Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.
This week I’m happy to share my conversation with David Cohen, Co-Founder and Chairman of Techstars, which along with YC has paved the path early-stage capital formation through the accelerator model.
Since its founding in 2006, TechStars has had 2600 companies graduate its programs and those companies have raised $16.5B in investments across all stages. In 2021 David stepped back from day-to-day operations to become Chairman.
About David Cohen:
David has been an entrepreneur and investor for his entire life. He has founded several companies and has invested in hundreds of startups such as Uber, Twilio, SendGrid, DigitalOcean, Pillpack, Classpass, Zipline, Scopely, Outreach, Remitly, SalesLoft, and DataRobot. In total, these investments have gone on to create more than $210B in value.
Prior to Techstars, David was a co-founder of Pinpoint Technologies which was acquired by ZOLL Medical Corporation in 1999. He was also the founder and CEO of earFeeder, a music service that sold to SonicSwap.
David is the co-author (with Brad Feld) of Do More Faster; Techstars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup.
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In this episode we discuss:
03:08 What led David to founding TechStars
04:47 The 15-minute meeting that sparked TechStars and its initial vision
06:05 The first cohort of TechStars and how it was funded
07:57 How the first fundraise went and the journey of moving from high net-worth individuals to institutional LPs
12:15 Portfolio construction advantages of larger portfolios
18:23 How TechStars was able to launch across geographies
21:48 Common characteristics of successful founders
30:05 What type of people they key on for hires
33:02 How TechStars has maintained its culture as it has scaled
35:29 Advice for people looking to start their own fund
39:34 How portfolio companies are emerging from the TechStars programs
41:56 The view on VC today
43:35 How startups should approach their raises today
46:33 The advice David gives to the GPs he’s invested with
49:54 The TechStars Foundation and who it serves
I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with David. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.
David Cohen on founding Techstars, patterns of successful founders, and the math behind large portfolios