Give First

Started in France, Alban Denoyel knew that the key to his product, Sketchfab, was its influence in the United States. Now a leading platform for 3D and AR models, Sketchfab got a boost while Alban was part of the Techstars Accelerator program . “I think having gone through Techstars really helped us get the credibility we needed to raise money with VCs as first-time entrepreneurs.” Years later, th...

When Keller Rinaudo started Remotive in 2011 while in a Techstars Accelerator program , he didn’t really know what entrepreneurship was until he read Tony Hsieh's book “Delivering Happiness.” At the time, he was at Harvard University working with DNA and the inner workings of humans, not robots. That all shifted.  Keller and his team knew that the world of robotics and automation would change...

Joey Womack is a builder, but he’s not in traditional construction. Through creating ecosystems and making connections, he is helping social entrepreneurs and diverse founders build relationships that close the gaps, all through his company Goodie Nation . A relationship gap is the distance between entrepreneurs and key influencers. Often with diverse founders and social entrepreneurs, particularl...

Patrick Ewers describes his work as helping people achieve true greatness, or as our host David Cohen calls it, giving people superpowers. But there is a funny thing about the term “true greatness”. “When you look at the word true greatness, I think it's the most subjective term you will ever come across, especially in the world we're working in. For some, it is that they really want to reach the...

Shila Nieves Burney , General Partner at Zane Venture Fund, has spent 20-plus years addressing inequity with capital, first in human capital with institutions and education systems, and then sourcing investors. Along the way, Shila discovered a much-needed resource for entrepreneurs: networks and connections. They can build the capital, but then what? In comes Zane Access capital readiness program...

After two decades in the corporate world, Preston James was blown away by the innovation of tech startups. Once he got involved as an angel investor, he realized this industry was just like corporate America, where diversity was severely lacking. After digging into the issue by talking to others within his network, Preston saw the need to “build this pipeline of entrepreneurs for the underrepresen...

If you’ve ever wondered just where Give First came from, or how it became such a central philosophy at Techstars, this episode is for you. Or if you’ve ever wanted to push back and say: does Give First really work? What’s in it for me? This is also the episode for you.  A few months ago, Keith Coleman, Founder of Fraudmarc (Techstars Atlanta 2017) emailed David and Brad with the subject “give...

There are some people whose lives are perfect expressions of the zeitgeist. Matt Harris is one of them.  In 1995, Matt’s college roommate at Williams started a company out of their dorm room. It was called Tripod, and it was one of the first dot com companies. By 1997, when Matt was 24, Williams invited him back to Williamstown, a rural community with a population of 6,000, to run an investin...

People want their capital to be used for good, and whether it’s clean energy or sustainable agriculture, there is ample economic opportunity in efforts to decarbonize the planet. In this special podcast crossover episode, Techstars’ own David Cohen and Cody Simms discuss how the entrepreneurial ecosystem is rallying around climate change. If you haven't yet checked out the Techstars Climate Tech p...

Lolita Taub has always been about community, from her upbringing in South Central LA to now at The Community Fund, which is a venture capital fund that invests in community-driven companies, “connecting people to people and resources to achieve results.”  By day, Lolita is the Corporate Development VP at Catalyte, but on breaks or weekends, she is an operator-investor, looking for those unico...

From his service as a Naval Intelligence Officer to an MBA from the University of Chicago to becoming an investor in early-stage startups in healthcare tech, frontier tech, logistics, and marketplaces, Sherman Williams has had an interesting career.  Now he’s also helping other U.S. Service Academy (USNA, USMA, USAFA, USCGA and USMMA) grads to invest as well. Many veterans want to get into en...

Brittany Barreto, Ph. D., started as an entrepreneur, transitioned to VC, and now is building a whole new category: FemTech. Yes, she invented the term, and you are encouraged to use it and spread it.  Brittany realized that women’s health and wellness companies didn’t have the community that helps an industry thrive, so she set out to build it. She cofounded FemTech Focus, and started hostin...

Toward the beginning of this conversation between David Cohen and Brad Feld — cofounders of Techstars and celebrated early-stage investors — Brad says, “I believe it takes a hundred episodes before you can really call yourself a podcast.”  If that’s the standard, the Give First podcast isn’t a real podcast yet, since we’re only at about 45. But we’re quite proud that Give First has stuck arou...

“We get a tremendous amount of traffic to our website every month from people who are just searching for different ways to do things, learning different ways to code. It might not even be on our infrastructure, but we provide that content,” says Carly Brantz, Chief Marketing Officer at Digital Ocean.  This is just one of many ways that Digital Ocean, which helps developers easily build, test,...

“Techstars for nonprofits” is a pretty good description for Fast Forward, an accelerator for tech nonprofits. The similarities are many — like Techstars, Fast Forward provides mentorship, network, and resources to tech founders, designed to help them succeed. The key difference is that Fast Forward focuses on the specific needs of nonprofit companies. “Our entrepreneurs have all the challenges of...

Jonathan Levin has had a remarkable career. A London native with an economics degree from Oxford, Levin cofounded Chainalysis in 2014, focusing on bitcoin on the blockchain. The company, a graduate of Techstars’ Barclays accelerator in New York with a valuation in the billions, now does blockchain analysis on a variety of cryptocurrencies.  Listen in as Jonathan tells David about what it was...

Bruno Morency graduated from college in 2001 and started a company right out of school. It was a tough time for tech startups, but Bruno persisted, and he’s been part of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Montréal ever since.  Hear Bruno tell Brad about how his adventures in entrepreneurship paralleled the growth of the startup scene in Montréal over the last 20 years, culminating in Bruno’s c...

Rob La Gesse has had an interesting career. After high school, he joined the Navy and worked both as a combat medic and a neonatal respiratory therapist. He was a mayor in Hawaii. He taught himself programming and went into tech, just in time to help develop Wi-Fi.  On this episode of the Give First podcast, David Cohen talks with Rob about how helping people has guided him at every turn.&nbs...

In this episode of the Give First podcast, Brad Feld talks with his old friend Katie Rae, who was once the Managing Director of Techstars Boston. These days, Katie is the CEO and Managing Partner at The Engine . Launched by MIT, The Engine supports big ideas and breakthrough technologies — “the long shots, the unimaginable, the unbelievable,” as their website says — that have really big potential...

In this special episode, Give First host David Cohen and Talking Through It host Neal Sáles-Griffin take turns interviewing each other: it’s two Techstars podcasts in one.  David discusses with Neal on how giving first grew the Chicago startup ecosystem, and then Neal talks through today’s hot issues with David, including unicorn startups and cryptocurrency. If you haven’t seen it yet, check...

In this episode of the Give First podcast, two of the original Techstars founders, David Cohen and Brad Feld, talk with the new Techstars CEO, Maëlle Gavet.  If you love Techstars, this one is a must listen, a passing of the torch from the first generation of Techstars leadership to the next.  If you want to learn about Techstars, listen for insight into what the company stands for, valu...

In this episode of the Give First podcast, Techstars cofounder and Chairman of the Board David Cohen talks with Synergy Space Founder and Techstars Startup Weekend Facilitator Sean Paul Shanor about what he finds so compelling about Startup Weekend. Sean Paul has helped run over a dozen Startup Weekends in eight countries, and in addition has become a startup coach, using the expertise gained from...

In this episode of the Give First podcast, Techstars cofounder and Chairman of the Board David Cohen talks with Baden U'Ren about his efforts to grow the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Australia.  Baden U’Ren is a nationally recognized entrepreneurship educator who has led Bond University’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation disciplines for over a decade, and he is also deeply involved in many ot...

In this episode of the Give First podcast, Techstars cofounder and Chairman of the Board David Cohen talks with James Oliver about why he started the ParentPreneur Foundation. The foundation “empower[s] Black ParentPreneurs, so they can leave a legacy for their children,” and provides grants, community, and resources for Black parents who are also doing the hard work of starting a company.  L...

Andy Sack has been a technology entrepreneur, angel investor and venture capitalist for 25 years — and is one of the godfathers of the Seattle startup community. He was managing director for Techstars Seattle, founder and executive chairman for Lighter Capital, and cofounder of seed stage fund Founder's Co-op. He participated in the first Techstars Boston Startup Weekend and was so moved by the ex...