On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Erin Stadler. She's the managing partner at Boomtown Accelerators. Erin and I talk about the evolution of accelerators, how corporations are tackling the space, and how the impact of COVID is impacting innovation. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast that brings you the best and the brightest in the world of startups and innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, founder of insideoutside.io, a provider of research, events, and consulting services that help innovators and entrepreneurs build better products, launch new ideas, and compete in a world of change and disruption. Each week we'll give you a front row seat to the latest thinking, tools, tactics, and trends, in collaborative innovation. Let's get started. Interview with Erin Stadler, BoomtownBrian Ardinger:  Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have another amazing guest. Today we have Erin Stadler. She is the managing partner at Boomtown accelerators. Welcome Erin. Erin Stadler: Thank you. Brian Ardinger: Hey, I'm excited to have you on the show. You and I have crossed paths a couple different times in the accelerator space. Let's talk a little bit about what is Boomtown accelerators. Erin Stadler: That is a great question, because we're actually going through a phase where we're just seeing so many things shift out in the industry. There's a lot of questions about what is an accelerator and where do we want to go with the industry. But right now, Boomtown at its core, we're a company that's been focusing on entrepreneurship and how to elevate the entrepreneur to get their idea out there. And right now, we're doing that by partnering with some really amazing corporate partners. The main one right now being Comcast and the sports tech accelerator that we're about to create. Brian Ardinger: I wanted to have you on the show, because again, you've been in the space of accelerators. You and I both started early days, eight plus years ago, I guess, in this space and accelerators have changed quite a bit. And so, I wanted to have you on the show, partly to talk about that evolution of accelerators and what have you seen that's been good, bad, and indifferent, and where you see it going. Let's start with the history of how Boomtown accelerators got started and what you've seen over the last decade or so of how accelerators have changed.Erin Stadler: Boomtown got started like a lot of companies in a new emerging marketplace, so we're actually almost eight years old now. So, we were one of the first accelerators in Colorado. We actually did start in the backyard of some other famous accelerators. But at the time, it was definitely during that stage where a lot of people were starting accelerators. There was a bit of a me too, if you could build a mentor community, and you could get some investors, and could attract some startups., Tada! You had your accelerator. But what we've learned over the last few years and many iterations, one of my founders will say we are probably the biggest skeptics when it comes to accelerators, which makes us want to just continually to evolve and adapt.And we've gone through a lot of different stages with the help of some amazing partners. Along that journey, we realized that it has a lot more to do with helping the founder be prepared in launching that startup. While connections are important and they're great. What can you do that is really impactful? And frankly, that is a much, much harder job than setting up a demo day and setting up some mentor meetings. I hope we see other accelerators do that, but it's the thing we've tried to do is challenge what truly is impactful for a company at its early stage. And we found that there's just a very different model to make that successful.Brian Ardinger: Let's unpack that a little bit. I think back in the days when accelerators got started, it wa