

A Summer in Techstars - e1ven
http://blog.accelgolf.com/2009/09/21/boston-techstars-musings

======
sachinag
"If you want to build cool technologies, go to YC; if you want to build big
businesses, go to TechStars."

I would love to see a discussion around this quote.

~~~
gruseom
_I would love to see a discussion around this quote._

Okay. You can't blame these guys for being enthusiastic about the program that
accepted them. But this line is bogus.

First, it's anonymous and stated without any evidence, which is not surprising
since the evidence refutes it. (1) Have TechStars so far produced a single
company on the scale of Justin.tv, Reddit, Loopt, Scribd, etc.? (2) What
statements by PG or any YC founder manifest the bias alleged by the quote?
(One could easily find hundreds the other way.) What part of "Make something
people want" doesn't Anonymous understand?

Second, it's a not-particularly-subtle putdown that is tantamount to saying
"YC don't know what they're doing". Investing in startups that can become big
businesses is the whole game. To prioritize anything over that would be
incompetence.

Third, it's a not-particularly-subtle attempt to claim mental territory of the
sort readily familiar to any reader of [http://www.amazon.com/Positioning-
Battle-Overcrowded-Marketp...](http://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-
Overcrowded-Marketplace-POSITIONING/dp/B001T3WJYW/).

TechStars copied YC and want to distinguish themselves as something other than
second-in-class. One can appreciate the difficulty, but insulting people's
intelligence is probably not the most effective way to go about it --
especially in this business, where those you most need to convince will least
appreciate it.

