Give First

Denise Franklin, angel investor and startup veteran, and husband Jim Franklin, former CEO of SendGrid and University of Colorado Boulder MBA Instructor for VC, unpack the mystery of the Give First ethos, from benefiting from the kindness of others early on in their careers,to using their good fortune to help fellow entrepreneurs. They were instrumental in the very first Techstars Startup Week Denv...

Janine Davis began in engineering as a software developer. After 20 years in tech recruitment, she is now an executive coach and is a staunch supporter of the #GiveFirst concept, providing pro bono coaching for founders in the Techstars LA and Techstars Anywhere accelerator programs. As a board member for the Women Founders Network, she supports female entrepreneurs. She talks about why coaching i...

Susan Standiford’s impressive career has progressed from “nerdom central” to helping startup companies “create a technology, ethos, and identity” for future growth. Her journey as a technologist has taken her from organizations like Disney Interactive, Travelocity, Oracle, Retek, Rue La La and Zeal, to her most recent position as CTO at IKEA in London. In this episode, she talks about her personal...

Joy Taylor is a force of nature. Coming from a 20-year career in the banking industry (business development, coaching, and training), she now focuses on ecosystem building in her hometown of Toowoomba, Australia — and around the world. In this episode, Taylor shares her journey with David Cohen and talks about how giving first to her community led her to exciting worldwide experiences. At Canvas C...

In this episode, Gus Balbontin speaks with host David Cohen about the dangers of building momentum, and how it’s important for entrepreneurs to “look sideways” to meet new challenges. He tells stories about his own journey, from a small town in Patagonia, South America, battling FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), to a dream job at Lonely Planet and a career of supporting and inspiring founders within the...

Brad Feld talks with Semil Shah, founder of the venture capital fund Haystack , who shares his inspiring founder story. With limited experience in the entrepreneurial world, Semil relied on his mentors to see the potential in him. Seven years later, he continues to pay it forward by helping turn other’s ideas into reality.  Semil talks about how he turned his passion for writing about startup...

In this episode, Chris Schroder opens up with Brad Feld about how a “mind blowing” discovery at a startup convention in the Middle East inspired him to promote global entrepreneurship. With a background in digital technology at The Washington Post and in entrepreneurship as the co-founder of HealthCentral, a health and wellness platform, Chris knows the power of technology and wants to share it wi...

Misti Cain speaks with David Cohen about her journey from a digital marketing strategist to Techstars Anywhere Accelerator mentor, founder of mentorship platform Whyzze , and host of “ Werrrk! ,” a business reality show. She explains her best tactics for building important relationships in our challenging COVID-19 virtual environment, including having a visual component for a strong human con...

Co-host David Cohen and guest Heidi Cuppari discuss how she co-founded Dream Tank to truly tap into the radical imagination of children. What started as an experiment five years ago is now a place in which kids, such as guest Amelia Rose Battle, can help make the world a better place. Listen as Amelia shares her experiences working with Dream Tank. This includes how they created a VR experience to...

In this episode, Brad Feld is joined by Techstars’ Chief Revenue Officer Frank Alfano and past Chief Innovation Officer Jenny Lawton to talk with their mentor – Len Fassler. They each share their unique experiences meeting Len some thirty years ago, the ups and downs of working together and the tremendous impact he’s had on their lives.  Listen to hear how Len got his start in the entrepreneu...

Philip McKernan talks with David Cohen about how to find your purpose in life and his work with entrepreneurs. Through his coaching, he encourages people to take the risk they would only take if they were dying tomorrow. Listen as Philip and David discuss the importance of reinventing yourself, finding a business that fulfills you on a personal level, and how the idea of “holding space” can transf...

Back in June 2019, David Cohen and Brad Feld looked back at their first six episodes of the Give First podcast, and decided that while they were pretty pleased, they’d probably need to do about 20-30 to really hit their stride. Seven months later, they’ve passed number 20, so they’re taking another moment to check in. Listen for reflections from these persistent podcast hosts, plus reminiscences o...

Techstars VP of Network John Hill sat down with SparkCharge Founder and CEO Joshua Aviv live from the floor of Eureka Park. Josh talks about how he started SparkCharge at Syracuse University, the life-changing impact of the Blackstone Launchpad program, and the unique challenges and opportunities of being a student entrepreneur. Josh also shares insights and advice for other student entrepreneurs...

Damon Motorcycles Co-founder and CTO (and Techstars Mobility alum) Dominique Kwong talks with Techstars VP of Network John Hill about the unstoppable power of business and engineering partnerships, launching at CES, and the emotions behind building a company.   In this wide-ranging and emotional conversation, Dom does a deep dive on his training as an engineer, how he met (and forms a deep co...

Eureka Park at CES is one of the most influential startup events in the world. Techstars VP of Network John Hill sat down with Event Hub CEO and Co-founder Michael Bleau live from the floor of Eureka Park. They dug in to Michael’s founder journey, his Techstars Anywhere experience, his take on CES (and the power of live events) as well insights and advice for other founders. Hosted on Acast. See a...

Plated Co-founder Josh Hix knows about leading a growing team. He remembers taking the company through Techstars New York City in 2013, coming into the program with about seven people, and leaving with closer to 37. The company was up to 1300 employees by the time it sold to Albertsons for a reported $200 million in 2017. Leadership was a skill Josh had to learn. “I have always been an introverted...

Rajat Bhargava , CEO of JumpCloud, has started a lot of companies—the first, NetGenesis, while he was still a student at MIT. And his friendship with Give First co-host Brad Feld goes right back to that initial foray into entrepreneurship. Rajat just keeps starting companies, and Giving First—including through his current B2B company, JumpCloud. How does a B2B company Give First? Rajat believe tha...

MergeLane, a VC fund that invests in startups and venture funds with at least one female leader, has an unusual aspiration, written in bold on its website: “We want to make MergeLane obsolete.” As co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of MergeLane, Elizabeth Kraus looks forward to a future when MergeLane will no longer be needed, because we will have achieved gender parity. She’s seen progress i...

Jason Mendelson , co-founder of Foundry Group, can explain what matters in negotiations between entrepreneurs and VCs in just two words: Control and Economics. It takes enormous expertise to make something complicated really simple, and these bare two words speak to Jason’s profound understanding of venture deals and how they work, for the entrepreneur, the investor, and the lawyers. In addition t...

Today, Janet Bannister is a Partner at Real Ventures, but when Founding Partners John Stokes and Jean-Sebastien Cournoyer first approached her about joining to give the firm a presence in Toronto, Janet was nonplussed. “Why would I go into Venture Capital?” she asked. “Isn’t Venture Capital all about grinding the entrepreneurs down?” But she listened, and she learned about what VC could be, when i...

Heidi Roizen has called herself a recovering entrepreneur. Wendy Lea has called Heidi “the epitome of Give First.” Both of these are true, and go a long way toward describing the deeply humane perspective on the role of venture capital that Heidi brings to her current role as a partner at Threshold Ventures . Heidi was an entrepreneur herself for 14 years before exploring other career options (VP...

Too many people believe that you have to be in Silicon Valley—or some similarly hyped tech-obsessed locale—to be an entrepreneur. Techstars knows this isn’t true: successful entrepreneurship can happen anywhere.  Marc Nager and Dave Mayer are living proof.  Marc is the Co-founder of Startup Weekend, the former CEO of UP Global before it was acquired by Techstars, and Techstars Chief Comm...

Back in 2010, David Cohen and Brad Feld distilled their knowledge about how to #domorefaster into a book, fleshed out with many, many stories from startup founders, investors, and other players in the startup ecosystem. They called it Do More Faster , and over the past nine years the book has been used at a number of business schools and regularly shows up on lists of top startup books. Nine years...

Stride. VC founder Harry Stebbings is probably best known for his podcast, The Twenty Minute VC , the world's largest media asset in venture, with over 5 million downloads per month. He’s talked with amazing Venture Capitalists and entrepreneurs and made over 2,800 shows. When he was 13, Harry watched “The Social Network,” the movie about Facebook’s growth, and it inspired him to become an entrepr...

In over 23 years at Silicon Valley Bank, John China has made it his mission to make connections between entrepreneurs, investors, corporations, and more. Many, many entrepreneurs at Techstars and beyond have benefitted from his Give First perspective on working with startups: that you “give, give, give” and you have to “be willing to do that for a long time.” David Cohen asked John, “At what point...