6 ms·

Announcing TechStars Austin

84 points by dandrewsen 13y ago

aashaykumar92 13y ago
TechStars really seems to be going for breadth, but I guess each location only has a class of about 12 startups per cycle. 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.
- JohnDotAwesome 13y ago
  Yeah, breadth of geography. Which I think is super cool. Paul Graham advocates that a startup really shouldn't start outside of Silicon Valley, but that's total crap. Cohen and crowd want to spread their formula to other cities (I think they started in Boulder). When Tech Stars comes to Austin, no doubt it will further re-enforce entrepreneurship in our culture, and it will cause more people to want to start businesses. I think that's awesome. +1 to the breadth strategy for spreading the startup love!
- btrautsc 13y ago
  It feels more like their franchising. Find a local incubator/ seed/ VC opportunity with good local roots, and brand a program there for 3 months. It benefits both sides, TS portfolio grows and the local shop gets a big nod of legitimacy from outside their market. 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...
  - saryant 13y ago
    I'm not sure I'd call it franchising. 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)
    - btrautsc 13y ago
      Point taken, maybe the wrong term/ my lack of specific knowledge. 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.
  - dandrewsen 13y ago
    I think that the more accurate term is horizontal expansion, rather than franchising.
  - seats 13y ago
    The way that it scales is to not try and spread the 'most high profile mentors' to all cities, but to source effectively orthogonal sets of high value people that support each program. Horizontal vs vertical scaling as dandrewsen mentions.
- untog 13y ago
  it makes me question whether or not there is even a 'TechStars' culture 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.
  - btrautsc 13y ago
    If going through TS or 'having gone' through TS is supposed to improve the outcome of your startup (or ability to raise money/ get press), then yes. If investors/ press went to a disappointing demo day in TS-<insert city>, and they are invited to another demo day in your city, they may say, "Meh... dunno". 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]
  - seats 13y ago
    It would matter if and when you relocate your startup to another city, or when you need access to a company or resource in another TS city. 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.
- seats 13y ago
  Our strategy is to have local differences and strong independent programs, but we definitely have a cohesive TechStars culture. I've spent time at most of the TS locations in the last 2 years and have invested in several teams from Boston, NY, Seattle, Boulder, Chicago. 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.
OldSchool 13y ago
Anybody else seeing the technology startup business creeping ever-closer to emulating an American Idol mentality? The "startup" seems to be getting smaller and smaller. These are more like paid internships than "funding." 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.
- arbuge 13y ago
  Quite so. IMHO there's no real series A crunch but there might be an angel-stage bubble.
- seats 13y ago
  "don't take money unless you need it" is not an unusual bit of advice inside of TechStars either. One of the top companies in the last TS Cloud class is bootstrapped and on fire - http://drifty.com http://drifty.com 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.
mkrecny 13y ago
I did TechStars as a 'HackStar' in NYC in 2011. It was a great experience where I ended up joining one of the portfolio companies full-time for the next 2 years. Originally I had applied as a solo-founder and was rejected on the basis that solo-founders can't handle the emotional roller-coaster of doing a startup. 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 http://microha.us.
- orangethirty 13y ago
  How does free office space help develop a business?
  - mkrecny 13y ago
    Seriously?
    - orangethirty 13y ago
      Yes, I am serious. I want to know how having an office space helps a business. More so a tech startup. I'm not being pedantic, just genuinely curious and interested.
      - chiph 13y ago
        Because the milk steamer at Starbucks is loud as shit.
  - untog 13y ago
    "How does having a place to work help you work?"
- wellboy 13y ago
  Awesome man, ha showed 'em! :)
- realdlee 13y ago
  Cool idea. One month seems a little too short though.
resu_nimda 13y ago
Went to check out the application page, was greeted with a Sign Up modal (what the hell is f6s?) that would absolutely not go away unless I signed in with Facebook or LinkedIn (not going to dig into console hijinks for this). I just wanted to look at the application. You can technically read it behind the modal, but still. Getting really tired of these aggressive in-your-face Sign Up tactics. edit: Ok, the console fix is really easy, but I feel like I shouldn't have to resort to that.
- seats 13y ago
  Good feedback, thanks we'll modify. We are using social sign up for applying, but you should have to click through that to just see the application.
reustle 13y ago
A lot of tech is moving into Austin. I was just there for 2 months after being in NYC for 2 years. Anyone going down from SF or NYC will be disappointed with the public transportation.
- chiph 13y ago
  To get around in Austin you use either a bicycle or a car/truck. There is bus service, and a one-track commuter rail link, but if your expectation is something like the connectivity of NYC then you will be sorely disappointed. Personally, I'm holding out for the city to build sky gondolas.
  - reustle 13y ago
    I laughed the first time I heard the sky gondolas idea. I doubt it will ever take off. Yes, having a car is just about required in Austin, I tried the bus and it wasn't so great. I would love to see them add more rail lines though.
- vonmoltke 13y ago
  Indeed. And one of these days, I will finally move with it.
- seats 13y ago
  car2go is a pretty solid service in Austin. rent by the minute, pick up anywhere drop off anywhere.
  - reustle 13y ago
    I used car2go almost daily. It was fairly reliable, but walking up to a mile to get to a car once in a while was annoying when you had things to do (I was living in SoCo). Other times, it was nice to walk. I would have simply walked to downtown when I wanted to go, but 25 minutes was just a tad too far.
wikiburner 13y ago
I don't know, I think PG's quote about TechStars here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lcp0uZsY7k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lcp0uZsY7k @ 9:00 probably tells you everything you need to know.
- seats 13y ago
  I'm replying to this comment on a forum that PG built, so he deserves the courtesy of me being in his house. 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.
seats 13y ago
Late to the thread, sorry. 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.

84 points by dandrewsen 13y ago

TechStars really seems to be going for breadth, but I guess each location only has a class of about 12 startups per cycle. 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.

JohnDotAwesome 13y ago
Yeah, breadth of geography. Which I think is super cool. Paul Graham advocates that a startup really shouldn't start outside of Silicon Valley, but that's total crap. Cohen and crowd want to spread their formula to other cities (I think they started in Boulder). When Tech Stars comes to Austin, no doubt it will further re-enforce entrepreneurship in our culture, and it will cause more people to want to start businesses. I think that's awesome. +1 to the breadth strategy for spreading the startup love!
btrautsc 13y ago
It feels more like their franchising. Find a local incubator/ seed/ VC opportunity with good local roots, and brand a program there for 3 months. It benefits both sides, TS portfolio grows and the local shop gets a big nod of legitimacy from outside their market. 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...
- saryant 13y ago
  I'm not sure I'd call it franchising. 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)
  - btrautsc 13y ago
    Point taken, maybe the wrong term/ my lack of specific knowledge. 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.
- dandrewsen 13y ago
  I think that the more accurate term is horizontal expansion, rather than franchising.
- seats 13y ago
  The way that it scales is to not try and spread the 'most high profile mentors' to all cities, but to source effectively orthogonal sets of high value people that support each program. Horizontal vs vertical scaling as dandrewsen mentions.
untog 13y ago
it makes me question whether or not there is even a 'TechStars' culture 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.
- btrautsc 13y ago
  If going through TS or 'having gone' through TS is supposed to improve the outcome of your startup (or ability to raise money/ get press), then yes. If investors/ press went to a disappointing demo day in TS-<insert city>, and they are invited to another demo day in your city, they may say, "Meh... dunno". 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]
- seats 13y ago
  It would matter if and when you relocate your startup to another city, or when you need access to a company or resource in another TS city. 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.
seats 13y ago
Our strategy is to have local differences and strong independent programs, but we definitely have a cohesive TechStars culture. I've spent time at most of the TS locations in the last 2 years and have invested in several teams from Boston, NY, Seattle, Boulder, Chicago. 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.

OldSchool 13y ago

Anybody else seeing the technology startup business creeping ever-closer to emulating an American Idol mentality? The "startup" seems to be getting smaller and smaller. These are more like paid internships than "funding." 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.

arbuge 13y ago
Quite so. IMHO there's no real series A crunch but there might be an angel-stage bubble.
seats 13y ago
"don't take money unless you need it" is not an unusual bit of advice inside of TechStars either. One of the top companies in the last TS Cloud class is bootstrapped and on fire - http://drifty.com http://drifty.com 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.

mkrecny 13y ago

I did TechStars as a 'HackStar' in NYC in 2011. It was a great experience where I ended up joining one of the portfolio companies full-time for the next 2 years. Originally I had applied as a solo-founder and was rejected on the basis that solo-founders can't handle the emotional roller-coaster of doing a startup. 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 http://microha.us.

orangethirty 13y ago
How does free office space help develop a business?
- mkrecny 13y ago
  Seriously?
  - orangethirty 13y ago
    Yes, I am serious. I want to know how having an office space helps a business. More so a tech startup. I'm not being pedantic, just genuinely curious and interested.
    - chiph 13y ago
      Because the milk steamer at Starbucks is loud as shit.
- untog 13y ago
  "How does having a place to work help you work?"
wellboy 13y ago
Awesome man, ha showed 'em! :)
realdlee 13y ago
Cool idea. One month seems a little too short though.

resu_nimda 13y ago

Went to check out the application page, was greeted with a Sign Up modal (what the hell is f6s?) that would absolutely not go away unless I signed in with Facebook or LinkedIn (not going to dig into console hijinks for this). I just wanted to look at the application. You can technically read it behind the modal, but still. Getting really tired of these aggressive in-your-face Sign Up tactics. edit: Ok, the console fix is really easy, but I feel like I shouldn't have to resort to that.

seats 13y ago
Good feedback, thanks we'll modify. We are using social sign up for applying, but you should have to click through that to just see the application.

reustle 13y ago

A lot of tech is moving into Austin. I was just there for 2 months after being in NYC for 2 years. Anyone going down from SF or NYC will be disappointed with the public transportation.

chiph 13y ago
To get around in Austin you use either a bicycle or a car/truck. There is bus service, and a one-track commuter rail link, but if your expectation is something like the connectivity of NYC then you will be sorely disappointed. Personally, I'm holding out for the city to build sky gondolas.
- reustle 13y ago
  I laughed the first time I heard the sky gondolas idea. I doubt it will ever take off. Yes, having a car is just about required in Austin, I tried the bus and it wasn't so great. I would love to see them add more rail lines though.
vonmoltke 13y ago
Indeed. And one of these days, I will finally move with it.
seats 13y ago
car2go is a pretty solid service in Austin. rent by the minute, pick up anywhere drop off anywhere.
- reustle 13y ago
  I used car2go almost daily. It was fairly reliable, but walking up to a mile to get to a car once in a while was annoying when you had things to do (I was living in SoCo). Other times, it was nice to walk. I would have simply walked to downtown when I wanted to go, but 25 minutes was just a tad too far.

wikiburner 13y ago

I don't know, I think PG's quote about TechStars here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lcp0uZsY7k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lcp0uZsY7k @ 9:00 probably tells you everything you need to know.

seats 13y ago
I'm replying to this comment on a forum that PG built, so he deserves the courtesy of me being in his house. 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.

seats 13y ago

Late to the thread, sorry. 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.