Source: Boulder County Business Report
Author: Lyla D. Hamilton
BOULDER - About five years ago, Boulder entrepreneur and investor Brad Feld became a mentor and adviser to Ben Casnocha - the San Francisco-based founder of software firm Comcate Inc.
In 2006, Business Week ranked Casnocha among the top 25 U.S. entrepreneurs younger than 25.
Casnocha has turned over day-to-day management of Comcate to a professional team, and Feld invited him to spend three months in Boulder this winter.
While here, Casnocha has worked at Mobius Venture Capital Inc. and helped launch TechStars, an immersion program for college seniors and recent graduates who want to launch business ventures.
Casnocha said TechStars offers participants unparalleled access to experienced executives and investors.
"The most important thing about the program is the mentors, not the seed money," he mentioned. "That's hard for some entrepreneurs to understand."
He will return this summer to help Feld and others mentor the founders of the 10 fledgling companies selected for TechStars.
David Cohen, co-founder of Broomfield-based Zoll Data Systems Inc. and executive director of TechStars, said Casnocha has a lot to teach those chosen to participate in the new program for first-time entrepreneurs.
"They'll realize they're behind," he said.
Casnocha turned 19 on March 1.
Beginning in April, he will be on tour to promote his first book. The publisher, John Wiley & Sons Inc., says "My Start-Up Life" features commentary by Casnocha's brain trust of major business figures in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.
Marc Benioff, chairman and chief executive of salesforce.com, wrote the foreword.
Casnocha hopes the book will reach beyond young people who want to become entrepreneurs. "I would like to aid and inspire others," he said. "Whether they're starting their own business or becoming the CEO of their own lives."
This fall, he will enter Claremont McKenna College, a small, independent liberal arts school in Claremont, Calif.
He took a gap year after graduating from University High School in San Francisco last year. "I wanted to do something different, not just go to school," he said.
He spent three months visiting 15 countries in Europe and three in Asia. Instead of staying at hotels or hostels, he bunked with readers of the blog he began writing three years ago.
He described a blog as, "a reverse chronological Web page of brief postings."
Casnocha sees blogs as "idea-based" in contrast to a personal journal that recounts a day's activities.
"It's personal in the sense that it discusses ideas with a personal flavor," he mentioned. "You feel a more personal connection than you do with television. You feel like the blogger is talking to you personally."
He said that his blog allows him to "Discuss ideas, books and people in a more serious way."
While he looks forward to "reaching the point that age doesn't matter," he prominently displays his age on his blog.
"It attracts attention," he said with a smile and a shrug. "It's a marketing thing."
Casnocha believes blogging will supplement and not replace other media. He anticipates that "citizen journalists" will play an increasingly important role in covering local events and issues.
"We'll still need professional journalists to do reporting, especially investigative reporting," he mentioned.
On the other hand, he expects electronic media to supplant print publications.
"In five or 10 years, I don't see the New York Times existing in print," he said. "It won't be efficient to spend millions for printing presses."
Casnocha regards himself as both journalist and entrepreneur. Like Benioff, he espouses a "compassionate capitalism" that calls on companies to commit a portion of profits and employee time to charitable purposes.
What draws him to entrepreneurship is "the idea of creating something out of scratch and the idea of changing the world."
In college, Casnocha expects to pursue his interests in politics, sociology, psychology and literature. He wants a liberal arts education rather than technical or business-focused training. He chose Claremont McKenna because it offers small classes and focuses on public policy and government. He also wants to stay in California.
Casnocha winces at portraits of him as what he calls "a gee-whiz teenager."
"The bar is very low for teenagers. At 14, I was deemed a prodigy because I could string together a sentence," he said. "Other people who are more talented and interesting get less attention."
He pointed out that some teens spend as many hours practicing the violin as he does thinking about and working on issues in business, media and information technology. He also expresses admiration for a 14-year-old friend who is embarking on doctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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