Today we had the opportunity to hear from two of the four founders of Techstars, David Cohen and David Brown. They had often given their founder stories separately, but for the first time today they were both in the office. These two founders first met in Florida at Pinpoint Technologies and the rest was history. The David’s made the ultimate entrepreneurial pivot; they pivoted from no idea to dispatch services. David C. talked about how they knew they wanted to make a company together but didn’t know what the product was. As they became closer friends and business partners they talked more about their values and passions and how that could play into another business.
Apparently David Cohen outlined Techstars, almost in its entirety, in an email to David Brown in 2006 that is framed and hanging up in Techstars Boulder office (picture below). As the story goes, David C. knew about this guy Brad Feld from his cool blog and wanted to pitch Techstars to him. He got a “random meeting” with Brad (Brad takes a day of back to back 15 minute meetings, twice a month, to hear out people’s idea’s no matter how stupid or crazy). David C. called Brad’s assistant to get a meeting and was shocked to be put on the books three and a half months later. The David’s used that time to throw together a website and committed some money of their own money to the project. Enter Brad, after listening to the idea for 10 minutes he was slipped a piece of paper with the same email bullet points; Brad was in, “as long as you’re not a flake” he said to David. Brad called Jared Polis and said ” I have a guy here with a great idea” Jared’s response was “I’m in! What is it?”.
These stories of how Techstars was born builds upon David’s original comments that you can find someone you want to work with and then create a business. It is awesome to have the David’s in the office and the occasional drop in from Brad Feld from across the hall at Foundry Group. Only 78 days until Demo Day so it’s time to Do More Faster!
