Youtor
TechStars Discovering Seattles next big thing
>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=S4TTkBRXphU
TechStars is a three-month accelerator program that gives budding entrepreneurs access to mentors and hundreds of angel investors and venture capitalists. Today we talk to Andy Sack, Executive Director of TechStars Seattle, about what happens at TechStars, and the patterns he sees emerging in the startup world. • • More than 400 applications come in for each round of TechStars, and only ten companies are selected. That's a pretty good pool for seeing what projects are catching on, both in the Pacific Northwest and nationally. According to Sack, The big trends in 2010, I would say: Mobile. Gamification of everything, as well as just games. And then thirdly, saving money. A deal a day, which Groupon invented, permeates a consciousness which I think is really relevant, particularly in the U.S. right now. We didn't, to my surprise, see a lot of cloud-based stuff. I'm actively looking for cloud-based ideas [for next year]...I think there's a middle layer there that presents an opportunity for a lot of entrepreneurs. • • Incubators have sprouted up across the country, but Y Combinator and TechStars are probably the two most prominent. Sack says that part of what differentiates TechStars from Y Combinator is the question of geography. Y Combinator is San Francisco, they own it, he says. TechStars, I think, owns Boulder, it owns Boston, it now owns Seattle, and it's going to own New York, to the extent that New York can be owned. And in each of those places, the role of TechStars acts to bring the community together in a really significant way. There are unique properties to each of those locations, because of the local economies. I mean obviously [in Seattle] we have Amazon, and Microsoft, and Starbucks. And then we have a bunch of offices from Google, etc., and Facebook is coming. That sort of drives the selection, the nature of the companies—ultimately the companies that are selected as well as well as the valuation and the deals that get struck. • • Sack says that more than just changing the lives of the program's participants, TechStars also serves as a magnet for entrepreneurs to come to its chosen cities. I think with TechStars in Seattle, Seattle's rising. Given the amount of talent, and education, and sort of the natural resources of the region, there should be even more bigger technology companies coming out of Seattle. And I think you'll see that we'll look back five years from now and we'll say, 'Oh, TechStars played a role in that.' That's what motivates me. • • More info: • TechStars web site: http://www.techstars.org/ • TechStars on Twitter: / techstars • Andy Sack's blog: http://asack.typepad.com/ • Andy Sack on Twitter: / andysack
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