The worst email

Today I received an email from a founder who was looking for investment from software/internet investors. That happens every day. This particular email was addressed “TO” me and approximately 25 other investors, many of whom I know personally. Unfortunately, this also happens several times a week. What does this say about the person sending the …

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file under: Startups

Practicing—and Perfecting—Your 60-Second Pitch

I recently joined my colleague Saba Karim, Director of Startup Pipeline at Techstars, for a one-hour event where founders did elevator pitches on Twitter Spaces hosted by Adam Soccolich (aka Twitter’s @TheBestOfAdam) and… wow! We heard a variety of pitches from a diverse group of founders from around the world. Some came with experience from …

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file under: Startups

Give First… Build First… or Both?

“How is an early-stage founder expected to interpret the Give First philosophy?” That’s the polite way of rewording a question Keith Coleman, Founder of Fraudmarc (Techstars Atlanta 2017), posed to Brad Feld and me in an email a little while back. Keith got our attention with his subject line, “give first, finish last.” His email …

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file under: Startups

How to convince an investor

I recently spoke at Collision and the format was really fun. Four entrepreneurs each pitched me in two minutes with no slides, and I provided reactions and tips in front of the audience. I had never met or seen any of these companies before.  As you might have guessed, I saw some familiar patterns. Among …

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file under: Startups

CU Tech Frontiers Data Science and ML courses look awesome!

I was looking at the University of Colorado Tech Frontiers offering this summer. Wow, it looks amazing. Tech Frontiers is the professional development program of the College of Engineering and Applied Science of the University of Colorado Boulder, offering short-form learning on contemporary topics in engineering. Through live sessions taught by CU faculty experts, Tech Frontiers …

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file under: Startups

The Techstars Foundation and Black ParentPreneurs

A huge thank you to Brad Feld and Amy Batchelor and Anchor Point Foundation for getting the ball rolling in a big way with the ParentPreneur Foundation, by nominating them for the Techstars Foundation Accelerate Equity program and providing a $100,000 lead grant. Amazing! The ParentPreneur Foundation is an awesome organization and peer network started …

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file under: Startups