By David Cohen, Founder & CEO of Techstars

One year ago, I stepped back into the CEO role at Techstars after a 3 ½ year stint as Chairman. It’s been a big year full of tough conversations, hard decisions, and meaningful progress. 

We had some ground to make up. Like many, we were coming out of the difficult pandemic years that had left their mark. We were dealing with less-than-ideal market conditions. In early 2024, our brand took some hits in the media, some of which raised valid concerns. As an organization, we have owned all of this and have since been doing the work of recommitting to what we believe is important. We have been refocusing: quietly, consistently, and with a ton of heart.

When I returned as CEO a year ago, I introduced my three recommitments to the company.

First and foremost, we recommitted to helping founders succeed. Founders are our customers, and everyone else we work with is a partner. Founders are the reason we get out of bed and go to work in the morning, and their success drives success for us and everyone else in our network.  This led to an improved accelerator investment offer, the creation of powerful vertical networks within our global network, and focused work towards a greatly improved online community.  It also helped us reshape how we think about our partners and how they can most powerfully help founders in our portfolio succeed.

Second, we recommitted to embracing startup communities. The startup communities we are a part of are vital to us, and we would not exist without them. We want to be long-term participants in those communities, helping them grow and thrive. We want startup communities to win when the founders who are a part of them succeed. This led to creating Startup Community Partnerships and reimagining our presence in various locations.

Third, we recommitted to the idea that bigger isn’t better; better is better. Techstars had certainly become much bigger, but we needed to focus on becoming much better. This focus on quality meant driving hard decisions about where we operate, and driving up the quality of the companies we invest in, the mentors who support them, and the partners we choose. 

Based on these recommitments, the first thing we did was to get grounded again. What do we stand for? Who are we here for? Why does this company matter? These questions guided (and still guide) every decision. We reconnected with our core mission as investors in amazing founders and made sure everyone across the company could stand behind it. We’re here to help founders succeed. They are our customers. Everyone else that we work with is a partner in helping founders succeed. Our purpose is clear: to help founders succeed. We do this by connecting them with the capital, customers, and talent from our network that they need to grow their ideas into world-changing businesses.

There’s no fast track to rebuilding trust with your employees, your customers, or the market. The only way we could approach it was with transparency and honesty.  We looked in the mirror and asked ourselves hard questions. Internally, that meant facing what hadn’t worked. Externally, it meant listening more than talking and letting our actions speak louder than words. Progress comes from showing up consistently, living your values, and fixing what’s broken. This is what we have been doing for the past year.

None of this happens without the team. We made difficult changes to our team, our structure, and our leadership where we needed it, and created space for people to grow and step into new roles. I’m proud of what and how much we’ve changed in the past year.

We’ve focused on improving our communications, internal processes, products, and partnerships. We’ve tackled many things that were on the back burner. There’s still much more to do, but we’re in a much better rhythm. The team is feeling aligned and confident. We’re running on enthusiasm and the occasional double shot of espresso. 

Here are some highlights from the past year:

• Launched an improved accelerator investment offer for founders entering our accelerators.

• Enhanced our investment committee, which reviews and approves accelerator investments.

• Launched Startup Community Partnerships to help build thriving startup communities, and welcomed several new cities to our global network. 

• Targeted approximately 8 investments per class instead of requiring 12 per class. These 8 companies receive more capital than the 12 used to in total, allowing us to focus on the quality of founder experience over quantity. 

• Implemented pooled carry for our MDs in the institutional funds, so they are aligned more closely with our LPs and fund performance. 

• Established ~50 vertical networks and launched vertical network partnerships with leading brands to help more founders succeed.  

• Created an MD alumni network so that founders can easily continue to reach the people they know best.

• Created an investment vehicle called the Techstars Constellation Alumni Fund to invest in some of the MD alumni funds. 

• Clarified internally that the founders, and nobody else, are our customers, and that everyone else was a partner. 

• Improved collaboration between our Partnerships team (formerly Revenue) and the rest of the organization to create more value for founders and partners. 

• Invested in systems and tools to improve the coordination of our globally distributed organization. 

• Hosting a "back to our roots" Foundercon in Boulder, Colorado, to be held this fall to bring the global Techstars community together to offer authentic connections and founder-first programming surrounded by the amazing #givefirst ethos in the place that started it all. 

Another challenge, like many in the industry today, has been raising capital for our own funds in the current market while we refocus the business.  Driven by our desire to help founders succeed and our focus on better rather than bigger, we made some difficult decisions about where we would operate our accelerators during the lifecycle of our latest fund. We’ve decided to pause our accelerators for the duration of our latest fund in Berlin and Paris, but plan to continue operating them in Tel Aviv, London, and Amsterdam. We’ll continue to embrace the startup communities in Berlin and Paris by ensuring our portfolio support is strong there in this interim period, and we hope to restart accelerators in these locations in the future, as they are great markets where we have strong portfolios.

In contrast, we have announced the restart of our accelerators in Chicago, Boulder, and Atlanta with a model that deeply embraces these startup communities.  This brings the number of countries in which we operate accelerators to 9 and the number of cities to 27 where we’ll plan to invest in approximately 300 startups in 2025, 2026, and 2027. 

Change is hard, but necessary. After 18 years, we are just getting started.  While I feel very good about this first year back in the CEO role, the next chapter for Techstars is about quality, creativity, and staying grounded in the values that got us here. While we no longer chase growth for the sake of growth, we have big goals around helping founders succeed.

To everyone who has been part of this journey: thank you. To our incredible team, our mentors, investors, community leaders, and partners: thank you. And most of all, to our customers, the founders of our portfolio companies:  thank you.  Thank you for showing up. For believing in the work. For helping us turn the page from a hard chapter into a story we can be proud of. I’ve never felt more excited about where we’re headed.

Let’s keep building.

David Cohen

Founder and CEO, Techstars

Boulder, Colorado

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