Techstars Austin was an invaluable experience for our team. It seems like the founders did not factor the opportunity for personal growth when they made their decision. Some may argue that the company's growth comes first, but sometimes that can only happen when the founders are growing too.
We were the youngest company in our class. We actually used the Techstars investment as a means to incorporate and set everything up. Another factor is that all of us were first time founders. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure all 11 companies in our class had first time founders.
The Austin program was broken into three phases:
Month 1 - Mentor Meetings: For the first four weeks we had dozens of meetings with the program's mentors. The mentors were a healthy mix of past Techstars founders, angels, VCs, and biz dev partners. It was exhausting at the time (5-6/day, 4 days/week), but definitely worth it. We used the meetings as pitch practice, and iterated how we described our business along the way. I also learned a lot about my co-founders in those meetings. Seeing them describe our business to other people was very revealing about how they felt about things. Super valuable.
Month 2 - Development: The second month was all about taking the first month of endless feedback and getting to work on advancing our business. We used the second month to build our MVP, speak with potential customers, and build partnerships. The Techstars staff was hands off, but were a big help whenever we asked for it. We accomplished a lot in our second month.
Month 3 - Fundraising/Demo Day: The Techstars staff started to get more hands on in the last month to help us with our Demo Day pitch and fundraising plans. There was more structure, but we had the absolute freedom to do what we wanted. It was a bit distracting from our business the last few weeks, but the experience of Demo Day was amazing and completely worth it.
I highly recommend Techstars for any company with first time founders. We were able to go from polished idea to MVP within three months, and achieve a high level of personal growth at the same time. It's also worth mentioning that I now have 50+ amazing new friends that went through the same experience I did.
Techstars Austin was an invaluable experience for our team. It seems like the founders did not factor the opportunity for personal growth when they made their decision. Some may argue that the company's growth comes first, but sometimes that can only happen when the founders are growing too.
We were the youngest company in our class. We actually used the Techstars investment as a means to incorporate and set everything up. Another factor is that all of us were first time founders. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure all 11 companies in our class had first time founders.
The Austin program was broken into three phases:
Month 1 - Mentor Meetings: For the first four weeks we had dozens of meetings with the program's mentors. The mentors were a healthy mix of past Techstars founders, angels, VCs, and biz dev partners. It was exhausting at the time (5-6/day, 4 days/week), but definitely worth it. We used the meetings as pitch practice, and iterated how we described our business along the way. I also learned a lot about my co-founders in those meetings. Seeing them describe our business to other people was very revealing about how they felt about things. Super valuable.
Month 2 - Development: The second month was all about taking the first month of endless feedback and getting to work on advancing our business. We used the second month to build our MVP, speak with potential customers, and build partnerships. The Techstars staff was hands off, but were a big help whenever we asked for it. We accomplished a lot in our second month.
Month 3 - Fundraising/Demo Day: The Techstars staff started to get more hands on in the last month to help us with our Demo Day pitch and fundraising plans. There was more structure, but we had the absolute freedom to do what we wanted. It was a bit distracting from our business the last few weeks, but the experience of Demo Day was amazing and completely worth it.
I highly recommend Techstars for any company with first time founders. We were able to go from polished idea to MVP within three months, and achieve a high level of personal growth at the same time. It's also worth mentioning that I now have 50+ amazing new friends that went through the same experience I did.
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