5 Best Practices I Learned at Techstars

Techstars Boulder revolutionized the way we run things

The way to land investor deals, maximize productivity in meetings, and move our businesses up and to the right is just plain old English. We aren’t handed a top-secret dictionary at Techstars that outlines some magic words to make it happen. Instead, we incorporated these five tools into our companies:

#1 — Clean Agreements

Clean agreements are the most effective to reduce friction within a team and set clear expectations. There is clarity around:

Clean agreements are not unidirectional. The agreement requires a full-body yes, which means that all parties involved have fully understood the expectations. The person proposing the agreement is responsible for paying attention to this and believes they are receiving authentic consent.

Image Credits: Sue Heilbronner, co-founder of MergeLane & Leadership Camp

#2 — Nonviolent Communication

This form of communication separates “facts” — the what is of a particular situation, from “stories” — the positive or negative interpretations. If you placed a video camera in a heated discussion, anything a third-party could identify is a fact. Additionally, any of YOUR emotions or sentiments are facts. No one can protest that. Almost always, the interpretations we form do not include a backstory as to why a person is acting that way. Compare these stories with their underlying observations and how to communicate it effectively.

#3 — Running Effective Team Meetings

Especially when you have a small team, every meeting seems relevant to every team member. After all, the beauty of a start-up is that you’re not siloed into one role. However, a 6-person team in a 1-hour long meeting is 6 hours of productivity lost. Not to mention the context switch that’s required when you’re pulled away from your current task. Save yourself hours of lost time and, as a meeting host, ask yourself these four questions:

1. Goal: Why are you hosting this meeting and what would make it a success?
2. Participants: Who should attend the meeting and what benefits can each of them expect?
3. Scope of Authority: What is the collaborative stance of this meeting — are you selling an idea, relaying information, consulting for ideas, or co-creation of new ideas as a democracy?
4. Agenda: What are the key topics or questions that will lead to the outcome you want from the meeting?

For every calendar event, include the goals in the description, and a link to the document where the meeting notes/outcomes will be recorded.

#4 — Take Care of Yourself

Welcome to the start-up world. You WILL push yourself to the limits since you’ve been introduced to a Pandora’s box of mentors, resources, and connections. Be the best version of you, first.

Check-in with yourself.

How are you taking care of yourself?

Rate how satisfied you feel for each of these 8 factors on a scale from 1–10.

#5 — Tracking Progress

“Don’t mistake motion for progress”

— Zach Nies, Managing Director of Techstars Sustainability

Find a method that works best for you and your team based on what phase of your company that you are at. At Warmly, we experimented with several tools ranging from a daily stand-up spreadsheet to Trello to Kanban boards.

Kanban boards are a visual representation of tasks and their progress and can represent time as a constraint by the physical space allowed on the whiteboard. It forces you to recognize if all the tasks planned can realistically be accomplished.

The sections on a traditional Kanban board are:

1. Objectives + Key Results: What is the goal of the week and what metrics do you need to achieve to accomplish that?
2. This Week: What tasks are planned for the week and who is taking responsibility for each one?
3. Today: What tasks need to be done today?
4. Doing: What are you currently working on? As someone begins a task, they move the note from “Today” to “Doing” to indicate a deliberate context switch.
5. In the Pen: What tasks are blocked by a person, resource, or tool? If many tasks pile up here, re-evaluate if that task is crucial and if so, how to unblock it.
6. Done: What tasks are fully completed?

Example Kanban Board

While we aren’t handed a dictionary, Techstars provides us the resources and support to practice using these tools. We were challenged for the 14-weeks to push ourselves to the limit, grinding day and night, growing in ways we couldn’t have imagined before. Our company pivoted in the middle of the program, and the ability to track our progress and effectively communicate with each other using these tools were crucial in our success.

Forever grateful to the Techstars Boulder 2020 program team — Natty, Malte, and Allie for bringing us into the family. A huge shoutout to Zach Nies for being such an inspirational mentor for Warmly, whose frameworks influence a majority of these practices. Also, I’d like to thank the entire Warmly team, but especially Max, for bringing me on board.🙏