At the end of the summer there's Investor Day, it's what the startups work for all summer
long and they get to present in front of a couple hundred investors as well as the community
so it's a big day for them.
Techstars has been awesome and I think Marco Salvin, founder of Vanilla, summed it up really
well in his post about recapping the summer, talking about the people and the people are
really what made it.
It really is a community, they don't throw that word around lightly.
It's the mentors around the program that help shape these companies, they come in with all
the energy in the world and the key is the mentors help them get to something that really
makes sense.
Leading up to Investor Day can be pretty nerve wracking for everybody, me too, I mean for
me it's the end of three months of really hard work.
I don't think any of us slept the night before Investor Day.
For me Investor Day is always pretty electric, there's a buzz in the air, lots of investors
come in from all over the country and it's really big for the whole community.
So today's Investor Day, so we get to go up on stage, present our company.
It's about 8.40 in the morning, we're going out in 50 minutes.
We're the first company to pitch, we'll do our best to win everybody over.
We were excited to show everyone what we've been working on, but we were nervous that
something might go wrong in the pitch.
One of the great things about Techstars I think is the second order effects, that's the real
power of Techstars is not only the companies that come out of it but what happens in the
community.
So everybody who comes from out of town expects to hear Brad talk, so we gave them a little
bit of that.
Special thanks of course to all the mentors that participated in this year's program,
all the folks around the Boulder community that helped make this possible.
We had a couple special guests talk at Investor Day, Jared Polis is actually one of the founders
of Techstars but was elected to Congress last year.
It's always a great pleasure to be here and be part of the Techstars family, so with that
we'll continue the presentations.
First company up today is Retail and they're fresh back from traveling all over the world
to sell their stuff.
Retail empowers restaurants and retailers with never before available data.
We do that by integrating with their existing security cameras and constantly monitoring
for operational efficiency.
There's pressure to get it right but it's a good kind of pressure.
So Retail was first to pitch to Investor Day, I think they were a little bit nervous about
that position but as usual they did a great job with it.
Everlator of course came out with a ton of energy, they were the second to pitch.
We make it easy and fun to record, share and discover travel experiences.
Your trip to Europe is about to get Everlator makeover.
We got to the room and it was packed, everyone was there and we were getting ready to go
on stage, one off without a hitch.
We measure the growth and popularity of bands across the major web properties and sell actionable
insights around this data to band managers and other industry professionals.
In the five or so minutes since we've been up here our system has recorded 590,000 plays.
The next big sound blew me away, I knew they were going to be good but they just killed
it and right after they came off stage you could just see it, the investors were walking
up to them wanting to learn more right away.
All the companies did a really great job, Techstars is about community and I think Boulder as a
city is about community and giving back and helping the next generation is something that
we teach all the Techstars to do as they evolve in their companies, it's what creates an ecosystem
that works.
I thought you did great.
Everybody did really well, I was nervous about a couple of you, I have to admit but I was
blown away by all of them, entrepreneurship is never comfortable, running a company, it's
always going to be a lot of work and hard and just remember to focus on your vision.
I'd say right now today it's the last day of the program, great time to drop the people
that helped you a thank you note.
I was super proud of you guys yesterday, I mean through and through, 100% awesome, go
out there keep working hard, don't **** it up.
The days following investor day were a little bit weird and it made us realize how close
all the teams had gotten and how strange it would be not working in the same environment.
On the other hand though it was also really exciting because it really marks the start
of our fundraising efforts.
We'll be in touch with everybody from Techstars for life.
This summer Techstars has been monumental, just the caliber of people we've been meeting
and interacting with, the progress we've made on the product, beautiful landscape.
The reason it's such a great program are the mentors, I mean you have people who have
multiple times built great companies who come together and give their time and energy to
help you with nothing expected in return.
The bonds we've made with other companies are huge, I love them all, I really wish everyone
the best of luck and I think they're really friends for life.
This summer was definitely a wild ride, a lot of ups and downs.
I'm excited for what's to come, there's some uncertainty around it but we have a pretty
clear vision of what we're building now and we have a great network of people that Techstars
provided.
We take the companies with a lot of momentum in their fundraising and their products out
to San Francisco to show that community what they're up to, both for media and investors.
The companies that have the most progress will make it to the San Francisco event, not
all of them will get there but hopefully a lot of them will.
We always say that industry is just the beginning.
That's right.
