TechStars For A Day is March 5th

On March 5, we’re hosting an event called TechStars For A Day. If you’re planning to apply for TechStars this summer we’d love to see you there. While attendance is absolutely not required for acceptance into TechStars, it’s still a great chance to get a feel for what TechStars is all about. You’ll get to meet a few of our mentors as well as many of the founders from last years companies.

We’ve reached into our bucket of awesome mentors and put together a great crew for this one day event, including:

• Darren Crystal - Founder, Photobucket
• Ryan McIntyre - Founder, Excite
• Eric Marcoullier - Founder, MyBlogLog

We’ll also be joined by a dozen or so of the founders from last summer, so you’ll have the chance to interact with them and hear what TechStars is like first hand.

We hope you can check out the full agenda for TechStars For A Day and think about joining us. The event is by invitation only. If you’re thinking of applying for TechStars this summer, just do so on or before March 3rd to get an invitation. If you’re not sure if you’ll apply this year or not, or are thinking of applying for a future year, we’d still love to see you. In that case, just contact us and request an invitation.

We hope to see you on March 5th.

TechStars is now accepting applications for Summer, 2008. The application deadline is March 31 - however - if you apply by March 3rd, you will receive an invitation to TechStars For A Day. This is a one day event in Boulder with many of our mentors and founders from the 2007 companies. It’s a one-day mini TechStars and it’s a great chance to get to know each other in person.

If you can’t apply before March 3rd - don’t worry. You can apply right up until the deadline on March 31st. Just keep in mind that the earlier you apply, the more time we have to communicate with you and learn more about you and your company.

The application process is very simple - it’s just a dozen or so short answer questions. 8 out of 10 of our companies from last summer now have angel or venture capital investment, are profitable, and/or have had offers to be acquired. There’s no reason you can’t be next!

We hope to see your application soon. If you have any questions, please contact us.

Applications are opening this Sunday and it’s time to celebrate! If you’re in the San Franscisco Bay area, we hope you can join us on January 24th. That evening, TechStars and the Plug and Play Tech Center are co-hosting a Silicon Valley party for those interested in learning more about TechStars. Here are the details:

Please join David Cohen and Brad Feld of TechStars, along with some of our mentors including Jason Mendelson (Managing Director, Foundry Group), Eric Marcoullier (Founder, MyBlogLog), and many more for drinks, appetizers, and good company on the evening of January 24th at 440 N Wolfe Road in Sunnyvale, California, from 6pm - 830pm.

Whether you’re thinking of applying to TechStars, want to learn more about it, or just want to share a couple of beers with us - this is your chance! We hope you can join us.

Space is limited, please let us know if you’re coming by joining the event on Facebook, or by just dropping us a note. You don’t want us to run out of beer and food do you?

This is the fourth post in a series of my top twelve startup tips from TechStars last summer.

Almost every startup begins with a theory. Many entrepreneurs believe that their theory is correct, and view their startup as a way to prove it. I think that this mental framework is completely wrong. In fact, I think it’s poisonous.

In order for your startup to succeed, you will almost certainly need to be open to the idea that you are probably wrong about a whole bunch of stuff. You have to embrace it. In fact, you should be happy to be proven wrong. It’s very exciting to be proven wrong by your customers. This is called learning, or evolution. Trying to convince your customer that they are wrong and that you are right is called not listening.

The TechStars mentors have funded more than 200 companies, and there’s lots of anecdotal evidence from them that the vast minority of companies end up successfully doing exactly what they thought they’d be doing when their founders incorporated the company. It’s very uncommon. But let’s look at some specific and very real data from TechStars. We’re lucky enough to be building up a tremendous amount of experience with companies in their earliest stages, so let’s take advantage of what we learned.

Of the ten companies who participated in TechStars last summer, 80% (or eight) of them have gone on to receive further angel or venture funding, are profitable, or have had early acquisition offers. So we’re dealing with reasonably high quality companies, at least as compared to the general population of startups. Today, of these companies, 20% (or 2) are doing more or less what they indicated they would be doing on their applications. Another 20% (2) of these companies are currently doing something different from what they proposed, although you can still spot similarities with their original application. 60% (6) of them are doing something decidedly and obviously different than they were founded to do. For these companies, you would not recognize them from their original applications to TechStars.

One might argue that this is because the mentors surrounding TechStars know a bad idea when they see one, and have somehow talked these startups into just going and doing something else. That’s not the case - each of these startups who have changed their vision, mission, product, approach, business plan, or whatever, has done so because they have accepted the basic premise that their theories are just that - theories. Each of them tested some sort of product vision or prototype with potential customers, and eagerly awaited honest feedback. They approached the problem of proving or disproving their theory with intellectual honesty. Rather than selling their vision, they presented it plainly and tried to understand the value of it to their customer. They asked great questions such as “what would make this more valuable to you?” and “what are your biggest, most annoying problems in this area?”

In my first company, we had a pretty good theory. Our theory was “ambulances need to be dispatched, and people shouldn’t have to pay a million dollars and use the crappy software that’s out there today to solve that problem effectively.” It turned out that we were right. We built a better product for a fraction of the cost. But then we grew. Our customers told us that this was not enough. They wanted us to solve their billing, employee scheduling, accounting, mobile data, and paramedic data collection problems too. So we did. Now they’re telling that company that they dispatch fire trucks too. And the company is listening. Could I, as a founder of this company, have envisioned the perfect product suite for the company’s customers of today? No way. I hardly recognize it.

Honestly, this is a best case scenario. You build a product people find valuable, and then you keep solving their problems. If it’s a big enough market, this is going to work. But for most companies, their first theory is not likely to be as good. They’re going to have to evolve and come up with new theories. They’re going to have to fail fast, redirect, reconsider, and restart. If your theories are totally wrong, that’s fine too. You can do something about that.

The worst place you can be with a startup is a place where you have confidently held misinformation. You are proceeding on a path that matches your theory. You’re spending lots of time and energy, all with full-on tunnel vision toward your goals, and man are you going fast. That is a scary picture. Try looking up for a second, and reorienting yourself to the fundamental idea that you are likely to be wrong. Does that change your perspective? Be honest: Have you really proven your theory yet?

If the answer is no, then here are some tactics. Build a prototype, not a finished product. Show people that prototype. Get them to play with it early on. Are they engaged? Do they care? Is it solving a problem? When you hit a pain point, you’ll know it. No prototype? That’s ok, build a set of slides, and walk your customers through the experience. Remember that they’re likely to be encouraging and nice. Especially if they’re your friends (the worst kind of customer to test your theory on is your friend). People like to be nice. They like to be supportive. Make sure you’re getting real data. The best real data comes from busy, random, detached people. Not from your best friend Jimmy.

If the answer was “Yes, of course, I have proven my theory.” then that’s great! Proceed quickly, and get to the next value point. But look up early, and look up often. There are things you will be wrong about in your future. And congratulations on understanding the basic premise that your theory required proof! You are miles ahead of the game.