Julie Penner on the MindMill Podcast

Julie Penner is the former director of the famed Techstars business accelerator program.  She has worked with hundreds of diverse companies; challenging, empowering, and propelling them into new arenas of success.  Julie now works as COO of Halp.

This episode is with Julie Penner (@soulofstartups), former director of the famed Techstars business accelerator program in Boulder Colorado.  She has worked with hundreds of diverse companies; challenging, empowering, exposing, and propelling them into new arenas of success.  Despite the endless metrics and data-points of analysis, Julie maintains that its always human development that governs the success of a company.  The Techstars accelerator has expanded to over a hundred global programs, but started in Boulder.  There are few people who have the collective knowledge and experience Julie possesses.  Julie now works as COO of Halp.

Julie is one of those people who I immediately felt connected to.  She has incredibly demanding schedules and responsibilities, yet I have never had an interaction with her where she has come off rushed, uninterested, or not present.  This interview was much different than i expected.  I had prepared a series of analytical questions surrounding startups, founders, and processes.  While we touch on these topics,  the resounding theme of our conversation is on intentional self-growth and genuine connection.  We discuss the emotional challenges that founders face, embracing humanity to propel teams, the power of self-reflection, and strength through vulnerability.  We also touch on intentional ways to celebrate holidays, the Burning Man festival , and the Danish lifestyle of Hygge.  Julie is a fantastic individual, i learn so much from her every time we speak.  Im proud to share this conversation with Julie Penner on the  MindMill podcast.   

https://youtu.be/HVULp7oG0Dw

SHOWNOTES

ABOUT JULIE PENNER

BIO

From Linked in

I am currently the COO at Halp. Before Halp, I worked as Director at Techstars Boulder, investing and working with 60+ early-stage companies.

Prior to Techstars, I worked as VP of Operations for Graphicly, an automated ebooks conversion and distribution platform. I managed a team of eight employees and contractors. My responsibilities included process improvement, weekly cash management and forecasting, contract management and negotiation, metrics tracking, HR and other non-product/sales functions. Prior to that, I worked as a corporate development analyst at Liberty Media. My work involved industry and company-specific research, strategy development, technology trend tracking, and valuation support.

I graduated with an JD/MBA from University of Colorado focusing on entrepreneurship and technology in both the law school and the business school, graduating top third in my class with an entrepreneurial law certificate. Prior work also includes internships at SRS, a company that manages escrows and holdbacks in VC-backed M&A deals, Lijit (now Sovrn), a Boulder-based VC-backed startup and interning at the CU Tech Transfer Office. I also worked at Zeo, a Boston-based VC-backed startup that developed a consumer product.

Specialties: consumer web, ebooks, eCommerce, strategy, social media, digital media, social commerce, entrepreneurship, start-ups, broadband, financial modeling, valuation analysis, market analysis.

CONTACT JULIE