Hi I’m Zach Nies, founder of Growing Lean. My whole career has been dedicated to entrepreneurship at startups and inside large organizations. The philosophy Learn, Do, Teach, Learn guides my work helping impact organizations of all sizes successfully bring new products and services to market while operating more effectively. Before founding Growing Lean, I spent 7 years at Techstars as the Managing Director of the Techstars Sustainability Accelerator, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, the Techstars Boulder Accelerator and the VP of Education. I also was a member of the faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder for 10 years. Before Techstars, I joined Rally Software pre-revenue and along the journey to a successful IPO I had many roles including CTO. I’ve founded 3.5 companies (when we chat, feel free to ask about the 0.5 one) and been directly involved in the buy and sell sides of 9 M&A transactions. Early in my career I was the Chief Technologist at Quark, Inc. where I was responsible for leading technology for a set of products earning hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue per year. I love working with entrepreneurs from high-level strategy all the way down to the inner game of managing the psychology of the ups and downs of the experience. I have a computer science degree and extensive studies in psychology. When I’m not helping entrepreneurs you can find me spending time with my family or looking through a camera lens.