Aspen: Out with the old, in with the New.

Idling dozers on call. Just in case we need another hole.It's off season.  The Ferrari drivers are back home in Houston or Miami or Dallas or NYC or LA or where ever they go.  It's been snowing (see previous post below). Town is quiet. Mornings are cold which makes Wagner Park an excellent place to be... just as the sun peeks over Smuggler Mountain.

I love the smell of POW POW in the morning.

This morning, one of my other senses was ignited.  I hate the sound of construction in the morning.  Early mornings, just as Aspen wakes from her sleep, are a beautiful & quiet time.  Today the sound of BIG MACHINERY pierced the air.  It wasn't the garden variety dump trucks and pick ups.  These were the industrial sized bull dozers and cranes and dumpers you see in a major city.  But Aspen is not a major city, it's small resort town at the end of the road.  Why some people insist on bringing their big city problems to Aspen I'll never know.   

Oh yeah, I do know.  It's the triple headed hydra of GREED, EGO and POWER. 

I get it.  Some people want to make as much money as possible. They keep score in dollars.  Some people want to build monuments to themselves. Some people will do almost anything to win.  Some people don't understand history, or the concept of negative space or the phrase "less is more". Understated or low key as discriptors are not relevant to them.  Old money is quiet, new money is loud.  "Do you know who I am???"  "Really?  do you know who I am???"

Dump dat sh*t over here. No over there.Aspen as a ski town has always been a glamorous place.  We have a long history of rich guys who have come and gone...trying to make their mark in Fat City. The current generation of "build it and they will come" developers hail mostly from the financial world. Trader types, money men, flippers.  Based on my observations, it seems like they want to dig the biggest MF-ing hole they can, push floor area ratios to the max,.and shhhhhhh even go over a few feet if they can sneak it by the inspectors.  They want to build out every square inch of the town.  They're already rich...but they want to get richer.

I wanted to see what all the noise was about so Carmelo and I strolled past  the construction site of the new Aspen Art Museum.  Two streets were closed, barricades were everywhere.  7 or 8 huge trucks sat idling in the (closed) street.  We kept on stepping, we passed the "road closed" signs and humongous hole in the ground on the next corner, at least it's completely fenced in.    In the middle of the next block we came upon a very sad sight.  LITTLE ANNIE'S EATING HOUSE was shuttered. Seized by the State of Colorado for unpaid taxes.  Little Annie's owes $44.5K and must pay before Oct 29 or their assets will be auctioned off.   Apparently they have no lease going forward, so it looks like it might be curtains for Little Annie's.

That bums me out.  A fleet of bulldozers bums me out.

Does our non-collecting Art Museum really require 30,000 square feet.  Maybe they need a building that large just to have a home for all the names to be engraved on the wall.  Does anyone in Aspen need another luxury penthouse?   Based on recent history it will either sit empty for a long time or maybe it'll get purchased by non-thinking gapers who will sue, sue , sue.   Noise violations,  blocking public access, parking problems, overflowing trash bins, the bears, barking dogs.  You name it  The potential for lawsuits is only limited by one's imagination.

Toxic fumes... no thank you.So that's it.  Out with the old, in with the new.  Can't wait for the new roof-top restaurant...waaaay better than The Gap.  Hellz yeah...it's another store selling $7500 coats from Italy, buy me one daddy...pleeeease.  So sweeeeet,  Van Cleef and Arpels is doing a pop-up....yeSSSSS!!!.  That's how we roll in Aspen now. Pop ups and empty penthouses.   Oh, and the city has a few projects going too.  There's the $3 million bathroom in Rio Grande Park right next to the "non-permanent" Theatre Aspen structure.  The $5 million bus stop at Ruby Park is on tap, soon  And the debate about a proposed parking structure under Wagner Park is just getting started.

Some call it progress, some call it an improvement, some say a World class resort should have World class buildings. I'm not going to argue about that.   But I still see plenty of empty commercial spaces and a revolving door of pop-up shops and empty penthouses.  It's not messy vitality...its just messy...and sad.   There is a bright side of all this next-gen development.  You'll never see any of these new people up on the hill, because none of them ski.   Maybe its because there is no conveneint place to park their Ferrari's.  

The Aspen Art Museum (in progress) A non-collecting institution.Tearing up the street in the name of art. Or is it Greed, Ego and Power. The New Aspen.Little Annie's Eating House. Goodbye old friend. The last shot & beer place in Aspen is likely gone for good.

Aspen Shred City

Living in the Rocky Mountains has it's privileges.  I love beautiful Fall weather in Colorado, but Winter is my milieu. When it snows in Aspen, even if it's only Oct 14, the cartilage and tendons in my body start to tingle.  Muscle memory kicks in and I look skyward towards the Ridge of Bell.  Looks pretty sweet. Right?

Yesterday, we had a full scale POW storm in Aspen.

Other parts of Colorado have gotten the goods. Arapahoe Basin is open for business. A-Basin again won bragging rights as the first ski resort in North America to open, 10/13/13.

Are u ready to RIP?  We are.

Startup Empire

The inaugural Startup Weekend Aspen was an enormous success.  All the participants gained knowledge, experience and real world advice from successful business experts as well as their peers.   Aspen Startup Weekend was held on the beautiful campus of Aspen Country Day School.

Click for pix:  STARTUP EMPIRE

Startup Weekend is a 54 hour, formulaic, boot-camp style conference that guides attendees on "how to" start a business from scratch.  Sponsored by The Kaufmann Foundation of Kansas City, there have been more than 1000 startup weekends in more than 400 cities internationally. While competition is not the main focus of the weekend, esteemed judges choose their favorite business and award prizes to the winning team.  Local organizers brought their passion and energy for entrepreneurship and innovation to Aspen's version of Startup Weekend.  To learn more click:  Aspen StartUp Weekend 

The marathon began on Friday night with a short informational program laying out the ground rules for Startup Weekend.  32 brave souls lined up to give a 1 minute elevator pitch to the audience, organizers and judges. The 1 minute time limit was firmly enforced and the pitchers had to be clear concise and to the point.  After the "pitch-fire" a vote occurred and the top 10 ideas were selected for development. Teams were formed and the work began in earnest.

The squads had until 6pm on Sunday to identify and define their potential market,  conceptualize their business model,  project costs , revenues and profits and ideally plan an exit strategy.  Each team prepared a professional 5 minute pitch for the esteemed panel of judges.  Several coaches (including A. Party) were present throughout the weekend to provide practical business advice to the teams.  

Startup Weekend, Aspen included a series of speakers, who presented a wide variety of "real life" information and advice to the teams.   In my opinion, the speakers were OK at best...so we'll leave it at that.   Community meals, plenty of coffee,  morning yoga sessions, gorgeous Fall colors at the beautiful ACDS campus made for a fantastic weekend.  The kinetic transfer of energy and passion...all geared towards, identifying a viable opportunity, starting a business, executing a plan, over-coming obstacles minimizing risks and in many cases finding investment capital was palpable.   The teams worked diligently preparing their business plans and presentations, validating their ideas and in a few cases pivoting and re-tooling their entire business model.    

Some teams pulled all-nighters, some didn't.  Some teams had a very clear vision, some didn't.  At 6pm on Sunday night... all 10 teams gave it their best shot and presented their work to the judges, the coaches and their peers.  

The line-up to pitch kept growing at Aspen Startup WeekendIn my role as coach, I witnessed incredible progress being made over the 54 hour session.  The tone changed from idealistic dreamers to realistic entrepreneurs very quickly.   Everybody worked their a$$es off and their hard work showed...because starting a business is not easy.  I believe that each person came away with a better understanding about what it takes to start a successful business in today's hyper-competative marketplace.  Teams were forced to ask themselves the tough questions.  They came to the conclusion that a great idea is one thing...converting that into a real business by executing their calculated plan is another. Entrepreneurs have to juggle many balls in the air...and working for yourself is fabulous..but you also need to work for your investors, customers, clients and employees.

The winning team Rent Ease, from Denver created a property management software program to help independent landlords manage their properties and to make it easy for tenants to pay their rent with one click.   Rental Ease actually wrote the software over the weekend and even pinged one to the judges during their presentation to indicate that his hypothetical tenant had payed the rent.   Second place went to Sneak Peak, a mobile / social app that gives skiers a trusted source for inside information on real time ski conditions.  The app is highly scalable for other action sports and locales.

The other 8 teams created highly developed concepts, some of which are already on their way to market.  

Udo Aspen:  An Aspen Discount Card

Pet Panic: A GPS tracer for your furry friends.

Nature Brain:  An educational tool for teaching science

Trip Localizer:  Connects adventure travelers with local, non-professional guides

Moms for Moms:  A scalable blog network of Moms with hyper-local sites.

Retail Goose:   A mobile app to organize photos & information while at trade shows

Herbs Unlimited.  A process for fresh-freezing herbs

Must Ketch Mayo.  A bio degradable dispenser for the 3 most popular condiments.

Harry Teague and Tania Dibbs shared their business insights.Special thanks go out to Alexander Huppenthal and Jon Fox-Rubin., the lead organizers of the event, all the volunteers and facilitators and to Aspen Country Day School for hosting. BIG ups to everyone who participated especially those who left their comfort zone to pursue their ideas.   We'll be watching the evolution of all the proposed businesses, and everyone is looking forward to another ASW...already in the works.  

Click for more pix.

 STARTUP EMPIRE

Everybody was energized on Friday night...before the real work began.

Organizers: Jon Fox-Rubin, Alex Huppenthal, Scott Courts and Keynote Marc Ostovsky The winning team Rent Ease was psyched to get started after Aspen Startup Weekend. Click 4 pix

Legend of Aahhh's, A True Fable

The Stumper in Aspen., with Kaycee and John & Aimee Oates.The evolution of the ski film is beautifully documented in Greg Stump's latest offering, LEGEND of AAHHHS's.

Stump, the ground-breaking creator of the seminal ski movie Blizzard of Aahhh's has traced the history of extreme skiing and the entire genre of ski filming in is his most recent creation, Legend of Aahhh's.  Own it now, Click:

LEGEND of AAHHH's. 

Stump is generally credited for putting extreme skiing on the map with Blizzard of Aaahhh's,  With help from skiing stars, Scot Schmidt, Glen Plake and Mike Hattrup.  Blizzard of Aahhh's took ski porn to the next level in 1988 with spectacular footage from Squaw Valley and Chaminox and an ear popping sound track...and most importantly a real story.   25 years later, LEGEND of AAHHH's pays homage to those who came before Blizzard and those who have come after it.  Stump includes interviews with ski film pioneers Warren Miller, John Jay, Dick Durrance and others. Skiing legends Schmidt, Plake, Hattrup along with Klaus Obermeyer, Chris Davenport, Mike Douglas, Kim Reichhelm, Lynn Wieland, Geoff Stump and more offer up opinions and commentary spliced in with some of the sickest historical ski footage known to man.  Some of the footage has never been seen before on screen.

Nobody is smoother than Scot Schmidt.Today's top ski filmers from TGR, Matchstick Productions and Level 1 all pay homage to Stump's Blizzard of Aahhh's for influencing their stoke and breaking the trail for the snow movies we see today. Legend of Aahhh's typically includes footage of extremely gnarly steeps, nipple deep pow sessions and huge airs. But it's the story and the history that fascinate me the most.  In Legend we get to meet some of the players in the ski industry.   Stump respects where the industry has been and projects where it is going.  The sound track includes jams from Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, Liquid Stranger, Trouble Man and more.

I've seen a lot of ski films in my day, but Legend of Aahhh's connects the dots for me.  It gives the viewer a complete overview of the genre.  If there was a class on ski films... Legend of Aahhh's would be required viewing.   A little place called Aspen is proudly represented in the film too. Legend of Aahhh's has a special place in my heart because I've met many of the stars and I was with Greg Stump in Aspen while he was filming some of the scenes. I got to see a rough cut... plus I got to party with everybody.  Thats just icing on the cake. See my post from 2010   ASPEN PARTY WARS     Blizzard of Aahhh's is my favorite ski film of all time...and Legend of Aahhh's honor's the entire ski world  and what might just be the most perfect ski flick.  

LEGEND of AAHHH's.  (click to buy).

Got a Great Idea? Startup Weekend Aspen

Do you have a great idea?   Do you want to implement your master plan?  Do you want to network with other like-minded entrepreneurs?

Come out for Aspen StartUp Weekend on Oct 11-13. It's a 54 hour incubator for ideas.   Ideas are pitched, teams are formed and real businesses are created.   Now's your chance to use that big brain of yours. 

Over 1000 startup weekends in 400 cities have opened the door for many sustainable startup businesses.  You could be the next successful entreprenuer.   Aspen Startup Weekend can help you break down the barriers to entry.  C'mon out... AspenSpin will be one of the super-star coaches helping you to blow up your idea.  Join us for Aspen Startup Weekend.