Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup

About TechStars

TechStars is a mentorship-driven startup accelerator with operations in Boulder, Boston, and Seattle. Once a year in each city we bring together about 10 Internet startups with about 50 top Internet entrepreneurs and investors for a three-month intensive program. More than 600 companies apply every year for one of the 10 spots. The program culminates with an event at which the young startups pitch their ideas to hundreds of investors.

Since its founding in 2006, TechStars has funded 41 companies in Boulder, 19 companies in Boston, and 10 companies in Seattle. About 70 percent of these companies have gone on to raise more than $25 million in angel or venture capital, have become profitable, or have been bought by notable companies such as AOL, Jive Software, IAC, and Automattic (the makers of WordPress). The latest class of Boulder companies resulted in six companies being funded by venture capital firms and two others by angel investors.

We believe that TechStars represents something special. We're often told that it feels like an entrepreneurial revival. The reason for this is best understood by focusing on two things: mentorship and community.

You'll often hear us describe TechStars as "mentorship driven." Each mentor who participates is asked to focus on a single company or at most two if he has a great deal of free time. We carefully avoid the sort of fly-by mentorship in which someone successful or famous stops by to impart some generic wisdom and give shallow ...