Do More Faster India, 2nd Edition

About Techstars

Techstars started as an idea in 2006, when David Cohen sent an email to David Brown about a novel way to help entrepreneurs accelerate their businesses. Since then it has grown into the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. In a little over a decade, Techstars accelerators have funded more than 1,700 companies in more than 30 locations in 13 countries.¹ About 80% of these companies are successful: they have become profitable, have been bought by notable companies such as Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, and they have gone on to raise more than $7 billion in venture capital and angel investors.

We believe that Techstars represents something special. We’re often told that it feels like an entrepreneurial revival. What’s the secret to Techstars’ rapid growth and success rate of companies going through accelerator programs? The reasons can be distilled into three unique ingredients: practicing the principles of Do More Faster, integrating mentorship deeply within the accelerators, and promoting community by giving first.

At Techstars, we practice the principles outlined in this book. We run intensive, three‐month programs for startup entrepreneurs—not a full year, not six months, and definitely not 9‐to‐5. Our accelerators remove all the distractions and force the entrepreneurs to focus solely on their startup. We do this once a year in each location that we run an accelerator. We bring together 10 startups (from between 500 and 1,000 applicants) ...