Jobs: most of us have a love-hate relationship with them. If you lean considerably more toward the “hate” side, though, maybe it’s time to start sniffing around. Luckily for you, we’ve curated our own list of the top places to work in the Denver/Boulder area, and there’s a great fit for everyone from techies to creatives.

Craftsy – 999 18th St. #240, Denver

Photo: craftsy.com/press-kit

Craftsy isn’t your typical startup. Beginning as a new platform for online instruction, Craftsy transformed into a mecca for online classes in sewing, quilting, cake decorating, cooking, photography, gardening, knitting, jewelry-making, and more. With “craft-a-long” employee craft sessions, office snacks and lunches, fitness incentives, solid benefits, and an annual 4-player Pacman tournament (we don’t know how that works either, but we’re interested), Craftsy is a great place to get paid to be creative and innovative all day long.

iTriage – 1500 Wynkoop St., Denver

Photo: Facebook

iTriage, a healthcare app that manages conditions and care providers, is the product of a company that nurtures a casual startup culture, complete with beer, ping pong, Monday breakfasts, Friday lunches, and an onsite gym. As an employee, you’ll also get an RTD eco pass, a volunteer day every quarter, and a $200 credit toward an iPhone or Android, plus paid time off, health benefits, and a 401k package.

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By Emily Przekwas - @eprekwa

For those who were not endowed with physical prowess, there exists an arena in which competition is fueled by intellect and science, rather than muscles and brawn. Competitive robotics. Yes, it’s a thing.

Popularized by the Comedy Central TV show Battle Bots, the battling robotics community has created a space for themselves among the competitive arts. Last month, Spark Fun opened its new 100,000 square foot facility and grounds to host an Autonomous Vehicle Competition at their location just north of Boulder.

The battling robotics field was started in the 1990s in San Francisco by a group of enthusiasts with connections to the visual effects industry in California.  When the show was created and distributed by Comedy Central, it created an entire culture behind robotics, which, while present across the country, has found a strong base in Colorado. Now the robots will be competing on network TV in front of a primetime audience on ABC.

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By Emily Przekwas - @eprzekwa

Garden-to-table restaurant, The Kitchen combines community seating with fresh, American cuisine in an eco-friendly setting to create a unique dining experience. The Kitchen’s mission statement, “Community Through Food” accurately illustrates the simplistic approach to the restaurant, as well as its charity counterpart, The Kitchen Community. Owners Hugo Matheson, who graduated from Leith’s School of Food and Wine in London, and Kimbal Musk have taken a hands on approach with this venture in an effort to alter the way our society views the foods we eat.

The goal: source locally grown ingredients to support local farmers, as well as ensure the food is as fresh and healthy as possible. Seems simple enough, right? This approach is actually quite innovative, and its yielding simpler menus and more distinct flavors in The Kitchen’s delicious meals.

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In the first part of our BDW coverage, we focused on the history and the programmatic goals of this 50-week, accelerated graduate program that integrates design, technology, and entrepreneurial endeavors. As mentioned, the second half of each cohort’s time at BDW is primarily focused on building a startup from scratch.

We’ll focus the second part of this story on the teams and their company creations. Tonight, they will be holding a Demo Day (more information here) for industry professionals to listen to their pitches. The hope for many of the teams is that seed funding will bolster their projects post-BDW.

Seekr

Team Members: Nick Clement, CEO; Danny Tran, Co-Founder; Jeremy Tinianow - Visual Design; Alia Munger - UI/UX; Catie Czajkowski - Product manager

Seekr is is attempting to bring mobile-side business to the off-the-beaten-path experience. Led by Nick Clement and Danny Tran, Seekr’s co-founders, their aim is to “connect adventurous travelers to independent guides and locals,” says Clement.

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Building 3 is an inconspicuous brick structure on Valmont Road in Boulder. Formerly a fabrication depot for the lumberyard, it now headquarters a workshop of sorts in its sixth year of operation.

BDW, formerly known as Boulder Digital Works, is home to this space, a Colorado University-hosted, 50-week graduate program that trains students to develop marketable talents in the areas of design, research, engineering, and marketing.

“We wanted to create a program that was part of the university, but moved at the pace of industry,” says David Slayden, founder and executive director of BDW.

In 2009, Slayden intuited and analyzed correctly that the graduates leaving CU were lacking preparation for a digital workplace environment. Now, a middle-skills gap and lack of technically qualified candidates is the tech industry’s elephant in the room.

Slayden’s “anti-career,” which has spanned advertising, design, higher education, writing, and music—or what he calls “a series of projects”—clearly impacted this real-time, project-based pedagogy.

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Rick Griffith is one of Denver’s most iconic creatives. Not only is he a tour de force as the owner and design director of graphic design studio Matter, he also serves as a Commissioner of Arts and Culture, a position which he has held for over three years. Because of his signature style, Griffith brings a captivating presence to just about any event or project he is involved with in Denver.  

A native of the United Kingdom, Griffith moved to the United States in the 1980s as a kid. His family settled in suburban Washington, D.C. (Fairfax County). And at the time, D.C. was the epicenter of the punk movement, which prized individuality and was a sort of precursor to the modern DIY movement. Being in the midst of this scene was a big influence in his creative development from a young age, Griffith says. People were rejecting the establishment, but Griffith says the message that stuck with him was “pro-me, not anti-you,” which has imbued him with an originality matched by few.  

While working in and around the music scene in D.C.’s record stores and admiring the art on album covers, he says, he knew at a young age he wanted to be a designer. 

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Ah, Boulder.

A city famous for its colorful Western U.S. history. Home of the main campus of the University of Colorado. A city that, time and time again, acquires top rankings in health, well-being, quality of life, education, art and being totally rad. From the awe-inspiring Flatirons to the many, many craft beer breweries, there are a million and one ways to have a great damn time in Boulder.

But how are we going to know what and where these joints are, unless we select a handful and rank them according to how rad they are? Well, that’s exactly what we did. So, here are the top 10 sweetest spots in Boulder.

10. Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse

This charming restaurant is a gift from Boulder’s sister city, Dushanbe, Tajikistan (north of Afghanistan. It’s west of China, for those of you who should look at a map once in a while). Boulder Teahouse offers some insanely unique dishes: Indian samosas, Greek meatballs, Korean pan fried noodles, Spanish shrimp, homemade oatmeal, spicy Indonesian peanut noodles, etc. etc. so on and so forth yada yada yada. Following in the farm-to-table trend, Boulder Teahouse is super fun for groups, brunch or a nice cup of tea (naturally). // 1770 13th St.

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“The Future of the News Business,” a three-man panel of journalists at Boulder Startup Week, begins with a literal thud.

One panelist, Boulder Daily Camera editor Matt Sebastian, tumbles out of his faulty chair, causing the 20-30 onlookers to halfway leave their seats to help. The other two panelists, Steve Outing, an adjunct professor at University of Colorado Boulder and “media futurist,” along with Ben Markus, a general assignment reporter for Colorado Public Radio, help him up. After the dust settles, the moderator begins: “What is the state of the news business?”

The answers also came out with a thud — a figurative one.

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With over 1.2 million apps to choose from on your iPhone (1.3 million for android users), it can be tough to find the best ones to fill up those 16 gigs (or 32GB you big spender). And even when you think you’ve found the perfect app, you find it only services select cities like New York, Austin, or San Francisco. Good news Colorado, your frustrating searches are over.

A great place to start is by checking out these 5 great apps made BY Coloradans, FOR Coloradans. You’re welcome in advance.

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Photo.

About a year ago, Greg Casals and Allie Thielens didn’t have their own company, but they did have a mutual vision: clothing that looks good but is also super functional and made of high performance, technical fabrics.

By October of 2014, this vision had already materialized into the launch of NINOX’s first collection—4 jackets that use technical performance fabrics in a more sophisticated way. They have since released a few more pieces including hoodies, pants, and shirts while hoping to further the expansion of this collection in the near future.

While this is all very impressive, it’s a type of ambition that Casals would say isn’t all that unique in Boulder.

“When you’re starting a company from the ground up, working a ton of hours, and doing everything you can to get noticed, it is great inspiration to look around at the many companies in Boulder that also started with just an idea.”

Not just tech ideas either—and that is something that Casals and his business partner Thielens think deserves to be highlighted.

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