Accelerator

When we started TechStars in 2006, one of our premises was to help build a strong startup community in Boulder. Our experience with TechStars – starting in Boulder, but expanding to Boston, Seattle, and New York – helped us understand not just TechStars’ role and impact on a startup community, but what drives startup communities over the long term. We’ve seen this dramatically accelerator around the world through the Global Accelerator Network and when I wrote Startup Communities: Building a Startup Ecosystem in Your City, much of what I used as the basis for the Boulder Thesis came from my experiences here. ...

I’ve written before about the Kinect Accelerator and Microsoft Accelerator . On Monday, the Microsoft Accelerator for Windows Azure companies were announced. The program begins this week and ends in mid-January. Since the program is powered by TechStars, it’ll follow the standard TechStars timeline, finishing up with a demo day at the end of the program. This is a global class. The companies included in this group hail from from Australia, Germany, San Diego, San Francisco and Los Angeles to join the program in Seattle. I’m psyched to see what these companies build for and on top of Microsoft Azure. ...

I love software wrapped in plastic. So it warmed my heart when I heard that Cyril Ebersweiler and my long time friend Sean O’Sullivan were starting an accelerator in Shenzhen, China called HAXLR8R as part of their Chinaccelerator initiative, both which are part of the Global Accelerator Network. Following is a guest post from Cyril about the program along with a link to their Demo Day event in San Francisco on June 18th . ...

PBS Newshour has a neat eight minute segment on accelerators. TechStars is featured, along with several others. This makes me happy as part of our goal when we started TechStars was to “open-source” the mentor driven accelerator process. It’s been awesome to be part of this incredible (and – in my opinion – incredibly important phenomenon). The punch line from the interview is in the first 30 seconds. “The Kauffman Foundation, which studies entrepreneurship, recently found that startups create about 3 million new jobs a year.” ...

While I was on vacation Founder Labs announced their New York program this summer. I’m a big fan of Shaherose Charania and Baat Enosh and agreed to help support the program along with Fred and Joanne Wilson and a number of other folks that support entrepreneurship in New York. Founder Labs fits in the “pre-accelerator” category – it’s aimed at people that want to experiment with entrepreneurship. It doesn’t require a full time commitment, but it is a very intense program for five weeks . This year’s program is focused primarily on entrepreneurs interested in mobile applications. While Shaherose and Baat are still tinkering with the formula, they are off to a great start and I’m glad to see them trying it out in New York in addition to San Francisco so they can get some perspective on the dynamics in different geographies. ...

Over the past few months I’ve had a number of people ask me if I know of any TechStars like accelerator programs for people creating non-software / Internet products and services. Some of the obvious vertical markets have been around cleantech and bio / life sciences but some of the more subtle ones have been around government services and non-profits. I’m interested in examples of accelerator programs in the areas such as cleantech, bio / life sciences, medical devices, university R&D, inner city development, natural foods, women, and non-profit entrepreneurship. I’m also interested in people in these areas that already providing leadership in their entrepreneurial communities, especially in Boulder, Boston, Seattle, and New York (the cities where TechStars operates.) ...