Tech entrepreneurs bring bright ideas and the will to succeed. TechStars supplies a little cash and a lot of mentoring.
Creating a successful technology start-up takes more than just a clever idea. It takes dedicated mentorship, financial backing and a sophisticated level of planning. Just ask angel investor Shawn Broderick. He has been involved with several technology start-ups over the past couple of decades, is an adviser and/or director to various Internet-based companies and is founder of TrustPlus, an online reputation viewing site. As executive director of the TechStars Boston seed funding program, he knows a thing or two about the importance of personal drive and why getting expert advice is paramount to success.
What is TechStars, and how did the idea for the company come about? TechStars is a mentorship-driven start-up seed fund. Our goal is to identify promising young companies and provide them with the knowledge and resources they need to be crazy-successful as first-time tech entrepreneurs.
Dossier
Name: Shawn Broderick
Title: Executive director
Organization: TechStars Boston
Location: Cambridge, Mass.
Favorite technology: “I’m currently quite enamored with Android. I think the crew at Android/Google created something with truly disruptive potential.”
Favorite virtue: “Curiosity. Trustworthiness would be a close second.”
Dream dinner guests: Winston Churchill, John Coltrane, Thomas Jefferson, Grace Kelly and Niccolò Machiavelli
TechStars was started in 2007, by entrepreneur and angel investor David Cohen and venture capitalist Brad Feld. Over the last few decades, lots of folks have attempted to create a means of aggregating young companies, and the whole model blew up spectacularly with the “Internet incubators” in the ’90s. What nobody had tried was bringing together a large number of wildly experienced folks to mentor the bejesus out of these entrepreneurs. TechStars was an experiment to do just that.
What qualities do you look for when choosing start-ups for the program? And who can apply? Anybody can apply! Our application form is painfully simple. The types of companies we are looking for are capital-efficient (we don’t bring that much cash to the table) and are capable of achieving stupendous progress in a short period of time (each program is three months long).
We tell the companies on the first day of orientation: “You’re here because of who you are. You’re almost certainly not here because of your idea. In fact, some of you are here in spite of your idea.” As investors, we are betting on people.
What are the benefits of being chosen for the program? TechStars invests a small amount of money — $15,000 on average — in each company. I can assure you that nobody joins up for the cash.
The reason most folks get involved is for the mentorship and learning. This summer in Boston, we have nine companies comprised of 21 founders, and we’ve married them with 65 mentors. The entrepreneurs spend three months all together in Cambridge [Mass.], drinking through a fire hose of knowledge, experience, wisdom and education. The mentorship is invaluable and unparalleled, in my humble opinion. I sure wish I had such a program when I was starting out!
There is a pretty handsome list of top-tier mentors on the Web site. How do you choose mentors, and what kinds of advice do they offer? First off, thank you for the compliment. We have worked hard over the years to learn who makes a great mentor and how to extract the best from them. Any person reading this can be a mentor — and I do hope all of you have considered how you can be a mentor and give back. But not unlike the selection process for the companies, TechStars is trying to find truly exceptional mentors. It’s an art, not a science, and one’s ability to be a mentor is not correlated with your job title nor the size of your bank account.
Mentors offer every kind of advice you can imagine. Their job is to get waist-deep in the companies they choose to mentor and be there as an adviser, coach, educator and, often, friend.
Can you tell me a little bit about your past work experience and start-up projects? Over the last 20 years, I’ve been involved in a broad array of entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial exercises ranging from enterprise decision-support software systems to online games to groupware to financial software systems to Web services — and beyond.
I spent about seven years in the mid- to late ’90s in the online game business via my company Genetic Anomalies and then with THQ, pioneering virtual property — which was a blast. In the last few years, I’ve been working on issues of trust between individuals online via my company TrustPlus, while also spending time involved on boards of directors and advisers. And, of course, TechStars has kept me more than busy so far this year!
What are a few common mistakes that people make when they get involved in creating a new high-tech venture? In my experience, the two most common mistakes that kill new ventures are what I refer to as “missing the pain” and “messing the team.”
Generally speaking, every new technical invention must address some sort of customer pain. Many ventures go off the rails early because they fail to understand the pain they are addressing or they address a pain that is just too small. Is there a market? Is it big enough? Evaluating the pain you’re addressing is straightforward: Google your brains out, of course, and, most importantly, talk to potential customers. Entrepreneurs who fail to do so at the earliest possible moment in time do so at their own peril.
Many people probably have a million-dollar high-tech idea floating around in their mind. What is the single most important piece of advice you could give to all of them? Execute! Ninety-nine percent of the time, ideas aren’t worth the paper they’re not printed on. Truly everybody is capable of having great ideas. Many people with technical skills are capable of having “million-dollar high-tech ideas.” An exceptionally tiny number of people are capable of turning these ideas into full-blown, in-real-life successes.
One of my favorite bits of [business author] Seth Godin wisdom derives from his quip, “Getting your ducks in a row is not nearly as powerful as actually doing something with your duck.” I urge first-time entrepreneurs all the time to consider what they can do right now to move their duck forward.
Is there a certain mind-set that one must have in order to succeed with a start-up? The most important and valuable mind-set I see in entrepreneurs is drive. The path to high-tech entrepreneurial success is rarely easy or simple. It’s a complicated route that involves taking a zillion forks in the road — any wrong one of which can feel like a .38 to the temple. The people who succeed, the people who “win,” have an incomprehensible — some would say irrational — drive to make it happen.
— Interview by Sara Forrest, a freelance photographer and writer in New York (studio@saraforrestphoto.com).
