Do More Faster India, 2nd Edition

Theme Two: People

The famous real estate cliché is “The three most important things in real estate are location, location, location.” An analogous entrepreneurship cliché is “the three most important things in entrepreneurship are people, people, people.”

At Techstars, everything starts with people. We deliberately describe Techstars as “The worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed.” Techstars mentors are a fundamental component of what makes this special. We think entrepreneurs without mentors is like cookies without milk, or chocolate without peanut butter, or—well—you get the idea. Mentors and entrepreneurs working together leads to a better result for both of them—the magic that we and others have found here at Techstars.

We don’t have a profile of an entrepreneur or mentor at Techstars, as we don’t want a measuring stick or a set of checkboxes to grade the people we want to work with. We appreciate the vast variety of backgrounds, perspectives, experiences, ethnicities, nationalities, genders, gender preferences, gender identities, and personalities that make up the world of startups. One of our goals with Techstars is to expose entrepreneurs to a wide range of mentors—some involved in billiondollar companies, others who have created multiple companies, and yet others who have taken one idea and run with it. As a special bonus, we expose mentors to a variety of fresh perspectives from the entrepreneurs they work with. Both entrepreneurs and mentors participate ...