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- Dispatch #014 | The Boulder Thesis Meets the 906
Dispatch #014 | The Boulder Thesis Meets the 906
Entrepreneurs first. Always.
Mike Gorski
September 02, 2025
5 Min Read
“Startups thrive where entrepreneurs lead."
Jaz and I touched down in Boulder last week for a friend’s wedding.
The church bells rang, the vows were said, and then three hours to kill before the reception.
While the bridal party disappeared for photos, we disappeared into downtown.
Now, I first read The Startup Community Way back in 2021. Feld’s “Boulder Thesis” hit me like a flashbang back then.
The idea that startup ecosystems don’t get handed down from institutions, governments, or investors. They ignite from the ground up, with entrepreneurs in the lead.
Simple. Ruthless. True.
And here we were, standing right in the middle of Boulder’s proof of concept.
Shops buzzing. Sports bars filled with Georgia Tech fans spilling beers over Colorado locals. Live music bleeding from open doors.
Restaurants, coworking spaces, people out in force building and buying and living the thesis.
Jaz leaned over and said what we were both thinking: “This is what Marquette needs.”
Our home town isn’t behind, it’s just the local ecosystem is primed for an upgrade.
It’s sitting on the edge of its own entrepreneurial revolution and it just needs the operators, the founders, the community builders willing to strap in and go.
“Startup communities take time, and they only grow when the entrepreneurs commit for the long run."
TL;DR | Quick Brief Links
Mission Debrief: The Snapshot Trap
Some leads stumble in through ads, others through referrals.
This one came in through the HighLevel Certified Admin Directory, straight to Operator Seth.
On paper, the prospect already had HighLevel. In practice? It was a digital minefield.
The account came bundled through an affiliate program. The affiliate spun up the agency account, dumped in a few prefab snapshots, and called it “done.”
Except nothing worked.
Workflows triggered nothing.
Custom values? Empty placeholders.
Leads trickled into the CRM like water into a broken bucket. No tags, no organization, no alerts.
The real kicker? During checkout, one link sent paying customers straight to a competitor’s website. Talk about self-sabotage.
Most business owners would’ve torched the whole system in frustration. Instead, this one found Seth.
Seth went full Operator mode:
✅ What He Did:
Conducted a complete system audit of the account.
Drew up a process map of how the business actually runs.
Built an itemized asset list to see what was missing vs. broken.
Designed a technical architecture to rebuild the system the right way.
🔥 Tactical Takeaways (For Business Owners Seeking Service Providers)
A snapshot can be a starter kit or a trap. Without customization, it’s chaos.
Process maps and asset lists turn “mystery systems” into manageable missions.
The fastest way to win loyalty is to bring order where there’s been nothing but noise.
That clarity was the game-changer.
For the first time, the client could actually see what was happening under the hood and what it could become.
Now, instead of being chained to a dysfunctional setup, the client has a blueprint for growth.
Seth will keep building, adding automation and new lead sources.
And in return? The client isn’t just happy. He’s locked in for the long haul.
The wedding in Boulder was just the spark. The real fire was remembering Brad Feld’s Startup Community Way.
Back in 2021, when I first read it, I underlined so many passages the book looked like it had gone through a live-fire exercise.
Feld’s thesis is brutally simple. Startup communities are built by entrepreneurs, for entrepreneurs.
No government initiative, no institutional committee, no “economic development plan” can substitute for the raw energy of founders leading the charge.
Four big truths stand out from his “Boulder Thesis”:
Entrepreneurs lead the community. Ecosystems can’t be outsourced to banks, universities, or city hall. They start at ground zero with people willing to take the shot and build.
Commitment is long-term. Feld calls it a 20 year view. Not election cycles. Not quarterly reports. Twenty years of showing up.
Anyone can participate. The door has to stay open for fresh ideas to circulate. Students, career-changers, dreamers, investors, weirdos, misfits. Communities die when gatekeepers guard the door.
Give before you get. The currency of startup communities is contribution. Mentorship, introductions, collaboration. Value first, return later.
Walking through Boulder’s streets, watching the live street performers and the businesses hum, Jaz and I could feel those truths in motion.
It wasn’t just shops and sports bars. It was proof of concept. Boulder had become a living, breathing case study of Feld’s thesis.
And the whole time, we kept coming back to one thought, Marquette is primed for this.
The infrastructure is here. The talent is here. The hunger is here. What it needs is the spark. Operators willing to step up and treat Marquette like the next great startup frontier.
That’s why we’re running RevForce the way we are. That’s why Sept 28th is more than just an event. It’s a live demonstration of the 906 Thesis.
The future doesn’t get handed down from above.
It gets built, block by block, by the ones crazy enough to stay in the fight.
Time for your recon drop.
This is Actionable Intelligence that matters, globally and inside the HighLevel war room.
Silicon on the Frontline: Washington vs. Beijing
The U.S. Commerce Department just dropped another hammer in the silicon cold war.
New rules will force chip giants like Samsung, SK hynix, and Intel to get a license before they can install American equipment in their Chinese fabs.
Translation, existing production lines limp along, but no shiny upgrades, no new capacity.
The impact was immediate.
Equipment suppliers Lam Research and Applied Materials both took hits on Wall Street, with billions in export licenses now sitting in bureaucratic purgatory.
Meanwhile, rumors are flying that Alibaba has a new AI chip in the chamber.
Built in Chinese fabs with a cocktail of legacy foreign machines and domestic gear, the processor is designed for inference workloads, optimized for speed, scale, and flexibility.
Early whispers say it can even run code written for Nvidia GPUs without major rewrites. If true, that’s a shot across the bow.
Here’s the battlefield read:
U.S. locks down cutting-edge tools, trying to slow China’s climb.
China doubles down on indigenous hardware, trying to prove it can innovate without Silicon Valley hand-me-downs.
Nvidia and AMD get a hall pass, shipping chips back into China but with Uncle Sam taking a 15% cut of every dollar.
This isn’t just policy. It’s power projection.
The AI arms race is running through fabs, supply chains, and sovereign egos.
The Operators who understand where the silicon flows are the ones who’ll see where the future workforce battles will be fought.
HighLevel | Weekly Feature Updates
Here are my top three choices from this week’s HighLevel Feature drop and I have to say this week was a heavy drop of some amazing features along with new documentation.
Test AI Voice Agents while using a web call
You can now talk to your Voice AI agent directly through a browser (web call). No need to dial a phone number. Simply click and start testing right away.
Documents & Contracts: Send Documents via SMS
Send documents via SMS or combine it with for maximum visibility.
Workflows: AI Credit Limitations Removed
AI credits are completely done. Now you can use AI features freely without worrying about usage limits or tracking consumption.
📺 Want the Full Feature Breakdown?
The next HighLevel sponsored hangout will be in San Diego, CA
#1. HighLevel Hangout | SAN DIEGO, CA | September 24th, 2025
#2. LEVEL UP 2025 | DALLAS, TX | October 13–16, 2025
Jazmin, myself, and the rest of the RevForce team look forward to seeing and meeting you in Dallas.
Alright Be Honest, How’d I Do?
Your opinion matters to me.
Seriously. I don’t write this newsletter because I’ve got nothing better to do.
I do it because I am hell bent on building REAL value for you.
Did this Dispatch deliver? Or should I call in an airstrike and start fresh?
Drop a comment or leave some stars
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Mission Accomplished – Tactical, tight, and ready for deployment
⭐️ ⭐️ Needs Reinforcements – Some hits, but it’s limping
⭐️ Mission Failure – Absolute FUBAR
Until next week,
Stay Frosty!
Michael
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