What this is: Boulder Ventures’ proprietary vocabulary, collected from 30 years of essays and letters. These aren’t marketing terms — every entry was coined or adopted in the field and has an origin story. This is language no other firm can use, because no other firm earned it.
Use: Website “Field Guide” section, onboarding for new team members and portfolio CEOs, editorial reference. Every entry: the term, the definition, the origin, the source.
A venture-backed company is not a success until the return is fully realized by its shareholders.
Origin: Rob Slater, big-wall climber and Goldman trader, refused Kyle’s summit handshake on Sentinel Spire — twice — declaring “The Tower’s not over until the ropes are on the ground.” Applied to every unicorn-round press release and paper markup ever celebrated.
In practice: A fund is not a success until LPs have received realized proceeds at a multiple of their investment — and the managers have cashed their carry checks.
Source: Slater’s Law (Aug 2021)
“There are no bad ski conditions, only bad skiers.”
Origin: Doug Coombs, icon of extreme skiing, who learned on New England ice before pioneering Chugach heliskiing. A Lefkoff family mantra for teaching kids to ski breakable crust — and a portfolio philosophy for choppy markets.
In practice: Focus on what you control (effort, attitude, toughness, practice, ability, fitness, preparation), not what you don’t (interest rates, politics, valuation excesses). BV’s thirty-year record of distributions in all market conditions is Coombs’ Law at work.
Source: Coombs’ Law (Oct 2024)
Investors who show up after the experienced money has been navigating a market for years.
Origin: Summer at Lake Louise — busloads standing in the same spot, taking the same photo, every day. When a technology market catches fire, the busloads arrive with fresh capital, and most of them end up “holding their worthless stock, wondering what they did wrong, and blaming the VCs.”
The creed: “We’re Guides and Venture Capitalists. Our Serial Entrepreneurs are our Clients. We’re never Tourists.”
Source: Tourists (Sep 2023)
Incumbents with a vested economic interest in preserving the problem your product solves.
Origin: Jimmy Carter’s Guinea Worm eradication campaign — the cure was education, the enemy was village witchdoctors who made a living selling useless remedies. “Witchdoctors aren’t stupid – they’re evil.”
In practice: Every BV company that cures a disease or solves a real problem meets Witchdoctors convincing customers the pain is natural and should be endured. The comfort: Witchdoctors always lose. Guinea Worm cases: 3.5 million in 1986. Fourteen in 2023. Jimmy won.
Source: Witchdoctors (Sep 2025)
The clients. The only people BV backs.
Origin: The founding thesis — “we can spot it every time” after a first ride together. Backing the same people across companies and decades: Barney Feinblum (Celestial → Horizon → Fresh & Wild → Luke’s Local), Hass Hassan, Kishen Mangat (BroadHop → the partnership itself).
In practice: “Nurturing an authentic relationship with our serial entrepreneurs is our most important duty and the source of value in our partnership.”
Source: If you’re right about the entrepreneur… (Oct 2020), A Few Small Plants (May 2026)
The house term for how BV works — defined by six properties.
Durable (built over careers, not deals). Integrity (state the obvious, know each other’s limits). Involve risk (failure is possible; consequences can be fatal). Complex (professional first, mediated by the mountains). Formed through progression (harder objectives, earned trust). Rewarding (enjoying the ride is part of the point).
Source: Authentic Relationships (Jun 2021)
Ruthlessly under-promise; relentlessly over-perform.
Origin: Henry Barber, the best rock climber in the world 1975–80, who arrived at crags worldwide, established the hardest route the locals had ever seen, drank them under the table, and did it again the next morning.
In practice: “If she thinks the likely outcome is a 10, she tells the Board it’s a 6… She leaves a couple of things in her pocket every quarter because she never knows when she’ll need them.”
Source: Sandbag Excellence: The Lesson of Henry Barber (Apr 2021)
The only kind worth making.
Origin: Canadian Mountain Holidays guide culture — disseminate every mistake through the organization so nobody repeats one. Canonical example: the Haggy, a Swedish Army vehicle bought on eBay to haul guest luggage, which burned to the ground because the warning lights were labeled in Swedish and the driver wasn’t.
In practice: Mistakes are shared across the portfolio so each company only ever makes new ones.
Source: Our Goal is to make Original Mistakes (Jan 2021)
Predefined go/no-go conditions, and the reserve that keeps you alive when they fail.
Origin: The 2023 Denali expedition — ten winter training climbs, measured acclimatization, and a three-day weather window as the final marker. The window never came; instead of shaving the margin, they changed objectives — and had enough left in the tank to rescue two frostbitten climbers on the way down.
In practice: Decide the conditions for commitment before you’re emotionally invested. Keep reserves. Retreat with margin beats summiting without it.
Source: Markers and Margins (Aug 2023)
When the rope comes out, it’s all business.
Origin: Marko Prezelj, three-time Piolet d’Or winner. If the language isn’t clear and direct, or the parties won’t say what they mean for fear of insult, Marko shuts it down.
In practice (boardroom edition): Dick Kramlich’s standard — will this comment make a material impact on the company’s trajectory? If not, keep quiet. State the obvious, in clear precise language, no matter how uncomfortable.
Source: No Tasty Talk (May 2021)
Every great technology business can be described in two words.
Origin: Merc Mercure, founder of Ball Aerospace (“Satellite Manufacturing”) and Kyle’s mentor. Enforced daily: “Too wordy. What do they do?” — “They make Taxol for Bristol Myers Squibb.” — “Is that a good business?” — “$720,000 per kilo. BMS ordered 200 kilos.” — “Approved.”
In practice: Array BioPharma: Cancer Drugs. Black Bear: Commercial Solar. Datavail: Database Services. If you can’t say it in two words, you don’t understand it yet.
Source: Brevity (Sep 2024)
The fourth guiding discipline, alongside Alpine, Ski, and Rock.
Origin: Kyle’s (self-appointed, gleefully claimed) AMGA role: “Apres Discipline Coordinator, a role for which I’m highly qualified.” Celebrating shared success properly is a professional skill.
Motto: “Safety first, then drinking!”
Source: Safety First, Then Drinking (May 2022)
The master metaphor.
“In venture capital, the Client is the entrepreneur; the Weather is the market environment; and the Route is the portfolio company. The VC is the mountain guide.” And the corollary: great entrepreneurs choose their guides, not the other way around.
Source: Being a Mountain Guide and being a Venture Capitalist is the same thing (Nov 2020)
The crisis where no good outcome is visible.
A loose vertical pile of boulders: climbing through might kill you, going around might dead-end, retreating is unforgivable. Every founder knows the feeling. “There is always a path up through the stacked blocks, but it requires patience and attention to detail, and it is rarely simple.” The way through is experience, not luck.
Source: Stacked Blocks (Apr 2022)
When you’ve found your terrain, stay.
Origin: Ben Bartosz, Vail Powder Guides. Once you’re on the right aspect and elevation, keep skiing right there. For VCs: once you’ve found your market or geography and proven an outcome, don’t chase the next hot thing.
Source: Never Leave Snow to Find Snow (Feb 2022)
Place shapes everything.
There are only a few great guiding ranges, and only two great US venture centers — but Boulder is the only place to be a serious climber and a serious venture capitalist at once. The commitment you make to a place determines what you can build there. “He never left his mountain.”
Source: Where Matters (Sep 2021), The Geography of Risk (Feb 2026)
The key to success — the trait above all traits.
Origin: Uli Inderbinen, who summited the Matterhorn more than 300 times, the last at age 90. “We learn every time we succeed and every time we fail, but most importantly, we always return to climb again.”
In practice: It takes a decade to find out if you’re any good, as a founder or as a VC. Survive long enough to develop the skills.
Source: Durability is the Key to Success (Dec 2020)
The only hierarchy worth climbing.
No amount of money, politics, or ancestry buys an IFMGA pin — competence must be demonstrated to credentialed peers. VC compared honestly: “Most VCs were born on third base.” And the stakes, stated flat: “In guiding, incompetence can cost you or your clients their lives; the worst thing that happens in venture capital is that you lose someone else’s money.”
Source: The Competence Hierarchy (Oct 2022)
It is insufficient to achieve the summit through luck and timing.
Good style on rock: right route, comfortable pace, ahead of the crowd, cold beer and rosti on the hut deck. Good style in a deal: friendly but complete negotiation, detailed signed term sheet, clean documents, closing that precisely matches the original terms… followed by a cold beer and a plate of rosti.
Source: In Good Style (Dec 2021)
Risk can be reduced, never eliminated. Earned by confession: the AAA-rated, “same as cash” Auction Rate Securities that froze in 2007. Policy since: portfolio cash sits only in securities with the explicit guarantee of the US Federal Government, period.
Source: There is no such thing as safe (Feb 2021)
Charlie Fowler free-soloed at Honnold’s level in 1977 and “we all thought he’d completely lost his marbles.” Forty years later it’s a global media event. Timing isn’t a detail of the thesis; it is the thesis.
Source: Being Early is the Same as Being Wrong (Nov 2021)
The avalanche on Berthoud Pass that buried Kyle to the waist. The honest origin story: in the mid-’80s “everyone was making it up as they went along… The fact we both succeeded is a testament to luck as much as talent.”
Source: Good Judgement… (Oct 2021)
“Good is achievable. Great is sometimes in reach. Flawless is possible. Perfect is not.” And the liberation: “just by consistently performing at a good standard, we’ve distinguished ourselves from everyone else.”
Source: Don’t Let the Perfect be the Enemy of the Good (Jan 2022)
Distributed to Paid-In capital — “the only long-term measure of a fund’s success.”
Everything else — markups, TVPI in a bull market, unicorn logos — is Tourists’ talk and Slater’s Law violations. The trilogy: People, Culture, DPI.
Source: Guiding in Boulder (Jul 2023)
Have fun. Don’t get killed.
The complete operating manual, for the mountains and the portfolio.
| Term | One-liner |
|---|---|
| Slater’s Law | Not over until the ropes are on the ground |
| Coombs’ Law | No bad conditions, only bad skiers |
| Tourists | Late money that blames the guide |
| Witchdoctors | Incumbents selling the disease |
| Sandbag Excellence | Call it a 6, deliver a 10 |
| Original Mistakes | Only make new ones |
| Markers and Margins | Decide the no-go before you go |
| No Tasty Talk | Say the obvious, say it plainly |
| The Merc List | Every great business in two words |
| Stacked Blocks | Experience finds the path when none is visible |
| Never Leave Snow | Found your terrain? Stay. |
| Durability | Always return to climb again |
| Authentic Relationships | Built over careers, not deals |
| The Après Discipline | Safety first, then drinking |
| DPI | The only score that counts |
All terms and quotes verbatim from the Perspectives essays (2020–2026). Internal-letter material excluded; everything here is public-safe.