How To Prepare for Your First Techstars Interview
January 22, 2026
Andres Barreto, Managing Director at Techstars, gives advice to help founders successfully navigate their first Techstars accelerator interview.
By Andres Barreto, Managing Director of Techstars New York City Accelerator & Techstars Economic Mobility Powered by Samvid Ventures
First, the basics:
Join from a computer, each founder on their own machine. Not a phone. Not a car.
Test your mic.
Put the zoom window under your camera if you use multiple monitors.
Show your whole face (not just your nose / eyes).
Only founders on the call (no advisors, no investors). Don’t talk over each other.
Now the important stuff:
This is not a gotcha interview. We’re trying to understand your company well enough to write a strong investment memo.
Be ready to answer four things, clearly and concretely.
Customer and Pain
Who is the customer, specifically? What hurts? How are they solving it today? Who did you talk to and what did you learn?
Speed and Execution
What did you build first? What did you skip? What’s something you shipped fast and what changed because of it?
Market Size
How big is the opportunity, bottoms up? How is this venture-scale? Where are you seeing real pull?
Differentiation
What’s meaningfully different about your approach? Why now? What’s hard to copy?
How to answer: pause, think, then give the bottom line in one breath. Expand if asked. Most answers should take under 90 seconds.