Techstars: One month left | Hacker News Reader

Techstars: One month left

postmaster.io

29 pointsm3ntat14 comments

Did anybody else have the thought that Techstars might be closing shop by the title?

Haha, didn't even think of that.

Possibly this was an edit joke by ycom admins? : )

Accurate description of the experience!

I would say that learning to manage the mentor meetings helps you get way more out of it. If you don't do it well, you dwell on the same points every meeting without moving on to new stuff.

This is the question I have been asking myself, and I couldn't find anyone writing anything about it. When you shouldn't apply for TechStars?

What is werewolf the card game? I did a quick google search and nothing really came up.

It's not really a card game but uses cards to assign roles. You might know it by another name, like Mafia or Assassin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_(party_game)

BoardGameGeek has full details : http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/25821/the-werewolves-of-m...

If anybody has any specific questions about Techstars, I'm happy to answer.

Do teams really meet with 3-5 mentors a day ? That seems way beyond the point of being useful. When do you have time to build anything or talk to users ?

The first 4 weeks is very intense on the business/market/sales plan side of things. It is hard to get work done, you have to squeeze it in whenever possible (night, weekends, etc). The idea is that you probably shouldn't do a ton of work before you have a solid plan in place. After that things slow down and you can focus on coding/traction.

It feels overwhelming at times, but it is very useful. It's at the heart of what makes TechStars an accelerator. You get instant feedback on your ideas from great mentors.

You're right that it's hard to build much during the first month. But when the first month is over, you feel very confident about what you need to do. That makes the next month and beyond incredibly productive on product and customer development.

Is the network really that powerful between NYC and Boston alumnies that may never have met for instance?

The network is powerful. Alums are generally connected through the mentors and program directors if they aren't in the same class (the cloud class has it's own alumni weekend where the classes got to know each other well).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com