Today got me thinking.

Dan Osit of Inighter was heading back to New York to run his company. Adam Sachs, his co-founder, will soon follow him. The women of People’s Software have moved back to their respective cities, as has many of the other teams. (Of course, some are staying Boulder, which is fantastic).

This was the first year that I was a mentor. I guess, an official mentor. I kinda helped some folks out at the tail end of last year, but that almost doesnt count.

The Techstars teams talk so much about what they learned from the mentors, but what did the mentors learn from the Techstars teams? (At least, what did this mentor learn?)

1. You are a piece of meat.

As a mentor, whether its for a program like Techstars or for the local college, you are viewed in terms of what value you bring to the table. Mentees get advice from so many people, that its difficult to wade through all the various pieces of advice and pick the pieces that are directly relevant.

Interestingly, every mentor feels that the information they are providing is the best. There is no question that the advice I gave Foodzie or Travelfli was the one missing piece of information that they needed to be successful. I mean it was, right?

In addition, with a program like Techstars (I imagine its the same for Y-Combinator, or other such programs), the team are eventually looking to have their companies financed. As a mentor, you then fall into three camps: people that can give money; people that know people that can give money; and not either of the previous two camps.

As a mentor, you have to be aware and accept the classification you fall into, and understand that there is a direct relation between the time spent with you and your ability to help finance the company. Is this a bad thing? No. Is it a reality? Yes.

2. The value you bring is not always the value that other mentors feel you bring.

I was an SEO expert for a long time. I have not done any real SEO in years. Do other mentors still suggest that people talk to me about SEO. Of course.

Whats interesting about this occurrence, is that it teaches me how my peers value my skill set. Is it bad? No. Is it a reality? Yes.

I bet Eric Marcouiller of Gnip is a little tired of telling the MyBlogLog story. But, what is he often asked to do? Talk about MyBlogLog.

3. Pick an area of expertise.

When I owned an interactive agency, we focused on Search Marketing. It was great. I would speak on a panel, and the other panelist would talk about the million things they focused on. I would talk about search. Who got the most business afterward? This guy!

There are many mentors with many areas of expertise. Figure out the one thing you can add to the conversation, and focus on that. Can you provide more information around other things? Sure. But focus. I chose to help teams on their presentations. Was it helpful? I dunno, but the three teams I spent the most time with have all closed rounds or are awful close to doing it. I wasnt “the reason”, but I am sure my help was “a reason,” which is all I can hope to offer as a mentor.

4. Dont let mentees pick you.

There is a big fault that most mentors have. Ego. To feel that you have information or experiences to share, indicates a belief that your knowledge or experiences are valuable. Almost the definition of ego.

Many mentors will sit back and let the teams decide who they want to work with. Remember the classifications the teams will put mentors in? The mentors that have the highest potential to invest in the teams will always be selected over the other two classifications.

As a mentor, you must swallow your ego. Find a team that you are interested in working with (even if just the idea is interesting) and offer your help.

Its a privilege to be asked to be a mentor; its an accomplishment if you actually help the teams become better.

5. Learn from your fellow mentors.

The moment I stop learning, I hope to be dead.

I tried to attend all the sessions that other mentors gave. I listened and asked questions. I grabbed mentors afterward and spent time with them.

Its not just at Techstars that I try to learn from my peers. I probably ask someone a question every day. I do talk a lot, which probably hides the amount of listening I do.

Truthfully, its not just mentors you can learn from. You know how much I knew about artisan food producers or how frequent flier programs were cash cows for the airlines? What about how to technically and mathematically determine how photos fit together?

6. Be friendly, but not friends.

I sort of hesitated to list this one, because its so hard to define. But there should be a magic, invisible, hard line between the teams and their mentors. This line keeps both groups honest. This line makes everything easier.

After all, spending time with people you like, will always create the air of friendship. I do consider many of the members of the various Techstar teams my friends. But, I try to be overly careful to not cross that really weird, hard to define line. To be an effective mentor one must be able to critique without judging, be honest without being harsh, and support without requirement. That goes out the window when a mentor becomes too friendly with mentees.

7. Be good. Be great.

Realize that the more you give, the better a mentor you are. Be good. Dont hold back.

Be great. Be someone that the teams can look up to. You want them telling David or each other, “man, that <MENTOR> was great!” Not, “Jeez, who let that idiot in the Bunker?”

So, there you have it. My 7 rules for being a good Techstars mentor.

Oh, I guess there is an 8th rule, but it will only drive David’s ego.

Whats that? its impossible to blow that balloon any bigger?

Okay, here it is:

8. Be like David.

Do the one thing that David excels at: Answer the question asked; and the question that should have been asked. Then shut up. Let the teams figure out the rest.

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As I sit here in Seattle, in yet another hotel on yet another business trip, I have a few moments to reflect on the growth of the Techstars 2008 teams over the course of the summer.

Reflect? What happened to the good ol’ Micah snark?

Good point.

There is an interesting line one has to tread when you are intimately involved as a mentor to the teams. You want to be overly positive, but as I firmly believe, honesty is always more helpful than positivity.

Now the teams who are reading this are worried, everyone else smells blood. I think I will surprise them both.

Here is my team by team analysis: (*I saw only the dress rehearsal pitches not the Demo Day pitches*) For me, the teams fell into three groups: The ones that should have no problem getting funded and moving down an interesting path; the teams that will have a tough road, but if they get lucky or leverage their networks, could do well; and the teams that I think really have little chance, either because they lost vision, or never found the right path.

Here my choices for the the teams with the highest chance for success:

Ignighter -”Group Dating”

My take on their value proposition: College provides structure which makes it easier to meet people. Online dating services focus on a 35+ demographic (makes sense, we old people are more likely to pay for services, are deeper into our careers, thereby reducing time for pursing dates.) The 23-30 demographic is under-served. Inighter attempts to serve that demographic by providing some of the screening features of a dating site with the structure of college.

One of the easiest teams to personally like. I met with them within their first week, and I saw an idea that had merit, but lacked focus. My biggest piece of advice for these guys was to make sure that they were “making” jokes, not “being” jokes. Over the course of the summer, they held true to the vision of their product, but were extremely coachable. Of all the presentations, their’s did the best of telling a story, and explaining the problem they were looking to fill. I placed these guys in my personal top 4.

Team: 8/10 (Young. Light on leadership and technical focus)

Idea: 7/10 (One of those “doesnt this exist?”)

Fundability: 9/10 (Lots of passion and excitement)

Chance for Success: 8/10 (Should grow quickly, or die fast)

Devver - “Tools for Developers”

My take on their value proposition: Devver provides tools to developers to make them more productive.

Anyone that knows me knows that I consider myself rather non-technical. Dan, one of the founders of Devver, worked at Indigio, which was the company that bought mine, so I have had the pleasure of seeing him work. He and his cofounder Ben, are the type of nerds that make people like me immediately envision wedgies and Ogre screaming “Nerds!” at the beginning of Revenge of the Nerds. But, they’re are also the type of tinkers that make people like me really sit up and take notice. I believe Devver is the third or fourth company these guys have built, and when I show it to developer friends, I see the drool begin to flow. Guess that means its pretty cool stuff. Extremely coachable, Dan and Ben are a great example of where the people make the product.

Team: 9/10 (lack some business awareness)

Idea: 8/10 (only because I am sure they can bleed all my bank accounts)

Fundability: 8/10 (as more companies are built on open source platforms, more proficiency tools will need to be developed)

Chance for Success: 8/10 (If they engage and interact with the developer community, it will be a no-brainer)

Foodzie: “Bringing specialty food to the masses”

My take on their value proposition: Help small speciality food manufacturers develop an online presence.

Foodzie definitely came into the summer with the most buzz, and surprisingly (until you meet Rob, Nik and Emily…well maybe not Emily) kept the buzz going for the summer. Their progress was fantastic, extremely coachable, probably the biggest slam dunk of the summer. It will be interesting to see how they move past being a basic ecommerce play, and really develop a set of tools that small, extremely busy, artisan producers can, and will use.

Team: 9/10 (Strong focus; need a larger dev team)

Idea: 9/10 (As long as they focus on the producers)

Fundability: 9/10 (buzz at the beginning, buzz at the end will help)

Chance of Success: 8/10 (very focused, high level of passion and drive)

TravelFli: “Loyalty Program Manager”

My take on their value proposition: Manage all your travel loyalty programs from a central location.

I met with Krista from TravelFli early on, we discussed the various customers they hoped to service. We had some interesting discussions around the Airlines and Hotel groups (I didnt know that loyalty programs are such a cash cow for the airlines). As the summer went on, they continually refined their message, and improved their product. It was easy for them to get feedback, since all the mentors are heavy travellers, and we all had a lot of ideas on how to improve the system. The coolest feature they built out was the ability to book an entire trip based on awards miles, hotel rewards and rental awards. Very cool.

Team: 7/10 (big team, need more leadership focus)

Idea: 9/10 (one of those “I thought someone does this”)

Fundability: 9/10 (no brainer)

Chance for Success: 7/10 (is this a feature or a company? How far can it grow?)

Here are links to the other teams: The Highway Girl, BuyPlayWin, Occipital (they rightly explained that they have no company, yet. But the technical is awesome), PeopleSoftware, AppX, Gyminee.

Good luck to all the teams!

My dad used to yell at me for what felt like hours. I was always pretty sure that he liked to hear himself yell, and impressed himself with his arguments.

At least once, if not twice, during his yelling at me (I think it was often after my seventeenth mumbled “yes”) he would say:

“Micah, are you listening to me or just hearing me?”

“Shit dad,” I used to think to myself, “everyone in the neighborhood can hear you!”

“I am listening,” I would say, shuffling my feet, hoping his tirade would be over soon.

Now I find myself thinking the exact same thing when I see companies attempt to reach out to their communities. Are you listening? Or are you just hearing your community?

Today, Intense Debate, a company that I have been both publicly and privately critical, showed me that they hadnt just heard what I had to say, hoping that my tirade would soon be over and I would move on to other targets, but listened. Really listened.

Even though I know the team and investors well, and have watched them grow (and go through growing pains) ever since their time in TechStars, I chose to go with their competitor, Disqus. My decision was not based on features, it was based solely on one fact: Daniel Ha, CEO of Disqus listens and responds to his community. Intense Debate did not.

I wrote a blog post about my decision.

Offline, given the proximity of Intense Debate to me, there was much discussion. I havent changed my mind, Disqus is still on my blog. From a feature perspective, the two products are basically the same, it really comes down to preference (whether its look and feel, or a specific feature, etc.), and my preference is for a company that listens to my needs, evaluates them and innovates or iterates around them.

It seems that Intense Debate heard me. Recently, they release a feature where a tweet was sent every time a person left a comment. I wrote that I felt it was a good step, but way too noisy. Intense Debate heard and iterated. Now the commenter can decide at the point of commenting to send it out as a tweet, or not.

Great move guys. Hope to see more of it. I hope you will see the benefit of listening to your community rather than just listening.

Later in the day, I got an email from my friend Ari Newman, CEO of Filtrbox, showing me a prototype of a new feature they are looking to launch. (I so wish I could talk about it, but Ari promised to kill my dogs if I leaked it).

What was gratifying for me, was that two days ago, I IM’d Ari that I had a great idea for his product, and wanted to show him what I had come up with. Two day later, the feature was implemented. Two days.

In a very private way, Ari did what all great leaders do: listened to my suggestion, evaluated its value to the product and its users, and made a decision. He had listened me. And even more so, took the extra step Intense Debate did, and did something about it.

I am very impressed with both companies and their leadership. In the span of twelve hours, two companies, two friends, took steps to make me feel both welcome and valued, which is how all community members should feel. I hope they both continue down this path.

If you are a startup, and dont think you have the time or resources to listen to your community, you will not survive. Even Twitter finally realized the error of their ways. And, companies like Get Satisfaction make listening so simple.  There is really no excuse to do it right.

So remember, any company that hopes I become part of their community and use their product:

Are you listening or just hearing me?

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If you are interested in either Intense Debate or Disqus‘ comment system, they are in an open beta, head over and install. They are both great, and its even better than they can be searched from the Lijit search bar in my side bar.

If you are interested in Filtrbox, which is in a closed beta, Ari has given me a special code: douchebag. Funny Ari, very funny.