Techstars
How to get into Techstars, direct from the founders who did it
Our take
Best if you want a dense mentor network, the Techstars name on your cap table, and a pre-seed check, and can go full time for three months. A weak trade if you mainly want capital — the headline $120K is largely an optional loan you give up 6% or more for.
Acceptance
< 1%
Equity
6%
Funding
$120K
Duration
3 months
Stage
Seed
HQ
Boulder, Colorado
We asked the founders how Techstars really went.
Every interview behind this page is one we ran ourselves. The numbers and quotes come straight from founders who went through Techstars, in their own words.
Who Techstars is for, and who should skip it.
Best for
- You are early-stage and want a large mentor network plus a cohort of founders going through it alongside you
- You value the Techstars name as a credibility signal with investors and partners
- You can go full time for three months and relocate to the program city if the format calls for it
- You are coachable and ready to pivot, since the program bets on the founder more than the idea
Skip it if
- You only want capital, since there are faster routes to raise more than Techstars puts in
- You do not want to give up 6% or more of your equity for the check
- You cannot commit full time or relocate for the length of the program
- You already have strong traction and a deep network and need neither mentors nor a validation stamp
What it's actually like at Techstars
Techstars runs for three months and front-loads the intensity. You relocate to the program city, kick off with a retreat to meet your cohort, and within the first weeks you hit the part everyone remembers, Mentor Madness. Over roughly two weeks you sit through back-to-back fifteen-minute meetings with anywhere from seventy to over a hundred mentors, pitching the same idea again and again and taking the feedback as fast as it lands.
Founders describe it as exhausting and useful in equal measure, and the volume is the whole point. Kesavan Kanchi Kandadai, who built Krita after going through the program, said the speed is what makes it work.
With Mentor Madness there's no time to overthink. The feedback comes back to back, and if a pattern exists you'll hear it again and again until it sinks in.
The pace takes a real toll, and the founders are honest about it. Dhaval Patel, who came out of Techstars building the wearable Lotus, did not soften the workload.
Six to nine months of work gets squeezed into three. It's brutal. I was running on about four hours of sleep most nights.
What carries founders through is the cohort and the give-first culture around it. The startups share an office and end up being each other's daily sounding board, and many said the peers taught them as much as the mentors did. Misha Zanka, who went through with Mowa.ai, put it plainly.
It was like having a built-in advisory board at your desk.
What the $120K actually buys
The headline number is $120,000, and the structure matters more than the figure. The standard deal is $20,000 for 6% of your company through a SAFE, with an optional $100,000 as a convertible note for roughly another 3%. The catch is timing. You have to decide on the extra $100,000 within the first week of acceptance, before the program has really started.
Several founders described the initial $20,000 less as an investment than as a cushion to keep them building. Chelsea Lamego, co-founder of FundMiner, framed it that way.
You start with an initial investment, around $20k in our case, which they treat more as a stipend to cover travel or logistical expenses.
What founders valued more than the cash was what the name did for their next raise. Techstars takes part in follow-on rounds for some companies, usually once the valuation has stepped up well above the entry point, but the bigger lever is plain credibility. Crissi Cole, who raised through her time at Techstars with Penny Finance, said the cap table did real work.
Having Techstars on the cap table carries real weight with institutional and angel investors.
If your only goal is the money, the founders are blunt that there are faster ways to raise more. The check is the smallest part of what Techstars is selling.
How founders actually got in
Getting into Techstars starts with an online application, a few pages on your problem, your solution, and your background, sometimes with a short video. You pick your top three program preferences and wait. From there it is usually three or four interviews, climbing from an associate to the investment principal to the managing director, with the last call sometimes in front of a wider committee. For many founders the whole thing moved fast, often inside a month from first call to offer.
A surprising number of founders never applied cold at all. A Techstars scout found them on LinkedIn or met them at an event and reached out first, which is part of why warm connections matter so much going in.
What the interviews actually weigh is the founder, not the metrics. Techstars assumes startups will pivot, so they read for whether you can take a hit and keep moving. Stefan Gunnarsson, founder of PropTexx, learned that firsthand.
They consider the product and its potential, but they put a lot of weight on founder resilience. They want to see how you handle challenges.
The founders who got in had concrete advice for the application itself.
- Lead with the founders and the team, since Techstars bets on people and potential over the idea
- Show velocity, move quickly and bring something new to every interview and touchpoint
- Keep the application detailed, specific, and honest, with crystal-clear goals
- Minimal traction is fine if you make up for it with conviction and a compelling story
- Chase a warm introduction, a referral from someone inside the network moves the needle
Above all, they walked in able to tell a clear story about why they were building what they were building, and what they actually needed from the program once they were in.
The founders we talked to.
Alumni include Sendgrid, ClassPass, Sphero, DigitalOcean, Remitly.
Want the mentorship without the accelerator?
An accelerator's real value is the people who have done it before. GrowthMentor gives you that on its own. Unlimited 1:1 calls with founders and operators, from $50 a month, no equity, no three-month relocation.
RecommendedFormat
Live 1:1 calls, on demand- Techstars
- 3-month cohort accelerator
Cost
$50-150/mo, no equity- Techstars
- $120K for 6% to 9% equity
Time to value
Same day- Techstars
- 3 months
Commitment
None, cancel anytime- Techstars
- Full-time, relocate to the program city
Selectivity
Open to every member- Techstars
- Under 1% accepted
The network
750+ vetted operators- Techstars
- 100+ mentors per cohort, 4,000+ alumni companies
What you get
The right person for each problem- Techstars
- A mentor network and the Techstars stamp
From $50 a month · no equity.
Questions founders ask about Techstars.
Extremely low. Most programs accept around 1% of applicants or fewer, and founders described cohorts that drew thousands of applications for roughly ten spots. Selection comes down to three or four interviews that weigh the founder and the team over polished traction.
6% for the standard $20,000 SAFE. Most companies also take the optional $100,000 convertible note for roughly another 3%, so founders who take the full $120,000 give up somewhere around 9%. You have to decide on the extra $100,000 within the first week of acceptance.
It is a three-month, largely in-person program that opens with a retreat and then Mentor Madness, two weeks of back-to-back fifteen-minute meetings with dozens of mentors you later narrow to a core few. The rest builds toward Demo Day, where you pitch investors, and the mentor relationships and alumni network are meant to outlast the program under the Techstars for life banner.
Three months, often described as a 12 or 13-week run that ends in Demo Day. The first month is the most intense, and many founders kept their company's daily operations going alongside it, especially in the hybrid and virtual formats.
It depends on what you need. Founders who wanted mentorship, a founder community, and the credibility of the Techstars name found the access hard to replicate elsewhere. If your only goal is capital, founders were clear that there are faster ways to raise more than Techstars puts in.
