How should you engage David Cohen of Tech Stars

How do you get coffee with David Cohen of Tech Stars? Not sure thats the exactly question you want to be asking. In this interview from Mixergy with David he talks about how he prefers to be contacted (you can read the transcript by following the link, as the video will likely only have limited access):

So I get about 15 requests for coffee or tea a day. I don’t drink caffeine. I haven’t had coffee in 15 years. I don’t want to have coffee. It’s not the way that I like to engage initially. Instead what I love is when someone says, “Hey, here’s a product I’m working on with a link. This is what I’m excited about, and I have a specific question for you. I know you have specific experience with X. I’m thinking about this issue. What do you think of this issue?” That gives me a really easy thing to look at, to engage with, and to quickly answer your question. Over time you build a relationship with that person. I think you’d find that if people approach it that, way more often than not the entrepreneurs that they respect and that they’re looking for advice from will engage with them.

Andrew: So a link to something that’s already up and then a specific question. I get a lot of questions like, “Give me feedback on this,”‘ or “What do you think of that?” That’s obviously not a specific question. Can you give us a few examples of specific questions that you’ve gotten?

David: Sure. I get them every day, because usually when I get a vague one I say, “What can I help you with?” But I’ll tell you earlier this week I got a question about, there’s a lot of Groupon-like sites being pitched to me these days or things that look something like the Daily Deal, and I got one that really wanted to make it clear how they were different from all those other ones. And he sort of just asked me, “Here’s the difference. Here’s the nuance and here’s why what I’m doing is more interesting. Can you help me describe how I would talk to customers, partners, and investors about that?” So it was a really easy thing for me to help him craft some wording or a way of presenting it that people would understand. Those are easy things to help answer and engage with. And then over time, as I see that product developing, I might become more interested in engaging on a deeper level or maybe even being an investor.

Andrew: I understand why you might do this because maybe you’ll be an investor, maybe this person will build up their business and come back and be a mentor. You’re also in the habit of helping companies because that’s what you do.

Later in the interview Dave adds this great advice on fund raising, angel funding, and venture capital:

So the old adage, “If you want money, ask for advice. If you want advice, ask for money,” it applies. You’re after money so you want to build a relationship that’s two-way that’s going to take some time. Fundraising is hard. It usually doesn’t happen immediately. And so just reaching out to someone that you respect, that knows a lot about what you’re doing, engaging them and getting them involved in what you’re building and trying to become as a company, and then down the road when you have that relationship, moving it towards the funding discussion.

David Cohen on the qualities he and Brad Feld look for in applications to the Tech Stars program:

I want TechStars to fund me, I want to do it intelligently. How do I do it well?

David: I’ll give you all the pro tips for how to get into TechStars. So as you know we’re now in four cities. We’re in New York, Boston, Seattle and Boulder. Applications as we’re speaking are open for the New York program, but at any given time they’re open for one of the programs. I would say that it’s critically important to build a very talented team that’s balanced, not just tech but has some sort of business skill or domain expertise. That is the key thing. When you apply, that’s the key thing we’re looking for. The second thing would be what is the talent of this team and how can we see it in that application? So that doesn’t mean you have to have a lot of progress on the idea you’re working on, but it does mean that you should show us some of the things you’re capable of doing as a team. So that could be a personal website. It could be a past project. If we don’t see a really strong team and some demonstration of talent from the application, it’s a pass for us. It’s a filter. And so I think getting through that filter is critically important, and people need to understand that. So focus on those two things.

Andrew: Stop right there. I want to make sure that I understand every bit of this. I decide I want to be part of TechStars. I say to myself, “I need to find a partner. Well, I’ve been working with this one guy pretty well. We want to apply and really have a good chance.” Maybe we go back and put a list together of all the projects that we’ve built and make it easy for you to find. Or if we haven’t done that, we might say, “Hey, let’s go heads down mode and let’s see how many projects we can knock out just to show our talents, just to see if we could gel as a duo, and then we can take that to David.” That’s what you’re saying.

David: That’s right. And it’s fine if that progress is on the new idea, or it’s fine if it’s stuff you’ve done before. I have this theory that entrepreneurs do stuff. And so I think people with ideas are a dime a dozen, and if we can’t see a sort of demonstrated ability to get it out of your head and into the world, we’re much less likely to take that application seriously. Beyond that, there’s obvious things like what we do. Many folks have applied to TechStars with flower shop, and that’s not what we do. We’re focussed on technology and Internet software. So that is a filter for us as well obviously. We don’t care too much about exactly what you’re doing. We know that half of the companies that go through the program are going to change what they’re doing. So we do care about your passion and the source of it. And we do care about your talent, and we do care about the market that you’re interested in. But we don’t care about exactly what you’re doing. Many people go too deep and think, my idea is worth a million dollars on its own, and have that bias. That’s for us a bit of a turn off. We’d much rather see someone that says, “There’s something here. We’d really love help figuring out what it is.”

If you have a favorite piece of advice from Dave or from the interview or the new book…feel free to drop it in the comments section. Thanks for reading.