As someone who has never done either, but has done startups, this doesn't make Techstars sound that attractive to me. Seems to make a lot more sense to focus on

As someone who has never done either, but has done startups, this doesn't make Techstars sound that attractive to me. Seems to make a lot more sense to focus on building your company, and save the schmoozing with 30 other entrepreneurs for happy hour. Mentorship sounds great either way, but you might want that from someone more aligned with your market (not that it's bad to have advisors skilled in startup growth). Saying "you're going to spend the first month in meetings instead of building your first product" sounds like really the sort of thing you probably left your BigCo job to avoid, no?