Techstars

“Coming out of Techstars, we are now raising our preceded round of 700 K to go to production.”

“There have been times that I look back, and I'm like, they should not do that. That's, you know, like, emotionally distressing, and of course, getting contradictory advice that whole time.”

“If we don't do our job after those 13 weeks, you can buy back your equity. So like, that's the ultimate fail safe. So I have had precisely zero EBGs throughout my time as managing director. Zero.”

“The six percent, you know, is what you could potentially allocate to a really meaningful advisor or board member or someone who takes part in your company in a really large way.”

“In order to determine how to verticalize, we identified 20 or 30 cohorts, so we had artists, golfers, outdoor enthusiasts, pregnant women, moms of kids who go to Montessori schools, and we scored them in different categories. Do they value trust? Do they value…”

“You have to be a US-based company for my pre-seed fund called Rising Stars through Techstars. But assuming that is something that happens, you can count on the commitment later.”

“We got into Techstars in June, ended up declining that.”

“I'm in a tech stars program right now and identifying our KPIs is very much a part of this journey. Right now, because we're rebuilding gen two, and we're not technically engaging in new accounts, we're focused on pilots. We're focused on getting people on the…”

“We did Techstars fall of twenty-twenty-two. That was our first 120 K and then a ton of very forward thinking angels that include physicians and technologists. To date, we've raised 870 K.”

“He introduced me to David Tisch, who was about to become the managing director of tech stars, New York. When he was just coming through Boston, I had coffee with him for 30 minutes. He wrote me a check for 20,000 dollars.”

“And I think being a strong leader is also to know when to shut up. And not say anything, because you're not supposed to have an opinion on everything, and certainly you're not supposed to have an opinion on everything publicly.”

“The, I remember starting first day and my first hundred day I had what I called a listening tour. So we had at the time, 280 employees. And I talked to every single employee one-on-one with the same set of questions, including one, which was, what is Techstars…”

“NPS measure, to a large extent, happiness. Return. Measure success.”

“We take common shares in the company.”

“Like, the reason why they come to us, it's not for the check. Like, they can raise money somewhere else. They came for everything that comes with it, which is the Axe Rater program, like the boot camp, which is 13 weeks, and at Techstars, it's extremely hands-…”

“Tell me something that AI is going to help you to do that was not possible to do before. Even if you don't fully understand the technology, Tell me in one sentence, thanks to AI, we're going to do X. And if I immediately see that without AI, X will never have …”

“What I care about is, Is there a big, gigantic problem in front of us? And do you have a really different way of solving it versus everyone else? And if that means using AI, awesome. If it means not using AI because you have a better option, that's fantastic t…”

“And frankly, if you're an entrepreneur and your dream is to compete with ChatGPT, you're probably not going to succeed because of the compute power and the data sets required to even remotely have a shot at competing. So the only businesses that might compete …”

“AI is so exciting because it allows new businesses to come and solve problems that big tech is not capable of solving right now.”

“And if you look around at accelerators, for example, you know, they will fund like Tiny Seed, Y Combinator, Techstars, 500 startups, you know, they'll fund A company doing a few thousand dollars a month at, you know, a 900,000 to two million dollar valuation, …”

“And if you don't know yet, in my world, I think it's okay to wait another month, another quarter, not saying 10 years, but just a little bit, and then revisit on a regular basis whether or not there's new application of AI, new development that would make sens…”

“The cap of textures is three three million per money.”

“Yeah, so far we have raised half million dollars, and we have about, we did the 500 startups and Techstars, and 500 startups gave us about 50,000 dollars, it was a safe note, and then Techstars gave us a 100,000 safe note, but then it's, the rest is bootstrapp…”

“The first round right after tech stars was the four million pre money price round. Then we did for the 1.7, that was 6.5.”

“So let's go through YC interviewed for YC in 2018 rejected interviewed for tiny seed 2019 rejected applied interviewed For Indie.VC, Ernest Capital, Techstars, Chicago, and Boulder rejected. But in 2019 as well, you applied and interviewed for launch, and you …”

“The annoying thing was the stuff that I passed on. Like they're literally like billion dollar exit companies that I just got, you know, I'm like, I'm gonna invest in five things. It's like the four, the five, the four that I did were like kind of donuts, like …”

“I raised about a half a million dollars. This was before we got into Techstars, which was this big incubator.”

“We actually had to change our name because there was a company in Chicago that started selling classes under, under the name of Dabble. So we had to actually overnight change our name and we couldn't think of anything, so we, like, literally were just scouring…”

“And then by the time we finished tech stars, I think we wrapped up like you could call it pre-seed funding, but we had collected about half a million dollars at that point, but we had invested a couple 100,000 to get the product to where it needed to be.”

“So we raised about one and a half million dollars. We're backed by Techstars, we're backed by Foundry Group and Accomplice.”

“Three or four pilot customers, and then over the summer of 2015 being at Techstars, we took that from, you know, the three, three to four up to 30, and have grown to over a 175 paying customers to date.”

“Right, so that, a hundred and, a 120 grand.”

“Around 140,”

“We raised about a million and a half bucks three years ago. The investors in that round were tech stars and access venture partners and rally ventures.”

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

“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…”

“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…”

“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.”

“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”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“We haven't tried to copy Techstars or Y Combinator company to here, which we believe that doesn't work in, in such markets.”

“Our early stage kind of tech stars angel stuff, I think amounted to about 1.5. And then I just raised around a little bit north of Five million dollars.”

“We then actually applied to New York Techstars. And did not get in. And this was in December. Made it to the final round. They basically said, I don't understand diversity. Recruiting is not a big challenge. And you guys don't have anything. Like, I don't know…”

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

“We raised roughly 300 K.”

“We did something we call an advisor round, which is only for the remaining bits. That's about 25, 30 K. In USD which was people that have been helping us for months, and we got some Techstars alumni, we got people from the competitive intelligence industry, al…”

“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.”

“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…”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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,…”