Ben Greene is a serial founding CTO with over 20 years of experience building new products across climate tech, health tech, B2B SaaS, ed tech, data infrastructure, and e-commerce. In his spare time he enjoys playing ultimate frisbee.

Why are you a mentor with Techstars?

When I was a co-founder in the Boston 2010 cohort, Techstars opened up a world of people with energy and expertise that really transformed my life. I really value the opportunity to tap back into that incredible energy that the founders bring and to be able to share with them what I've learned over the years.

What advice do you find yourself giving most often to founders?

Build simple things that work very well before adding scale and complexity. It's nearly impossible to drive both excellence and scale simultaneously. If you can make just one customer very happy, you can probably repeat it; but if you can't make someone happy, trying to serve many more customers won't make anyone happier.

What impact do you hope to make with the founders you mentor?

I really like to provide support to the CTOs and CPOs, the co-founders sitting in the delivery hot seat. I try to help them see their companies and their roles not only from the product/tech side, but also from the business side, and to gain confidence delving into the areas that they don't consider to be their strengths.

What's your favorite moment or memory from mentoring that stands out to you?

One of my all-time favorite moments mentoring was when I helped a technical co-founder realize that he could be more than the leader engineer — that he should, in fact, be a partner in the business itself. He had felt the desire, but he hadn't given himself permission. Helping him unlock that completely changed his demeanor for the rest of the program.

What trends or innovations are you most excited about?

Like many, I'm excited by how gen AI and coding agents are breaking down the walls of software engineering, by I'm actually just as excited for the changes it will force upon the engineers as what it opens up to those that were previously blocked from creating software.

How do you encourage startups to stay innovative and adaptable in a rapidly changing market?

It's tough, and the pressure is immense. Becoming overly focused on your own ideas will narrow your vision. My advice is to stay deeply connected and invested in your customers and their problems, and that will help you keep a very open mind as to how you solve them.

What advice do you have for other mentors?

Until I started mentoring, I hadn't realized just how much I had actually learned over the years, and also how much founders who are just starting out don't yet know. The desire to try to tell them *everything* is there, but it won't work. The goal should always be to build them up and help them over the step that's directly in front of them. No one goes from shy to showman overnight; it's a process. Just meet founders where they are, and you can normally leave them with a couple of valuable takeaways and a growing belief in themselves.

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