Who do I invet in at Techstars Austin? Real people building real businesses

“Building ‘A Company’ is very different than building a ‘Startup’."

I read this quote when Allison Bar Allen tweeted it and it couldn’t better sum up my own feelings about inviting and investing in companies to the next Techstars Austin class!

I’m asked often (maybe 500+ times a year) how I choose companies for the Techstars Austin class each year. The answer has evolved greatly over the past five years, and as I head into my sixth program I’ve refined it a little more — and Allison’s thoughts greatly capture the most important theme for me.

Generally speaking, I invest in people. But yeah-yeah, every VC says that (and in my opinion most of them are full of S&%t). And frankly, in my first couple of years, I said just that and didn’t even really know what I meant. Then, after my 2nd program, I stepped back and asked myself what I meant by that statement. I dug deep into my own ‘why’ and developed a way to express what I mean so that I can both share it with founders and have a framework to evaluate if Techstars Austin is the right mutual fit. 

This is how I currently think about my investment strategy. (And as is true with everything I do, I love feedback so feel free to tell me what makes sense and where you think you’d like some more clarity - or even if you think I’m flat out wrong.)

01. 65% of my decision is based off of my conviction in a CEO’s ability to:

A. Build a meaningful company. What I mean by this is two things. The first: is the CEO mission-driven? Does the CEO believe so deeply in ‘the thing’ being built that they really can’t and shouldn’t be doing anything else right now? Second, do I believe the CEO is willing to put their entire self into the business for, at least, a decade from when they enter Techstars?

B. Attract world-class talent. What I mean by this is: do I believe that the CEO is the type of leader that people want to follow, coupled with a mission that the CEO’s employees can get behind with equal passion?

To be fair, this is nearly impossible to quantify (at least I haven’t figured out how to yet), AND I get this wrong a few times every year, but this is what I look for when selecting founders for Techstars Austin. If I can’t get conviction in these two things, then you are not a good fit for my program. 

There are also several other attributes that, over the years, I’ve added to the list of things that help me understand what kind of leader and business person the CEO will be. I like CEO’s who have lots of experience both winning and losing. I love hustle and overcoming hardships, and it’s very important to me that the CEO has a natural attribute to respect and leverage data.

02. 25% of my decision is based off of my conviction that the founding team is:

A. Cohesive. When I watch a founding team interact (CEO included), do I believe they are a team that shares a common vision, or is it a bunch of individual players working towards a common goal? My preference is for the former because it tells me a couple of things: that achieving the vision is more important than any individual hitting their goals( which in my experience has a greater chance of success), and it helps to set a culture of teamwork early on.

B. The right team to work in ‘this’ business. This ties directly to the mission-driven aspect of the CEO’s persona. I don’t necessarily care if the team has direct work experience in the industry, but it matters that the team and individuals have something real in their life that pulls them to this business. Their drive needs to be more than just ‘solving interesting problems’.

Now obviously, team is important. But if you refer back to #1B, if I have conviction that the CEO can attract world-class talent, then on some level this should be a given. I also have the expectation that team members will change/grow/evolve as the business grows, so this aspect is really about the next 24ish months.

03. 10% of my decision is based on if I think the market is interesting. 

A. Do I believe there is potential for a big market? 

This one has a lot of nuance to it because ‘big’ is relative. Techstars is such an early investor, takes common (vs preferred) equity, and because our fund structure is different than a traditional VC we have different return profiles. For example, a bootstrapped company that never raises any outside capital with a small exit can have the same dollar return to Techstars as a company that raises several rounds and has a $500M+ exit. Because of this, we (and I) look for different types of companies to invest in. Hence “big” is relative (and meaningful is more important).

B. Am I interested in the market? 

Do I care/am I interested in working in this market for the next 10 years? When we invite a company into a Techstars accelerator, MDs expect and anticipate working with the founder, and on the company, for a 10 year period of time. For me, it’s important to be interested in the market for that long, too.

During the months when I’m looking for companies to join our next class, I don’t pay a ton of attention to #3. Instead, I focus on finding, what I believe, are the best 20-30 CEO’s and founding teams each year. #3 comes into play once I have it down to the final group - and then it becomes very important. At this point, I’ve already developed a strong conviction that a CEO can build a meaningful company and attract great talent, and I already have conviction that the founding team is cohesive and the right team to be working on their business. I then try to stack-rank the companies on a combination of conviction and #3 to build the final class of 10 businesses.

To bring all of this full circle, the reason I love Allison's quotes is because I love working with real people building real businesses. If you are someone who thinks entrepreneurship is a career path, then Techstars Austin is probably not for you. Likewise, if you think you need to raise money in order to prove your idea can one day be a business, then the Techstars Austin is probably not for you.

However, if you are a founder who is deeply passionate about the thing you are building, and you are going to make it a reality with or without outside capital (including Techstars), and are looking for helping BUILDING YOUR COMPANY, then I’d love to meet you!

If you are interested in connecting there are a couple of ways you can get in touch:

We look forward to hearing about you and your startup!

You can lead or follow....it IS your choice

I’m sharing here, a 3rd email sent to the CEO’s in my portfolio on April 5th:

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Many of  you know Zoe Schlagg, for those who don't, most recently she was founding member and Managing Director of the Techstars Impact Accelerator here in Austin, Then late last year she left Techstars to work with Eric Schmidt at Schmidt Futures.

Zoe is one of the smartest and deepest thinking people I know. While we worked together, several times a week, I'd find myself in the midst of some deep conversation with her about something which I had little to no knowledge of other than some peripheral curiosity (which is usually what would lead to the conversation in the first place). 

About a year and a half ago, during one of those conversations, she dropped the theory of retrocausality on me and my mind was blow.  The concept has stuck with me since.  The basic premise of retrocausality is that the future predicts the present (not the other way around).

At the most basic level, I sort of understood it and could picture some event in the future shaping something which happened in this moment on a linear timeline however 'how that actually might work' was not connecting for me. 

Then yesterday, Zoe and I were catching up for the first time in a few weeks and we were talking about leadership.  We were both pointing out examples of present day people who we believed are either being good leaders right now as well as those who we believed were doing a poor job.  And more specifically, we were talking about people who think they are being good leaders, and aren't as well as people who are natural leaders and are rising to the occasion right now (even if it's not in their job description).

During the conversation we somehow got on the topic of retrocausality and it struck me for the first time what it actually meant, at least in the contextt of leadership.

Great leaders can form a mental picture of what they want their future to look like. They then cement that image so deeply in their minds that it becomes a (future) reality.  And then from that moment onward, that future reality sets the stage for the events of (each) day from the present until that future becomes the present and a new future image is created.

In other words, they are leading with a vision of the future so ingrained in their mind that they are able to rally and lead people to create the path with them each day - so in a very real sense, their future is predicting the present - retrocausality.

The biggest challenge I see with the concept of leadership, especially in hard times like these, is the confusion between having a vision and creating the path towards it versus 'being in-charge' and directing people, without any owned vision of where you are actually going.  The challenge with being in-charge vs leading is that you basically just become a follower to others who have vision and are leading around you.

You can even hear the difference in the language. You'll hear things like "I'm not sure what the future holds, but this is what we should do now" from someone in-charge where a true leader will say something like, "This is where we are going, now let's figure out how to get there"

And here is the thing, I do believe it's an active choice for most.  And the biggest blockers to being a true leader (vs being in-charge) is insecurity and fear.  The insecurity to believe you can set a vision and the fear to make that choice.  When this happens a' leader' just turns into someone in-charge (who is basically just following everyone around them).

Right now the world needs two types of people to manage through this, leaders and those willing to follow great leaders.  People 'in-charge' are not leading and are really just being lead by others around them...or getting in the way. We all need to decide who we are, especially in the tough times. 

I believe you are all leaders, it's why I invested in you. I believe you have the ability to envision a future and chart a course there, that is why you embarked on THIS journey to begin with.

So as you sit around this evening, planning for the week, my ask is that you take a few minutes to picture the future YOU are building towards then look at what you plan to do this week, to take yourself and your team one step closer....

...and as you do that, don't let your fears stand in the way of your dreams...


The 6th Step...

I thought I’d share another email I sent to my portfolio CEO’s, this one on March 31st…

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I'm sure most of you have heard the Serenity Quote at some point - it goes like this,  "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." 

I've always loved that quote and was reminded of it today during a really great call with Alex (for those of you who do not know Alex, she is the current Program Manager for Techstars Austin).  

She made a really astute observation that one of the things which makes this current time so tough is that we are all grieving different things.  Some people are grieving the loss of their job, or the loss of freedom, some are fearful of the future, some are grieving for people who are sick or worse, some are grieving their business or their friends business and really the list goes on.  

And what makes that especially hard is that the people you want to talk to most may be having a different experience of grief than you making it more challenging to connect emotionally and to empathize with one another.

I then started to wonder when the mass grieving would end.  A week? A month?  Longer?  When would "we all" feel OK again?

And the conversation made me curious about the topic of grief so I did a little research and found that in psychology there are considered to be 5 stages of grief.  These are the 5 emotional phases that "all" people go through when they are grieving. 

The 5 steps of grieving are:  

-Denial: Covid-19 is just like the flu and I'm not worried 

-Anger: MY LIFE CAN NOT JUST STOP!  The Government, or old people, or young people are to blame

-Bargaining: I know we are suppose to social distance but I'm going to that party anyway

-Depression:  I'm so sad for me, I'm so sad for the people losing their jobs, the economy is fucked 

-Acceptance:  I guess this is the new normal.  I'm good and will get back to some level of normalcy.

And it quickly made me realize that there is a step missing.  There is actually a 6th step for some....FOR US....

FOR US, the doers and makers of the world, the missing 6th step is:  Action

This is the point when we've reached acceptance and then want to use our (super) powers to make change and progress!  It's the thing that makes us who we are and why "live the life we live" instead of "doing the job we do".

So as you look onto this next week, think about where you (really) are in your journey of grief...and own it so that you can get to that 6th step more quickly...because you do know the difference of what you can and can not change and you do have the courage to make a difference! 

Much love,

Amos

Be a warrior...become a lotus flower

Today I thought I’d share a letter I wrote the the CEO’s in my portfolio on March 24th. This was about 10 days into my family’s quarantine and 5 days from when Austin. put the stay in home orders in place.

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To my warrior family,

Today I’m going to lay some spiritual motivation on you…...

In many eastern religions the Lotus Flower has significant meaning.  The short version is the wonder that something so beautiful and delicate as the lotus flower can grow from such a gross and harsh environment (lotus flowers typically grow out of mud and bogs).  You can learn more about lotus flowers here.  This is why the lotus flower is a very common tattoo.

I have 4 lotus flowers tattoo’d on me for different reason.  The first one I got, a purple one, is part of the half-sleeve I got on my left arm after being in the Tsunami in Thailand in 2005.  The full tattoo is a samurai warrior climbing up a cliff and running away from a tsunami.  The samurai was meant to represent the literal experience we had - running up and down a cliffside helping and looking for missing and injured people (and worse).  The reason I added the lotus to that tattoo (six months later) was the realization that the Tsunami, as ugly and destructive as it was, gave birth to so much beauty and growth, both figuratively and literally, in my life.

Fast forward to 2019, as most of you know/have seen, I finished that sleeve on my left arm this year, 14 years later.  It’s a Koi-Dragon and 3 pink Lotus Flowers.  Koi fish tattoo’s represent overcoming difficulties.  As legend has it, what makes the Koi-Dragon special is that it starts off as a koi fish, swims up a river and over a waterfall, turns into a dragon, get’s wings and flies away.  The meaning behind it is that only a very few koi fish can make it up and over the waterfall and make this transition. Only the ones who really fight and persevere. The true warriors.  

I added the Lotus Flowers to this tattoo as a constant reminder that life is a series of micro and macro transitions and challenges, some good / some bad.  And a reminder that every day there is mud and grossness and darkness….and also every day there is beauty and light and peace….and most importantly that forging forward with intention always leads to the next level of beauty.

When I started this tattoo in 2006 I had a rough vision of what it might mean to me some day and what I wanted it to look like.  I intentionally waited to finish it because I didn’t feel like I had lived enough yet to deserve it. Something changed in me last year (a different story for a different day) and I knew the time was right to finally finish it.  And I intentionally started the tattoo in 2019 and finished it in January 2020 - symboling yet another transition. Something told me 2020 was going to be a ’special’ year.

What I didn’t know was just how special ….

I know it doesn’t feel like it at the moment, but we are all very lucky right now.  All of us. We are smart, driven, creative, hard working bad ass mother fuckers. And while it may feel like the world is crumbling around us, WE are the warriors that will help keep the spirit alive and we will be a part of the rebuilding.  We are very lucky to be living and learning through this virus and eminent recession. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but we are all being presented with an amazing opportunity to learn and to thrive. When I asked you to let me join you on your journey, through Techstars, it was because I saw the warrior in you.  The person who looks at obstacles as opportunities and the person who thrives when challenged. YOU ARE STILL THAT PERSON!

So as we enter this week, another week of ambiguity and stress and ugliness, my ask of you all is to remember the warrior inside you now so we can build the lotus flower of the future!

Love to you all!

Free Form Rock-n-Roll

I've been thinking about starting a blog on and off for probably more than 10 years. I've even had a handful of false starts over the years (and I think I've even written this exact sentence about 3 years ago).

There were lots of reasons I never really started (and by reasons I mean excuses) like, "I don't have the time" or "I'm not a good enough writer" or "I don't know if I have anything interesting to say"...

...and then I wrote my first book last year called Sell More Faster, which was published in September of 2019. This didn't really change my view on my excuses but what it did do was open a floodgate of thoughts I wanted to write down, if for no one else, for me.

It's been 6 months since the book came out and of me trying to find a way to start blogging. I've actually written quite a bit in that time but until April 7th, when I launched this blog, I hadn't publicly published any of my blog posts before. Then, 1095 days from my 50th birthday, the time felt right so I quietly but publicly pushed my first post Fitter at 50 and I gave ya'll a glimpse into my motivation to start on that day. In this, my 2nd post, I wanted to talk to you about how I am now attempting to overcome my excuses with the plan to publish on a much more frequent basis.

About 6 weeks ago, right before the Covid lockdown, while driving into work I was listening to Tales from the Golden Road, which is a call-in show on the Grateful Dead channel on Sirius/XM. As I was pulling into my parking garage a caller asked a super profound question of the hosts, who combined have been Dead Heads for over 80 years. The gist of the question was "how does Grateful Dead music make you feel, how does it effect your mood and how has that changed over the decades?"

(Side note: If you are not a Deadhead, here's a little more context. If you are then you can skip to the next paragraph. For you non-Dead Heads, one of the things that makes Grateful Dead music special is that if you listen to any song from any time in their 55 year history, they never play it the same twice. If you listen to the same song from the same year, you'll hear a ton of similarities but if you listen to a song that they played in 1969 and still play today, the song will have evolved so much that, unless you are a fan, you may not even realize it's the same song).

3.

The hosts, David Gans and Gary Lambert both chuckled and one of them commented that was probably more like a 4 day conversation at which point the conversation took an interesting turn.

The caller then commented on how Grateful Dead music changed HIS view on how he thinks about both music (first) and life. More specifically the caller, a classically trained musician, talked about how before he discovered the Grateful Dead he thought about music (and songs) as having a specific structure and progression and how a song was played either 'right or wrong'. He then went on to talk about how the Dead showed him how music can actually evolve, grow and take on a life of it's own - and how it opened his mind in how to look at life in the same way - ie: life doesn't have to have (nor does it usually have) a specific form or structure but instead has a life of it's own.

And then it struck me that my real challenge with starting to blog was that I didn't really have a single subject or theme or structure that I wanted to write about and more importantly that simple yet profound thought was my answer, which is to say I'm just going to write what I feel and see where the words take me.

The challenge with that (for me) is that it is, on the surface, in direct conflict with my theory and framework on the importance of knowing your W3 (Who is your customer, what are they getting from you and why do they want it). But then I realized that I know exactly who my W3 is - ME.

So as I sit here, listening to Shakedown Street from a 1988 Shoreline show (which sounds very different to Shakedown from '77 Cornell or '19 Boulder), I'm encouraged and enthusiastic about just putting it out there and seeing who else is curious about what I have to say and is in my W3.

So, if you are out there I encourage commenting to let me know what you think - or you can just email me at amos@sellmorefasterbook.com

Until next time....which will look nothing like the last time......

Fitter At 50

Today is my 47th birthday. In 1095 days I turn 50. And I have been counting down for almost a year because I believe, as we enter a new era, there is no reason why 50 can't be the new (and improved) 25.  We know more about the human body than ever and technology is evolving at rapidly as ever.  For me, I'm pretty certain that I'll live until close to 150, so that means 50 is only about 1/3 of my life.

So I decided set a goal for myself to be fitter at 50 then at any other time in my life.

In order to celebrate my 50th, in 1095 days from now, I’m planning to embark on a pretty gnarly adventure. I'm not ready to share what that is just yet but I will say it's much bigger than anything I've attempted to date...and I am freakin pumped. And from what I can tell so far, having been researching for almost a year, no one else has ever attempted it either.

And so today, 1095 days out from my 50th birthday I decided to start to blog about it so I can document my journey. Along the way I may post thoughts on how the journey to 50 is going or things I've written previously that I want to reshare or just share my thoughts for the day. And it’ll vary between family, business and the lead up to my 50th birthday adventure.

So if you want to follow my journey over the next 3 years, you can follow me on Strava, Twitter and of course on this blog (I keep my Facebook and IG private just for family and very close friends).

I hope you enjoy and I encourage you to comment, write me personally at amos@sellmorefasterbook.com and share with anyone else you think may enjoy following my journey.

Until next time....