The end of TechStars

Well, it’s over. Sad face emoticon. The program that I had my eyes on for a year an a half, tenaciously applied to (twice), and eventually got the privilege to become a participant in came to a close last Thursday with an epic showing at Demo Day. As you can see, I’ve neglected my blog as things picked up early on. It’s a shame, but I hope to rectify things a bit with some reflections on my time spent at the #1 startup accelerator in the world.

I was a HackStar in TechStars. I got to attend all the sessions, spend my nights and days in the bunker, and even pop into mentor meetings if I asked a team to let me listen in. What I didn’t have was a company with a HUGE opportunity to show the world what they could do. In some senses this changes my perspective on the program, but in others it gives me a more fly-on-the-wall lens to see the whole shabang through.

There’s not much about TechStars I could say that is new and different, it’s awesome for all the reasons you’ve read about in 100s of blogs, but here’s a couple off the top of the head bullet points:

• Every session is worth attending.  I’m not an angel investor nor do I expect be one (at least not for a long, long time), but hearing what goes into consideration in angel investing helped me understand what an angel expects.
• TechStars prides itself on choosing teams rather than ideas.  It works and it’s incredible to see in action.  GoSpotCheck, a badass team with an idea that wasn’t working out scrapped the whole thing and rebuilt themselves into one of the top companies at demo day in 37 days.  They were living proof of how the picking teams vs. ideas mentality works.
• (My favorite) The camaraderie that TechStars inspires is one of the hidden gems of the program.  It’s the closest thing to freshman year of college that I’ve experienced in my 7 years since my freshman year of college.  Long nights of hard work with good friends and maybe a couple drinks…  I walked out of the program with a new friendships I’ll have for many, many years to come.

TechStars Boulder 2011