
TechStars Investor Day Hits a Home Run - terpua
http://www.readwriteweb.com/readwritestart/2009/09/techstars-investor-day-hits-a.php
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maxklein
The ideas from TechStars seem a lot more innovative than the YC ideas. YC
companies all seem to be so 2007-2008, and the founders who make the news or
ever get my attention all seem to be the same : 20-35 year old guys from
somewhere in the U.S or U.K who went to some name brand college and already
have something web 2.0 under their belt. There seems to be no promiment female
founder, for example, or some guy from japan or some 50 year old jewish guy
who has always been a baker or something like that.

That TechStars list far surpases anything that has come out of YC in terms of
creativity or "newness".

~~~
unalone
I was astonished to see Vanilla on the list. Vanilla's kind of been a secret
name among big forum people since it launched; it's got some astoundingly
innovative features. I love it, but haven't been able to use it in a project
before to give it support.

Considering I've always had this mindset of TechStars churning out inferior YC
products, it surprised me not that Mark would apply but that TechStars would
accept something like that. Color me pleasantly surprised.

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sachinag
ReTel is genius, if it actually works. I'm a little skeptical of something
that comes out of three getting their MBAs (I don't know if they can code, but
I assume someone there can if they got into TechStars), but it's a genuine
business process issue.

~~~
andrewhyde
It is a great site, glad you like it!

The founders are coders, and MBA's. Smart guys, not their first startup.

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shib71
I was reading this and thinking ... I wish someone had submitted some of these
companies to HN. Some of those apps are very interesting and I think the
discussion would have been too. Why haven't I heard about these apps before?

~~~
vulpes
Because getting anything TechStars related to the front page of Hacker News is
an uphill battle (which most of the Boulder HN folk realize and simply not
submit TC material) here are some examples:

* FiltrBox 7 pts: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=246634>

* TC 09 Graduation discussion 29 pts, 6 comments: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=746347>

* OneFourty 1pt: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=849893>

Majority never even make it past 1 point, they ether are set to dead for some
reason or just have no support to ever make it out to the front page and if
they do, community at large are simply not receptive to the story so it dies
quickly. The confrontation goes back to when TechStars first started in 07
because they were the 2nd tech start up "incubator" (even though more correct
term is accelerator) and YC community felt ether threatened or uninterested by
the proposition and simply ignored those submissions. Solution is simple, just
get your TechStars fix somewhere else, perhaps a filtrbox keyword search for
techstars is a great start :)

Edit: would love to hear the reason for the downvotes.

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sachinag
My reason: I really don't think there's a conspiracy to keep TechStars stuff
off the front page here. If the community doesn't vote it up, _it doesn't vote
it up_. If there are all those HN people in Boulder, then y'all can vote it
up. But there have been lots of positive comments and congrats for TechStars
portfolio companies here on HN.

~~~
vulpes
Fair point, I was trying very hard not to come out sounding like a guy with a
tinfoil hat. To sum it up: I believe there is simply not enough interest
towards TechStars posts due to the reasons I outlined. It's certainly not a
targeted backlash as some feel toward TechCrunch or clear affinity towards a
subject, i.e YC-related startups.

We could form a gang and get enough upvotes to make the front page, but once
its there, community has to be interested enough to keep it on the home page
for any useful period of time, and as many experiences in the past indicate,
thats just hasn't been the case.

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latortuga
Wow I've actually just started working on something quite similar to the very
first app listed here. It's somewhat discouraging to say the least. The travel
social network market is rather large - there are a few existing sites that do
an okay job at it and get fairly decent traffic numbers but none of them are
clearly great. At least none were until I clicked on that link.

Edit: It's actually kind of odd for how nice the site is, it's virtually
unfindable on Google. Even if it takes time to gain PageRank you could at
least start advertising it with AdWords...

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vulpes
Funny you should mention it but the guy who is in charge of SEO just took a
month off flying courtesy of JetBlue all over the country :) Needless to say
you're absolutely correct in your conclusion, visibility is something a lot of
TC teams struggle with early on.

~~~
andrewhyde
I've flown this month with Ryan on the JetBlue deal, he is working, and
traveling a ton.

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hooande
I've been using Sensobi for awhile and it works great. Once it's installed,
you don't have to do anything but check it every few days.

~~~
andrewhyde
Glad you like it, I'm stoked for it to get to other phones (so I can use it).
On their roadmap, just will take some time.

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zackattack
I think the best one is the one that allows hourly workers to trade their time
slots.

~~~
sachinag
Yeah, it's pretty neat. What's astonishing is the uptake at the Starbucks
locations here in Chicago. I haven't randomly asked baristas if they use it,
but I believe it.

My prediction: Paychex and ADP fight tooth and nail to acquire it. It's just
way too valuable and too easily integrated; it could be a huge competitive for
one company over the other when bidding to process paychecks for 10,000s of
hourly workers nationwide.

