the west coast to the east coast, and right on over the ocean to Ireland! I’m really proud of my co-producer for his ability to pull off such a feat. And I’m equally proud of my home city for being a part of something so special.

So, my final note is a simple proposition to my fellow Coloradans: join me and hundreds of other startup community members from Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins and beyond, in solidifying Boulder’s position as one of the premier locations for entrepreneurship in the whole wide world. 

Boulder Beta 3.0.3 will take place this Thursday, Sept 15, from 6-9pm…and you can play your part by signing up here.

• demos - from a fresh beta launch to a growing customer base, a variety of young companies to discover and engage
• sponsors – our sponsors make this happen, and, as always, they’ll be in attendance to support beyond the dollars
• pre-party – Trada is celebrating it’s 3rd anniversary. Join the rest of the Boulder community in their parking lot from 4:30-6 for free food/drink and a bouncy castle! Then, head on over to Boulder Beta to continue the festivities…
• free drinks – Boulder Beta and splick-it are teaming up to provide the usual free drinks, but this time redeeming your ticket will be even more fun!

Guest post from Linds Panther, head of marketing at Splick-it, providing a sneak peek at a special twist for version 3.0.4…

Your Phone, The Bartender

That’s right. For BoulderBeta 3.0.4, we’re partnering with the good folks at Boulder Absinthe House to setup a true demonstration of the splick•it mobile ordering system in which you, the attendees, will be able to order and pay for your bar drinks using the splick•it app throughout the evening. The result? Less waiting, more mingling!

One more thing: Make sure you’ve got the app on your phone beforehand. The splick•it app is a free download for iPhone and Android.

See you on the 15^th!

The splick•it Team 

I’ve been a huge fan of the splick•it app since discovering it (through the power of the twitters) a little over a year ago. I’m excited to have them on the docket, and this effort is a perfect example of the opportunity for product engagement  that BoulderBeta provides. Attendees get hands-on experience with the app. Companies get honest, direct feedback on the spot!

As you all know, we always provide some free drinks at BoulderBeta. Well, this time a limited number of Beta-sponsored beers will be available for purchase through the splick-it app…

Now, go download the app and sign up for BoulderBeta 3.0.4 today!

Softlayer and SendGrid have teamed up to offer a fun little challenge to all attendees that will inevitably send someone home as the lucky winner of a shiny new iPad 2.

The rules:

1. When you check in, pick up your BoulderBeta Passport card
2. As you visit with the 8 demo companies, ask each to “stamp” your passport
   • you earn a stamp by interacting with companies enough so that you know what they do…no stamp and runs!
3. If you complete your passport (get a stamp from all 8 companies), you’re entered into the grand prize drawing
4. When the card is drawn, you gotta be there to win!

So, here’s the rundown of all the compelling reasons to attend v3.0 next week:

• it’s gonna be fun.
• you’ll meet awesome startups.
• all the cool kids will be there.
• free drink for the first 300 people through the door.
• door prizes: free Roller Doll tix from Technical Integrity
• win an iPad2!

If you’ve been procrastinatin’, you might as well go ahead and register now!

See you then, folks!
…now watch this for a chuckle:

DIAMOND

These guys can’t get enough of BoulderBeta. From the depths of Texas, we welcome back the most badass hosting company out there.

Headquartered in Dallas, SoftLayer is the innovation leader in on-demand web hosting and data center services. As the largest hosting company in the world, SoftLayer lets customers create dedicated, cloud, or seamless hybrid computing environments, leveraging world-class data centers in Dallas, Houston, Seattle, Washington D.C., San Jose, and network Points of Presence nationwide. SoftLayer automates all elements of its platform, empowering enterprises of any size with complete control, security, scalability, and ease-of-management via a leading Customer Portal and Open API. The company’s proprietary offerings include the industry’s first Network-Within-a-Network topology for true out-of-band access, providing remote access to all management options.

PLATINUM

You could be looking at your very own logo in this spot. Doesn’t “Platinum” sound like the perfect descriptor for your business or organization? Contact us for details!

GOLD

SendGrid makes it ridiculously simple to send and receive email from your web application. Choose from a quick SMTP Relay or massively flexible and customizable API integration, to fit your unique needs. Deliverability, scalability, email metrics, and APIs – what more could you ask for!?

SILVER

Silicon Valley Bank is the premier commercial bank for companies in the technology, life science, venture capital, private equity and premium wine industries. SVB provides a comprehensive suite of financing solutions, treasury management, corporate investment and international banking services to its clients worldwide. Through its focus on specialized markets and extensive knowledge of the people and business issues driving them, Silicon Valley Bank provides a level of service and partnership that measurably impacts its clients’ success. Founded in 1983 and headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., the company serves clients around the world through 26 U.S. offices and international operations in China, India, Israel and the United Kingdom. Silicon Valley Bank is a member of global financial services firm SVB Financial Group (Nasdaq: SIVB), with SVB Analytics, SVB Capital, SVB Global and SVB Private Client Services.  More information on the company can be found at www.svb.com.

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IN KIND

PosterBrain provides the official BoulderBeta event posters.

Printing posters has never been easier.

Technical Integrity connects good employees with good companies. They’re also going to connect some lucky BB3.0 attendees with free First Bank Center Suite tickets to the Denver Roller Dolls just for showing up!

FourthSegment enables businesses to capture and track leads via Social Media, monitor & engage with those leads, and measure the ROI of their SM efforts. We do this by using technology that makes it easy for consumers to pose questions to their social graph, and then sharing those questions and answers with businesses.

Geronimo.com raises real money real fast by converting spare weeks into big donations!  At Geronimo.com, vacation home owners and rental managers can select specific weeks which they will give 50% or 100% back to charity.  Owners and managers can select the charity or allow the traveler to chose.  Meanwhile, Geronimo.com creates white label websites for non-profits so the non-profits can let their supporters know the next time they take a vacation they can also help their favorite cause.  Visit Geronimo.com today and help one of 1.1 million charities.

Glö offers über-personalized email wedding invitations, wedding websites, smart RSVPs and guest messaging tools, which enable couples delight their guests, express their unique personality, and save time and stress while planning a rediculously fun wedding celebration. We believe that going paperless does not mean sacrificing personal pizzaz or sophistication.

GroupHigh provides comprehensive information about the most active blogs on the Internet.  Leading PR firms, brands, and companies use GroupHigh to save time and money when researching and building relationships with blogs.

Meeps plugs you into real-time conversations by what you and others have in common. You don’t need friends or followers, you’ll meet people thinking like you.

Napkin Labs builds collaboration software for companies to work with their customers and fans.  Agencies, brands, and small businesses around the world use our software to get ideas, insights, feedback, and consumer research faster than ever before.

Content should be interactive! Prediculous enables publishers to engage their audience through the application of game mechanics to content. By allowing a publisher’s audience to make predictions that are contextually relevant to content, Prediculous provides social and intelligent engagement.

ReportGrid processes live data from your app or servers and transforms it into beautiful real-time visualizations. You can embed these visualizations into your customer dashboard to give your customers insights into their problems. By letting us focus on the nuts and bolts of analytics and reporting, you save time and money, and give your customers a better solution than you could implement on your own.