Announcing TechStars Austin
techstars.com
techstars.com
What is really going on here is some people with access to money and zero new ideas throwing micro stuff at the wall to see what sticks. The best advice I ever received was "don't take on investment if you don't need it." This message consistently from a wide variety of successful people then running anything from Angel-funded companies to post-IPO NASDAQ listings.
They could have raised tons of money but don't need to. Most mentors steered them toward growing their business financing free.
Another way to look at seed stage investors is not that they are sprinkling their money everywhere hoping something works but instead that the limiting resource is they don't have enough time to pursue all their ideas and want to back people who are working on things that align.
One thing that irks me about TS is that there are different managing directors for each location...I mean there has to be given the number of locations TS is now at, but it makes me question whether or not there is even a 'TechStars' culture that exists throughout the programs or if each city operates individually and do things differently from others.
I promise I'm not trying to criticize TS, it's just a thought that came to my mind when I saw that they had opened another location.
It adds momentum to the local scene, expands their portfolio with minimal costs, and hasn't seemed to drastically water down their image. Or maybe it has - I'm not quite sure... There are many times I would have loved to go through TechStars, but I feel that the key benefit of the program is the networking & 'friction' with other great entrepreneurs & the top VCs, I'm not so sure how it will keep scaling without degrading those key aspects. As in, I imagine it was easy to get the most high profile mentors or VCs to Boulder or NYC once/ twice a year. Now, they're supposed to hit up like 7+ programs? Different demo days...
Even with the recent TechStars Cloud class in San Antonio, about as non-startup a city as you can find, the program didn't seem to have any trouble attracting mentors and VCs. Demo day was packed with VCs from around the country and AFAIK a lot of the companies from the latest batch have had no trouble raising seed.
(I'm not a TS alum, but I work out of the coworking space TS uses in San Antonio)
My personal thoughts though are in this industry (and this side of it), a huge advantage to TS & YC is relational. I'm not sure how well or how long relational scales.
Does there need to be? They're so widespread at this point that there is little incentive for me to apply for TechStars Austin- I'm in New York, so I'd just apply for TechStars NYC. If the two have different cultures it isn't going to affect me.
If the quality is always top notch, no issue. If the culture of excellence scales outward, great. If you are going through to make great connections in your town & get great mentorship for your business for 3 months, great. But if you are attaching a brand that you intend to open doors/ get meetings/ etc, then the brand needs to stay consistently top notch.
[I'm not saying TechStars is not consistently top notch, just saying culture (or maybe performance) across all programs matters]
Differences are still possible while have a one consistent overriding culture, which is our goal.
We want TS NYC to feel distinctive and especially suited for NY but there there is still a common denominator there that is the same as in TS London.
Our power is in having lots of individual actors and autonomy while still having a cohesive network between programs. I run a better program because of the time I've spent in each of these places.
Fast forward 3 years and I'm now a successful solo-founder and am launching an incubator for individuals this Summer in NYC check out: http://microha.us.
edit: Ok, the console fix is really easy, but I feel like I shouldn't have to resort to that.
We are using social sign up for applying, but you should have to click through that to just see the application.
Jason Seats here, I'm running the Austin program and ran the last 2 TS Cloud programs. Also co-founded slicehost and helped build Rackspace Cloud.
Happy to answer any questions here. Will also hit some of the existing questions in thread.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lcp0uZsY7k @ 9:00
probably tells you everything you need to know.
Also I'll say that he was a phenomenal inspiration to Matt Tanase and me when we started Slicehost. I've learned so much from his writing. The guy is a giant. I had the great pleasure of meeting him one time at the YC office on a random Rackspace visit that I tagged along on and I considered it to be a 'bucket list' item.
That being said, YC just has a different strategy than we do. And in addition when you are talking about the act of creation there really aren't limiters, so the net-net is that they can kick ass and we can too.
The most important point on the topic to me is the one he made at 9:30- "even though we've funded a lot of startups it's still only a small percentage of the total number of startups".
There is a lot of work out there to do on building great businesses. Given historical evidence, not all of it is going to originate from Mountain View.
Personally, I'm holding out for the city to build sky gondolas.
I would love to see them add more rail lines though.