There are more than 8000 business in the Boulder area and hundreds of nonprofit organizations offering cultural events and providing social services to people in need.

Boulder is considered one of the hottest places in the country to launch a company, and especially startup Internet companies. From 2006 to 2009, startups in the city received 42% of the venture capital invested in Colorado, and 8,900 businesses of fewer than 20 employees call Boulder County home. Four main industries are thriving in the Boulder area: software, biotechnology, natural foods and outdoor products. Clean technology is another industry that seems to be gaining ground. Boulder now has the highest concentration of software engineers per capita in the nation. It's second only to Silicon Valley in percentage of workers employed in tech, according to the American Electronics Association.

The community of Boulder is also home to the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. This foundation was founded by a group of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, lawyers, and The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County to work with local entrepreneurs to help endow Colorado. One of the founding members, Brad Feld, is also the founder of Foundry Group, a venture capital firm in Boulder.

TechStars, also founded by Brad Feld and others, is a business boot camp for startups. The idea behind TechStars was to create ten Internet companies a year by putting would-be entrepreneurs through a 90-day intensive program that would prepare them for seed funding. The founders enlisted local Internet and software entrepreneurs as mentors and soon, events like New Tech Meetup were standing room only.

With so much entrepreneurial activity in the technology sector, Google, Microsoft, AOL, and Oracle have moved into Boulder and the immediate area, putting them in a prime position to take advantage of Boulder’s entrepreneurial spirit.