Do More Faster India, 2nd Edition

Appendix 1:The Evolution of Techstars

We’ve been fortunate that Techstars has wildly exceeded our expectations. People around the world have noticed, and many have become interested in Techstars. Many of them have reached out to us for assistance. We have actively tried to help them understand and replicate our mentorship-driven and community-oriented model.

Since the beginning, Techstars has taken an open source approach. We have publicly shared our model seed funding documents, our results, and our philosophies about startups, many of which you have just read.

What began as a simple experiment—creating an accelerator to help entrepreneurs succeed—has now grown into a meaningful part of the startup ecosystem in the 30 communities that Techstars currently calls home. But Techstars has expanded beyond accelerators to work with corporate partners to drive innovation and with communities to create greater levels of entrepreneurship. What follows are a few of the stories of how Techstars started, why and how it has expanded, and what might come next.

What Motivated Us to Start Techstars?

We are often asked what our motivations were for starting Techstars. We strongly believed when we first started that there was a better way to help entrepreneurs. In a traditional venture capital firm, or angel investing, the investors provide the entrepreneur with money, but they want a lot of equity and the ability to influence and control the company from a board position. But there’s not ...