Techstars

Techstars was born 13 years ago. There’s a delicious article in the Denver Post that was the launch article of the first accelerator in Boulder titled How TechStars was born from 5/18/07. The photo is fun. Some of my favorite lines from the article include: Jared Polis, Brad Feld, David Cohen and David Brown are the “professors” – the founders of an organization called TechStars, created to mentor 10 startup companies for the summer. The inaugural session kicks off Monday. ...

Pandere Shoes is an Alaskan founded and women-owned startup that creates expandable footwear that accommodates a host of conditions such as edema, diabetes, and neuropathy. I met the co-founder Laura Oden when I was in Anchorage last month to speak at the Accelerate Alaska event. She came up to me after I gave my talk and told me that her company wouldn’t exist without Startup Weekend and Techstars. While that caused a big smile to cross my face, I asked her to tell me more. She described how she met her founders at Techstars Startup Weekend in 2016. ...

Last week David and I spent some time at the Techstars Sustainability Accelerator in partnership with The Nature Conservancy . Their demo day is happening on October 30th in Denver and you can register here if you’re interested in attending. If you want to see what actual world-changing startups look like, you’ll love this particular demo day. The ten companies that you’ll hear from are working on problems like how we remove carbon from the atmosphere, better manage our water, make valuable products from waste, and keep companies accountable for critical supply chains like coffee, seafood, timber, minerals, cotton, and palm oil. Each company is a venture-backable for-profit that has the possibility of creating both big financial and impact outcomes. ...

I’m excited to share a unique Startup Weekend opportunity for the Colorado community. Startup Weekend has grown up quite a bit from its humble beginnings here in Boulder in 2007. The latest stats, which are likely already out of date, are; 23,000+ teams formed, 193,000+ alumni community members, happening in 150 Countries. Google for Startups – along with some help from Techstars , Startup Colorado , and Foundry Group – is hosting a Startup Weekend at Google’s new(ish) office in Boulder Oct 25 – 27. In this 54 hour event, attendees will experience the highs, lows, fun, and pressure that make up life at a startup and be connected with mentors from Google and the greater Colorado startup community. ...

When we started Techstars in 2006 we had one core goal in mind – helping entrepreneurs succeed. While it started as an experiment with one accelerator in Boulder, we now have about 50 accelerators annually around the world funding 500 startups a year. We also run Startup Weekends and Startup Weeks in over 150 cities globally, have a venture capital fund that invests in companies after they go through the accelerator program, and have a set of corporate innovation and ecosystem development programs that help bridge the gap between large enterprises, cities, and startups. ...

Techstars and Kauffman Fellows are once again running the Venture Deals online course that Jason Mendelson and I put together several years ago. https://youtu.be/RWUx5qm-xrg If you’re an entrepreneur who wants to raise capital and grow your business, this online course teaches you the basics you need to know for working with VCs. And, if you are starting off as a VC or a lawyer for venture capital deals and you want a refresher on the core issues in a term sheet, this online course is for you. ...

Today’s Give First podcast features Harry Stebbings of the 20 Minute VC and a partner at Stride.vc on committing to building a network & giving first. Harry is probably best known for his podcast, The Twenty Minute VC , the world’s largest media asset in venture capital, with over five million downloads per month. He’s talked with amazing VCs and entrepreneurs on over 2,800 shows. When he was 13, Harry watched “The Social Network,” the movie about Facebook, and it inspired him to become an entrepreneur and investor. At 18, he set up the Twenty Minute VC podcast. ...

Colorado Public Television takes an in-depth look at Colorado’s thriving startup scene in its new 5-part season called Street Level Startups . The first episode, which is above, includes me and Jared Polis reflecting on some fun Techstars founding history, Dan Caruso talking about Zayo and the bridge between Boulder / Denver, and a great segment at the end with Brad Bernthal talking about fundraising and #GiveFirst. And, plenty of other stuff. ...

From June 5 to June 8, Techstars Startup Week West Slope will be happening on the western slope in Colorado, with the main event in Grand Junction. I’m doing a Keynote at on Thursday, June 6 from 11:30am – 1:00pm at Colorado Mesa University . I’ll be talking about building startup communities outside Colorado’s front range in a fireside chat / AMA format. Startup communities in Colorado that are outside the front range (Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs, and Fort Collins) have become something that my partner Seth Levine and I have been very involved in the past few years. Seth’s providing a lot of on the ground leadership, through his work with Startup Colorado and the Greater Colorado Venture Fund . I try to show up or help remotely whenever I can and Amy and I have been writing plenty of checks from our Anchor Point Foundation to support various initiatives. ...

David Cohen and I are doing a podcast together called Give First . Readers of this blog likely know that this is the mantra of Techstars and the title of an upcoming book of mine that will be published in 2020. While I’ve been interviewed for many podcasts, I’ve never hosted one before. David and I have been massive fans of Harry Stebbing’s 20 Minute VC so we’ve modeled Give First after it. Harry really hit his stride after about 100 episodes so my guess is it’ll take us a while to be in the same zone as he is. It’s good to have something to shoot for! ...