Techstars

“The best mentors are the ones that are intellectually curious, so you can get a sense pretty quickly by talking to somebody whether or not they love to work on puzzles. So are these the people who can sit down with you and just very quickly, and they, you can …”

“But first and foremost, Techstars looks for entrepreneurs for their MDs. He said, you know, you can find industry experts all you want, but what's actually really hard to find are people who have, you know, gone through the VC races, been rejected multiple tim…”

“It's a charitable donation of time.”

“I mean, there are some spectacular single founders that, that can do a ton, right? So for example, we backed listable from our last class. They, he was a single founder. Alec Farmer from Osper was also a single founder as well. But they were incredible.”

“From my perspective if I'm hiring somebody and I see someone who's Who's super eager, hustling and especially very, very creative. I think I would take that over the one, someone who actually has a lot of experience.”

“Techstars was created actually between David Cohen and Brad Feld's open office hours.”

“Bigger thing also, I would say even, but just being about bullish on Sparrow, is that would be bullish on Boulder, Colorado. I mean, I was there a few weeks ago working with Techstars, working with Galvanize, working with Boomtown three accelerator programs ou…”

“I'm very concerned about the health of the long-term dynamic where entrepreneurs and investors value fame and boisterousness over shut the hell up and do a great job and help the company, right? I think most industries evolve towards rewarding performance and,…”

“Within a year of the first program in 2007, there were three acquisitions, and they were all relatively small. So out of the first 10 companies, you know, social thing was picked up around ten million dollars and a couple other companies had been bought in tha…”

“Most of the best investments I've ever Had have been that five, 10 minute instantaneous, you know, like I'm in reaction, right?”

“Had all the investments we've done been uncapped notes, it's something like a five X, you know, lower return.”

“I talked to the 800 companies I'm involved with asynchronously instead of in real time, and it helps a lot.”

“We've maintained, even though we have four partners now working on the larger investments, we've maintained this idea that if somebody gets excited, that's all you need. Go make the seed investment.”

“And I said, I was in sitting on that bar stool. I think I asked for a 100,000 dollars. And, you know, cause at the time I think that was the sort of up leveling that we were trying to do in that fund. And I got 50. It's fine. I took 50.”

“Today, you know, so we went from that five million dollar fund today, we're over three hundred million dollars in, in managed capital, but, you know, we have a 150 people in the organization.”

“It's about having a consistent strategy and just sticking to it. You know, it almost doesn't matter so much what the strategy is as that you're consistent about it and stick to it.”

“In fact, there's still one company today, you know, from that original class in 2007, that's operating, you know, some have failed. I think there've been five or six exits out of that first 10 companies.”

“They have a total of 762 companies, of which 90% are active or have been acquired, and they've raised more than two billion in funding.”

“I believe the exact numbers are, is 36 for Techstars and 38 for YC.”

“We're investing 50, seventy-five million dollars a year just in the accelerator level plus the fall on capital.”

“80% of our accelerator companies are going to raise around from somewhere.”

“Yesterday. I think that companies need to put it in as soon as possible. And, you know, I think entrepreneurs have this tendency to think of the board as this Overlord controlling things and they can fire me and all that, but that's not necessarily the case, r…”

“We're investing in about 500 companies a year at this point across these 50 accelerators that you mentioned.”

“When we do make a larger investment, we actually reserve one-to-one. So for every dollar we put in, we keep a dollar in reserve, and then we, you know, over time sort of reallocate that as needed and think about our reserves as a strategic part of what we do.”

“So when you're getting a story from the entrepreneurs about what's going to happen, try to find ways to make the terms match that story and the eventuality that that story may not happen.”

“So again, we all do things wrong, but if I can trust that we're going to be able to talk about that openly, especially in a board or investor context, or this works in personal life as well, Then I think it's easy to rebuild almost no matter what the transgres…”

“What they say in that moment of integrity is how you can really tell how a person will behave and their value.”

“The company has, but I think at the seed stage, I would look for a minimum of 18 months. Today, I prefer two years, actually. So, sort of seed and series A investing.”

“Yeah, my stats are only a 98%, so I'm not sure if I get it right, but it's somewhere in that zone. No, they often are bridges to nowhere”