And now, on the eve of TechStars Boston 2010 Demo Day, here is your weekly dose of The Founders video series. If you are going to be in Boston tonight at TechStars Demo Day, I’ll see you there! “The Innovation Lab” The Founders | TechStars Boulder | Episode 2 from TechStars on Vimeo .
We’re doing the TechStars Founders video series again this year. The Rackspace Cloud has sponsored the series so look for some new and exciting twists. Episode 1 follows! “The Question is Why” The Founders | TechStars Boulder | Episode 1 from TechStars on Vimeo .
Here’s Teaser #2 for the TechStars The Founders 2010 video series, which stars airing at 9am MST starting tomorrow. “David Cohen” The Founders | TechStars Boulder | Teaser 02 from TechStars on Vimeo . It’s going to be better than the finale of Lost. I promise.
Another TechStars Boulder company – this time DailyBurn from the class of 2008 – has been acquired by IAC . I’m super proud of Andy Smith, Stephen Blankenship, and the whole DailyBurn team. This is now TechStars fifth meaningful acquisition and the first from the 2008 class. The TechStars Boulder 2010 class has begun. I spent Monday afternoon meeting with each of the teams and I’m psyched about this year’s group. TechStars is now in its fourth year in Boulder and everyone is off to a fast start. Also on Monday, David Cohen announced the new TechStars Global Affiliate program and announced our first Global affiliate, Copenhagen-based Startupbootcamp. I also saw the first episode of the TechStars video series “The Founders – Season 2”. A quick teaser follows. ...
Steve Bell of StartupTrek once again does a nice job of capturing my thoughts in under 7 minutes – this time on TechStars and some advice for young entrepreneurs.
I’ll be in Seattle on Tuesday 4/6 for a bunch of meetings and am attending the Seattle Open Coffee Club meeting at 8:30am at Louisa’s on 2379 Eastlake Avenue E in Seattle. Andy Sack who runs the TechStars Seattle program is hosting and providing the coffee. We will both be answering any and all questions about TechStars Seattle, plus eating plenty of baked goods.
Last night we had the TechStars Boulder selection meeting where we chose the TechStars Boulder finalists. We’ll be notifying folks shortly. In the mean time, we’ve opened applications for TechStars Seattle. Andy Sack, who runs the TechStars Seattle program, has several great blog posts up including How TechStars came to Seattle? and Help me spread the word on TechStars Seattle applications . The schedule for TechStars Seattle has also been posted. ...
One of our internal mantras at TechStars is to “publish your data.” We encourage every team to do this starting very early in their life. To this day, I still get daily performance reports (I refer to them as TPS reports) from many of the companies that have gone through the program. Last week, David Cohen published all of the historical TechStars data. 39 companies have gone through the program to date (30 through Boulder and 9 through Boston). The data that David published covers a lot of ground, including status by individual company. Some of the pertinent summary data follows: ...
Whenever a TechStars company is acquired, they get a yellow shirt with their number on the back. Last month Fitrbox, a TechStars Boulder 2007 company, was acquired by Jive Software. The yellow shirt presentation is in the short video below: FiltrBox #4 TechStars Company to be Acquired from TechStars on Vimeo . On Tuesday, February 9th at the Denver Athletic Club (1325 Glenarm in Denver) Filtrbox’s founders Ari Newman and Tom Chikoore are going to do a presentation titled Filtrbox – A Case Study from Start-up to Exit on the story of Filtrbox. I expect this will include everything from the very start of the company, to their experience with TechStars, to their first financing, through launching a product, seeing early customer growth, and ultimately being acquired by Jive Software. ...
Today is the last day to apply for the TechStars Boston 2010 program. If you want a flavor for where the program is held, Bill Warner (one of the founders of TechStars Boston) has a fun post up titled Lifestyles of The Future Rich and Future Famous: A Look Inside the TechStars Boston (Actually Cambridge) Penthouse. I lived in Boston from 1983 to 1995 (actually Cambridge from 1983 – 1987 but I consider Boston and Cambridge to be inexorably linked.) During the time I was in Boston there was a thriving entrepreneurial community around software and – in the early to mid-1990’s – Internet. While there was plenty of activity around Route 128 and 495, I always felt like the heart of it was in Cambridge in Kendall Square (near MIT) and Central Square (between MIT and Harvard). At least that’s where I hung out – Main Street, Mass Ave, Rogers Street, Binney Street, First, and Third Street. So – when we started TechStars Boston, it was inevitable that it would be in the heart of Cambridge. ...