A Complete Guide to Techstars

Published in

Open Labs

6 min readMay 30, 2016

or at least a pretty thorough one

TL;DR I am unbelievably grateful for the Techstars experience. Based on advice we gathered from alumni before program began, here are tidbits from our Pre-Program Guide. Please reach out to me at a@sigmend.com for any advice or questions!

I’m a planner. So, when I found out we were accepted to Techstars Boulder, I naturally went into information gathering mode. I took lessons of the most loved Techstars companies and distilled them down into a succinct guide.

20 recommendations, 6 phone calls, and 6 coffees later I had talked to teams from New York to Boston, who had ‘killed it during the Techstars experience.’

The result: a 6 page Techstars field guide with founders’ and staffs’ tips, tricks, and advice. I’ve taken the liberty of adding my own notes, tips, and advice.

The Reference Guide:

To Do’s Before Program:

Come in with a list of mentors & investors you want to interact with during program in and out of Boulder. Mentor Madness occurs during the first week of program: 80 meetings in 1 week. It’s a good idea to have some focus around your ideal targets, but stay open: you’ll have some unexpected bonds as well.

A former Hackstar gave me the advice to have an emergency kit. Bandaids, granola bars, deodorant, etc. Thanks to Chelsea Rogers (probably one of the most organized Associates in the history of Techstars) we had all of the awkward personal supplies we could dream of, but if you aren’t lucky enough to have a Chelsea I’d highly recommend an e-kit.

When you’ve been staring at your computer screen for 6 hours (I’m looking at you, CTOs) and your contact begins to fall out during an investor meeting, you’ll be thankful you remembered those eye drops.

During Program:

Things to remember:

#GiveFirst
Go out of your way to give to another company each week.
You can’t go through Techstars twice, you only have this one shot!
Techstars doesn’t mean funding. Responsible investing is in vogue.
Think of it this way: We’d guess the top 25% of the class gets the top 5% of investors.
Dream big, but don’t forget to run your company!
vinegar + imitation chicken fat (you’ll know why this is important once you’re in).

Don’t stay in limbo!

People waited to make big decisions (us included). Move faster and make the decisions as early as you can. Move to failure points as fast as you can, collapse and then keep going. Don’t stay in limbo!

Other teams

Bond with them and form friendships, they are your most valuable asset!
GiveFirst intentionally, every week (I say this twice because it’s what makes the experience).
Be thoughtful in what you do and say. This is one small small small small community.

The Wizards (our team)

Communication is key. Talk to each other about concerns. Be honest early on.
Kudos and appreciation of one another is essential
Spend 1 hour a day doing something for yourself. (Reading, exercising, etc.)
Be intentional with every action, even when you are struggling to keep your cool and to keep your eyes open.
If/when you start to feel burn-out set in, talk about it. Better to break down and recollect yourself before a meeting than during a meeting.

^ WHEN you burnout. It’s okay, everyone does. Know what you need to get through it.

Mentors

Make friends with visiting staff and Managing Directors. They have a wealth of experience and you should know them.
Push to get mentors outside of the Boulder network if it applies to your business.
Sit down at the end of the day and finish all of your follow up emails from the day. Don’t leave until you’ve done this!
Put all of your mentor meeting notes in your CRM. We like Streak. Assume they will remember nothing and neither will you. You’re meeting with 60+ mentors in a week. They will ask for notes and a refresh.
Connect with everyone you meet on Linkedin during your follow up emails. FullContact’s gmail plug in can help you do this.

Mentor Madness

Don’t always go after the sophisticated, popular and pretty girl. The younger girl might be even better if her business is in the same area and she is 2 years ahead of you.
Don’t make the first session a “hang session.” Go in with 1–3 problems and know which mentors have expertise to be solving those issues.
Have the entire team go to a meeting if it’s a killer mentor. Otherwise divide and conquer.
Mentors are generally good at 1 thing. Know what that is prior to meeting with them.
Look at what they’ve accomplished. They can say they’ve done a lot but that doesn’t mean they have.
Mentors will give you advice that doesn’t seem right. Ask them what stage that advice applies. Write it down so it can be applied later if it’s not important right now.

Fundraising

This section varies the most depending on the stage of your company. We pivoted during the program, so many of these didn’t apply (but that’s for another post).

Have a least one investor on your board. They can help you get more and advise you on other things.
Fundraise as you’re entering program DAY 1.
Know if you need to fundraise or not. It’s much more powerful to come in with revenue and say you don’t need to fundraise.
Use Docsend

Metrics

Pick something to measure at the beginning and don’t veer from it. Know that you will be pitching that metric at demo day. Don’t look back at the end and try to figure out what that is.
Start sending weekly emails day 1 so they know how quickly you are growing. On demo day, you’ll have 60 lined up and new ones interested. Ball’s in your court now.

Emailing

Write forwardable emails when getting intros
Your business competency will be directly linked to how quickly you answer emails. Not fair, but that’s how it is 24 hours is the MAXIMUM!!
Thursday night rule: if it doesn’t go out by Thursday night, you probably won’t get a response until Monday 1 week = lost :(

Pitching

Reflect after every single meeting on what worked and what didn’t
Your pitch is not your business, pitch vision!

Run effective meetings

Know what you want to get out of it and how it relates to your company’s current goal

After Program:

Go to FounderCon
Write thank you’s
Know that it doesn’t quiet down. You need to ride the wave for a while because you only get to for so long.
Take a nap. Seriously, clear your calendar for a long nap.

Thanks to these Founders for some borrowed tips. Check out their articles for more perspectives.

Our startup, Sigmend, completed the Techstars Boulder Program just two short weeks ago. If you want to grow your company and yourself, apply to Techstars.