Techstars

We’ve been investing in our Glue theme and Protocol theme for a long time – well before we started Foundry Group. Many of our Glue investments and our Protocol investments are growing quickly and becoming integral parts of the Internet and web software infrastructure. It made me smile to see a recent post from Promoboxx titled We’re Powered by TechStars Companies. It’s a great post about focusing on what matters for your product while leveraging great technology infrastructure from other companies. Several of the companies we are investors in are mentioned, including SendGrid and FullContact , each which are TechStars companies that we invested in after they finished the program. ...

I’m still buzzing from yesterday. The entire day was dedicated to TechStars Demo Day in Boulder. It started with a run on the Boulder Creek Path, followed by Demo Day, lunch with Paul Berberian, Mark Solon, and Pam Solon, a handful of TechStars meetings in the afternoon including one with the guys from J-Squared Media (members of the very first TechStars program), a hangout with Jerry Colonna at his new house in Boulder, dinner with Jerry, Mark, Pam, David and Jill Cohen, Nicole Galaros, and Jason Seats, and then the TechStars Demo Day afterparty. ...

TechStars Boulder Demo Day was today and all I can say is WOW! This is the sixth TechStars program in Boulder and I’m just blown away by the entrepreneurs, their companies, the mentors, the investors, and the Boulder community. Clare Tischer put up a TechStars Demo Day 2012 post with descriptions of the companies and links – rather than repeat that here, I’d encourage you to go take a look. There are already a handful of posts from various teams up – my favorite so far is a tribute to Nicole Glaros from the RollSale gang. ...

I continually refer people to the post I Don’t Hate Marketing which is a great example of a bunch of chocolaty goodness all rolled into one little post. Now, my friends at Haiku Deck have made it slick and pretty! Don’t let your marketing suck. Set your story free with Haiku Deck.

On August 9th, TechStars in Boulder will wrap up with their annual Demo Day investment event. If you’re an active investor and are interested in attending, send me an email and I’ll get you an invitation. It’s always amazing to witness how the teams transform in three short months and this program has been no different. This year, we have everything from internet-of-things companies to travel, enterprise software to consumer devices, and platforms to crowdsource plays. There’s a strong showing out of Boulder this year and its yet another reason why my partners and I at Foundry Group continues to support the program. ...

TechStars is running an event called the Patriot Boot Camp in Washington D.C. from July 18-20. About 75 veterans who are active or aspiring entrepreneurs have already been accepted and will be attending. During this three day event, they’ll get a mini TechStars-like experience. The number of people who have stepped up to offer to mentor these veteran-formed companies is just awesome. Todd Park (US CTO) and Aneesh Chopra (Former US CTO) are delivering a keynotes, along with Paul Bucha (Medal of Honor Recipient) and many others. LivingSocial will be welcoming these veterans to their office for a tour and to meet the team and hear their inspiring story. And there will be a ton of one-on-one mentoring during the event by some fantastic mentors. I’ve included the full list of mentors as a thank you to them for “giving first” at the bottom of this post. But of course the biggest thanks are due to these entrepreneurs themselves, for their service to our country. ...

It’s 2012 and the “contact information problem” is getting exponentially worse. I’ve personally been struggling with this for 20+ years since I remember going from a custom database we built at Feld Technologies (in DataFlex) to Act! to try to manage the contacts across the company. While all the technology has changed, the problem has gotten substantially worse, as every web-based and mobile app now has some kind of contact info associated with it. ...

Deal Co-op , the company that powers Brad Feld’s Amazing Deals , released their software last week as a self serve, SaaS product. This means anyone reading this post can go to dealcoop.com and create their own deal store like I did with Brad Feld’s Amazing Deals. This type of software works great for bloggers, entrepreneurs, publishers – basically anyone with an existing online presence looking to monetize their audience. ...

TechStars Patriot Boot Camp is an intense three-day program that will educate and mentor Veterans and Service Members to innovate, build technology companies, and create jobs. TechStars hopes that participation in the Patriot Boot Camp will be the catalyst for Veterans and Service Members to kickstart a company, find co-founders, and advance as entrepreneurs. Veterans, spouses of Veterans, or companies comprised of 50% or more Veterans are encouraged to apply to the July event in D.C. and 75 qualified applications will be accepted. ...

The first cycle of The Microsoft Accelerator, powered by TechStars , is in its final run up to demo day. The first program has focused on Kinect applications and has some super teams, such as Gestsure (they control operating rooms with motion control) and Ubi (they turn any surface into a touch screen.) Demo Day is in Seattle on June 28th. If you are an investor (angel or VC), send me an email and I’ll get you an invitation. ...