Techstars
Techstars helps founders scale their startups into world-changing businesses. Founded in 2006, Techstars is on a mission to invest in startups to enable more capital to flow to more entrepreneurs around the world in order to deliver exceptional returns to our investors. We do this by operating accelerator programs and venture capital funds, as well as by connecting startups, investors, corporations, and cities to help build thriving startup communities. Our results show why Techstars is Better for Founders than any other global accelerator: On average, 74.5% of Techstars companies will raise money within 3 years of their program; 18.5% of Techstars portfolio companies have exited 5 years after their program and 31.1% after eight years. (PitchBook June 2023)www.techstars.com
166
MENTIONS
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68
PODCASTS
Search complete. 166 mentions across 78 episodes found for "Techstars".
Oct 31, 2026
Robert GlazerHOST
He was on the podcast Give First.
Robert GlazerHOST
And Brad has built ecosystems and was the founder of Techstars.
Robert GlazerHOST
And he really believes in like you build a community and you give to the community.
Robert GlazerHOST
And his whole mantra is, again, you don't know how you get back, but you put in and you're not transactional about it.
Seth NeubardtGUEST
OK, now now you have to go to the next level.
Seth NeubardtGUEST
So I I applied for Techstars, which is an incubator startup company.
Seth NeubardtGUEST
And I had a co-founder with me and we applied to that and got into that, which is really important because we learned about, you know, VC Bunny and what it means to make a business, how to scale a business.
Seth NeubardtGUEST
What are people looking for? And that was like a boot camp.
TJ ParkerGUEST
Early 13.
Ian FitzpatrickHOST
Early 13 when TJ was and Elliot and Pilpak were incubating over at Techstars where I do some mentoring.
Ian FitzpatrickHOST
It was in one of those sessions where you're going around as a mentor meeting with all manner of different startups.
Ian FitzpatrickHOST
And I think what was really exciting to me when I met them, and I remember the moment that they pulled out this box that TJ spent some time going through, what was so visceral was that I got it right away.
Ian FitzpatrickHOST
And it's built on this foundation of empathy.
Ian FitzpatrickHOST
Now we're going to scale it.
Ian FitzpatrickHOST
What does that mean? And how do we try to do that without losing all the things that were so important to us way back when there were a few of us at Techstars? A larger idea I want to get to, we're going to try to run through this by 7, then spend half an hour on questions.
Ian FitzpatrickHOST
I'm sure many of you will have questions for TJ.
Pete TownsendHOST
Ben trained as a mechanical engineer in Milan, and he lives in Singapore these days.
Pete TownsendHOST
Back when I was running Techstars Web3, Ben was one of our mentors.
Pete TownsendHOST
So Ben, welcome to Money Never Sleeps.
Benedetto BiondiGUEST
Thank you so much, Pete.
Michael SkokHOST
But in the recent years, there's also been a new phenomenon, which is this whole idea of going even beyond incubators to accelerators.
Michael SkokHOST
And so some of you may know there's a great program in town, Techstars.
Michael SkokHOST
And so we're lucky enough to have Reid Sedivant from Techstars.
Michael SkokHOST
Thanks, Reid, for joining us.
Michael SkokHOST
And again, I encourage you all to meet and greet.
33 MINS LATER
Michael SkokHOST
Are you ready to go the distance? And that should really be the basis on which you personally go through your own confirmation, if you will, about whether your seed has got you to a place that's worth getting a Series A.
Michael SkokHOST
Fortunately, there are people who can actually help you with this, and we're lucky enough to have one in the audience.
Michael SkokHOST
So I'd like to invite Reid from Techstars up here to just share with us, how can you get help around that, and what is the idea behind the accelerator program such as you run at Techstars?
Anabella BergeroGUEST
And also that's the point where all of this like, tech infrastructure was being developed in Miami as an ecosystem.
Anabella BergeroGUEST
So I got in Techstars.
Anabella BergeroGUEST
They were offering like this pre-accelerator program.
Anabella BergeroGUEST
So I brought this project and I had the chance as well to be kind of in this like tech space, which was like a whole new world for me.
Dan MahleHOST
My guest today is Kyle Kesserson.
Dan MahleHOST
Just after dropping out of art college, Kyle co-created the Funko Pop toy line, and shortly after the launch of the iPhone, designed one of the first 30 apps in the app store, co-founded two Techstars software companies with 11 million users between them, and more recently, led AI strategy at the Academy Award-winning studio Felix & Paul.
Dan MahleHOST
He has been building with AI and algorithms since 2010 with Microsoft Connect and IBM Watson long before ChatGPT.
Dan MahleHOST
After a decade living as a full-time nomad, he now lives in Quito, Ecuador.
Luke FryeGUEST
And this was during Occupy Wall Street too.
Luke FryeGUEST
And so moved there on a Wednesday, ended up starting work the following Tuesday at a company that was a startup in doing, in Techstars, doing like bookkeeping.
Luke FryeGUEST
Our goal was to automate bookkeeping.
Luke FryeGUEST
And this is what eventually turned into Bench.
Tremaine GrantGUEST
can start us off.
Tremaine GrantGUEST
Amazon, AWS, and Techstars had a competition where you had to apply for these boot camps.
Tremaine GrantGUEST
So they had four different boot camps across the globe, actually.
Tremaine GrantGUEST
They had one in Atlanta, one in New York.
Don HazellGUEST
And so it was ingrained, but it came from starting to work.
Don HazellGUEST
What really brought it to a head was working in Techstars, which was the community founded by Brad Feld.
Don HazellGUEST
And Jared Polis were the two investors and it was David Cohen founded it in Boulder and it became the dominant model worldwide for accelerators around the country.
Don HazellGUEST
And so I mentored in 10 different classes at Techstars and Brad wrote a book called Give First.
Don HazellGUEST
that's written to bring light to the story around the power of mentoring, because Techstars was a mentor-led community.
Don HazellGUEST
And it was amazing, once I got into mentoring, how that give first model brought so much intrinsic value to the people I mentored, but also brought it back to myself.
Don HazellGUEST
And it happens by being open to doing the mentoring without asking for something in return.
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