TechStars Shine
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!
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