Insights & Trends | Blog | Techstars

Sramana Mitra argues that big accelerators chase portfolio volume and leave founders stranded. Techstars CMO Ann Oleson responds with evidence from founders themselves. More than 2,000 founders helped put Techstars No. 1 on TIME and Statista’s America’s Best Incubators & Accelerators of 2026. Add a 12.3% exit rate and 64% of companies still operating.
Ever notice your best advice lands harder in someone else’s city than in your own? Here’s why the messenger matters as much as the message, and how borrowing an outside voice can help move your startup community forward.
Founders will grab the first hand offered, and in a young startup community, that one mentor might be the only voice they hear. Here’s why it matters who’s actually in the room, and how to build a mentor program that gives founders more than one hand to choose from.
Perfection shows up for founders, but it never sticks around for long. Every solved problem trades for a bigger one, and you’ll never have enough data to make the next call easy. The founders who thrive learn to get comfortable with the uncomfortable, decide with about seventy percent of the picture, and adjust as they go.
More founders are choosing to build without venture capital, and community builders who only program pitch nights and investor mixers risk losing them without ever noticing.
Most people have a business idea but never take the first step, and with community support, free resources, and AI now within reach, there's no better time to stop waiting for someday and start.
Entrepreneurial ecosystems grow like forests, so funders who want real results should back the whole community with patient capital and track new connections and activity, rather than expecting a quick three-to-one return.
Top startup founders and investors recommend focusing on product defensibility, crystal-clear messaging, and solving genuine customer problems over chasing buzzwords or quick fixes.
A startup community isn't built. It's grown. It's closer to a coral reef than a bridge: reefs form from thousands of small, local relationships over years, none of them centrally planned. You can't decree a reef into existence by writing a bigger check for coral.
At the 2026 Colorado Startup Week, Techstars Founder & CEO David Cohen sat down with PBS12's Business of Colorado to talk about Boulder's comeback, the Give First philosophy, and what AI means for the next generation of founders.
Comparison is stealing your joy: the founder two years ahead of you is running a different race, at a different speed, toward a different finish line, so borrowing their scoreboard to grade your own game only makes you feel small.
Techstars Founder & CEO David Cohen reflects on how AI is reshaping the earliest days of building a startup.