As I drove to the Denver airport this morning on my way out of Colorado, it hit me, TechStars hasn’t ended, it just continues worldwide across all of the networks that each TechStars team has developed.  For us, we will continue to develop and support TechStars in NYC, where we are based.  I spent 99 days in Boulder, Colorado and loved every second of it.  As I pulled into the airport, I quickly rewound through it all, right to the moment we met with David Cohen at LGA airport for our second interview, some 100+ days ago, when he said to Josh and I “well, then come to Boulder.”  That moment was life changing.  I have been dreaming about TechStars for two years, and the moment happened so fast I think I responded, “Are you fucking kidding me!”   Josh and I quickly high-fived each other then David.  We were so excited that when we left, we didn’t grab a cab, we practically walked down the service drive of the BQE.  Amazing excitement, anticipation, energy, and a lot of hard work accomplished to that point, but about to get a lot harder….and more rewarding.

Simply, TechStars was a life-changing program.  We’ve never worked harder. (I will be following up on this post with a sleep analysis)  The amount of amazing people we got to work with, whether it was the other teams, mentors, David, Nicole, Andrew, and associates, they were instrumental to the growth of our company.  Often times the backbone behind our decisions, the encouragement as we accomplished so much, and without question, the support we needed as we inevitably faced challenges over the summer. 

The program is everything and more than what you read, even this post.  The ability to surround teams with multiple mentors, who are a mix of VCs and entrepreneurs, and who are completely open to share lifelong experiences, successes, and failures, provides endless value.  Each team benefitted greatly from having interactions with mentors on a daily and weekly basis.

The preparation and hard work that our fellow teams put in is inspiring. It is definitely a major motivational factor behind wanting to work harder.  And when teams are challenged, you can instantly witness other teams swoop in to help, provide advice, or better yet, take them out for a beer.  Yes, we all drank a lot of beer. A lot.  TechStars should really be followed by a two-week detox program, sponsorships are open…

Thanks to our mentors. Thanks to all the sponsors. Thanks to all the other TechStars teams.  Thanks to David and Nicole for running such an amazing program.  Thanks to the random sayings around the office such as on the bathroom mirror “Do you see what I see? Now go kick some ass.”  We look forwarding to supporting this program in any way we can.  To any entrepreneurs or companies thinking about applying, this post should be enough evidence to just f-ing do it.  Of course, I’d be happy to speak with you – don’t hesitate to contact me here.

Okay, the flight attendant is yelling at me to close the laptop – hopefully she doesn’t go all Jet Blue (here) on me.

Much love,

John and ADstruc