Transcript: How Techstars Seattle Works & How Should Founders Think About It?
Read the full transcript of The Startup Project podcast episode with Marius Ciocirlan, Managing Director of Techstars Seattle. Marius breaks down the three phases of the Techstars accelerator program, from customer discovery and go-to-market strategy to investor readiness. Learn how Techstars provides capital, mentorship, and a powerful network to help early-stage founders succeed in today's market.
2023-04-23
Host: So, Techstars is, you know, traditionally what we call as an accelerator, right? Uh so what are the founders really getting out of joining Techstars?
Guest: Yeah, for sure. So, um the Techstars program essentially uh falls into almost three phases. So, it's a 13-week program and it's kind of uh set up in three phases. The first phase is customer discovery.
So, we work with you to ensure that like you truly understand who your customer is and what are they buying for you? Like, you know, you would be surprised how many people have an idea of who their customer is, but it's not clearly defined.
They don't really understand why that customer is interested in their product. So, even companies that are farther along, we find that it's always good to like really reflect on who your customer is. So, the first phase is customer discovery.
Second phase is go to market and execution, which is more important nowadays, especially given the market situation. More important than ever to actually gain real traction in your business and prove out that your business has some product market fit.
And product market fit can mean different things at different stages, but at least in your initial MVP, there needs to be some product market fit. And then the third phase is we're preparing you to go out in front of investors.
So, we're working on your pitch deck, we're working on your delivery, we're working on all of your documents, uh getting you ready to ensure that you're ready for uh investors and putting you in front of investors.
You know, we've put uh the past cohort met, we each of them met with at least 30, 40 investors during program and then after demo day, there was like well over 100 investors at demo day.
So, that's kind of getting them ready for fundraise towards the end.
Um but that's the three phases of programming, but uh on top of that, each company meets with 40 to 50 mentors throughout the program and they get like two to three mentors throughout the program uh and then, you know, the whole network of Techstars is being able to uh raise money, getting you ready for fundraising.
So, that's the that's some of the benefits and the most important probably is the relationship you build with the other uh founders.
It's very it's very uh I guess like it's not every day that you get to sit next to 12 or 24 other individuals that are that have chosen to start a company.
You know, you think of your friends and family, like not all of them are trying to start a company and are at the same stage as you.
So, it's really nice to have that community of other founders doing the same thing you're doing, being able to share it out. You really do build like lifelong uh friendships.
Host: Yeah, I guess uh I mean, uh if you're just starting with yourself, it's a lonely journey and some of the founders are just doing it without any co-founders.
Uh but uh if I'm not wrong, I think YC used to invest 150k for in return of 7% and I think they changed uh last couple of batches dropped to 100k. Like uh does Techstars also invest uh capital into the startups or is it more of a time uh investment?
Guest: Yeah, so we invest up to 120k uh in into each company that that gets selected. Uh and then in some cases, um once you start fundraising, Techstars will also do a follow on as well and uh we'll we'll follow on on that your initial kind of fund raise later on.