The vision for Mountains was dreamt by Grant Carlile in 2018, but the team that came together to activate that vision was formed in April of 2020. As the country was reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, Techstars community leaders were coming together from all over the world to mobilize entrepreneurs to work on solving pandemic specific problems. The team that formed to plan and execute the national event for the US was full of entrepreneurs, ecosystem builders, event planners, and community leaders with a variety of subject matter expertise. The national Startup Weekend event, Unite to Fight COVID-19, was a big success. As members of that team were wrapping their efforts, they decided they didn’t want to stop working together for the greater good.

Our team members have been individually working on building healthy ecosystems in each of our communities and share a similar passion for startups and business development. Each of us recognize the stellar skill sets of our fellow teammates as well as a shared passion for connecting those with entrepreneurial dreams to resources that make those dreams more easily attainable.

Many of us are entrepreneurs ourselves, and all of us desire to help lower barriers for business startups to gain education, mentorship, and broader community support. We continue to work in our individual communities, but have come together to provide assistance for any community desiring to work toward building a healthy business ecosystem.

 Our mission is to build community impact by modeling and training sustainable methods of growth. We work alongside individuals and organizations at all levels, to create studio experiences - through resource-gathering, framework-understanding, and real-world problem-solving - for the ecosystem of growth to flourish.