Ten Years Later: It’s a People Thing

by Nicole Glaros, Chief Innovation Officer at Techstars

I feel like that annoying relative, you know the one. The aunt who grabs the adolescent ‘you’ and says “My, how you’ve grown! Look at you now, you’re so BIG! When did that happen?” You blush, and turn away. For the first time, I understand that annoying Aunt’s sentiment.

When I first got involved, Techstars was still an infant with just two programs under its belt. I was fresh off a hard project and my brain was craving something new. I started hanging out at Techstars because there were smart people doing interesting stuff.

At the time, there wasn’t really a ‘staff’ at Techstars. David Cohen was around, of course. Loren Laureti was handling the books one day a week. Joe Scharf was hanging out and helping the companies. Andrew Hyde was doing his community thing. Then there were the founders; smart, driven, risk-taking, big-thinking, action-oriented individuals who had a set of values and ethics.

It was a killer combo, and I was hooked. When Cohen asked me to come onboard, I said yes simply because of the people.

Since then, Techstars has grown to over 160 employees, with 25+ accelerator programs across the globe, over 50 Startup Weeks, close to 1000 Startup Weekend events in over 500 cities, and we just crossed the 1000 portfolio company mark.

We’ve matured from being an infant to being an adolescent. We now have systems, processes, and people in charge of those systems and processes. We work hard at getting it right, and sometimes we don’t. But we get one thing right consistently, and that’s the people.

For instance, I remember when we decided to open our first office in Texas. We were close to making an offer to Jason Seats for the Managing Director position, and I was going through his “off-list” references. These were basically people that I uncovered that had worked closely with him, but that he didn’t put on his list of references.

I was trying desperately to find someone to give me constructive criticism on Jason, but came up empty handed. Not one single person had anything negative to say about Jason. Not one. Later, Jason and I (mostly Jason) ran that first Texas program, and he and I would get into spirited debates over directions a company could go. We would be debating loudly with each other, and the founders would hide, worried that ‘mom and dad were fighting again.’ What Jason, myself, and the founders quickly learned was that leaning into differences of opinions with mutually-felt respect leads to better options and stronger relationships. Distil Networks and Keen.io both came out of that first class.

Since then, Jason’s path has skyrocketed at Techstars, from Managing Director, to Partner, to Managing Partner at our venture fund.

I remember spending an entire day with Troy Henikoff, some guy from Chicago who wanted to learn how to run an accelerator program. With our support, Troy took our playbook and started Excelerate Labs, which later became Techstars Chicago. Talking to his founders, you’ll hear more respect and admiration for him than thought possible. Even years later, Troy remains one of their closest mentors.

Recently Troy and I attended a slam poetry workshop together. The workshop was unexpectedly very emotional, and the tears were flowing. To sit next to someone you have worked with for the past 4 years and to feel able to cry freely, that’s the kind of guy Troy is. I have limitless trust and respect for him. Troy is on to his next venture (Math Ventures, to be exact), but the value system he brought is imprinted not only across the Techstars Chicago program, but across our entire organization.

Another influential person within Techstars is Molly Nasky, our first CFO. In the early days, I was handling all our contracting and due diligence, with zero background in legal or finance. I was literally googling words from our contracts and praying the formula I was using to calculate number of shares to be issued was correct. Molly, who never gets frazzled, came in and not only spent the time to help educate me on what I still didn’t understand, but took over my chaos and turned it into a real process. Molly was not only our CFO, but she was also our legal and HR, and she was a coach to me and the companies. At one point Molly was processing something like 75 companies through contract and due diligence simultaneously. She’s a beast, and Techstars wouldn’t be where it is today without her.

There are so many people who have enabled Techstars to become what it is today — Katie Rae, Andy Sack, Megan Sweeney, Jon Bradford, Daniel Feld. I couldn’t possibly list them all, not to mention all the mentors. The crazy part is that Techstars is still only an adolescent. We have so many opportunities in front of us, so many possibilities. We still feel the exuberance of youth around here. So while we’re turning 10, as long as we keep getting our hiring right, I can only imagine what we’ll look like when we turn 20. And 30. And beyond.

Here’s to the people behind Techstars’ first 10 years, and to the people still to come.

Over the last decade, Techstars has grown a worldwide network with 100 exits, 1000 companies in the portfolio and 10,000 jobs created by those companies. Want to be a part of it? Learn how.