Brad Feld
Brad Feld is co-founder and managing director at Foundry Group, and early stage venture capital firm, and co-founder of TechStars.
Brad is probably best known in the Startup community for TechStars. TechStars provides seed funding and a three month mentorship program in Boston, Boulder, Seattle, or New York in exchange for a flat 6 percent stake in each company. Companies receive up to $18,000 in seed funding.
To date 70% of TechStars companies have either raised outside funding or become financially self-sustaining, which is an extremely favorable success rate relative to other seed funds, such as YCombinator.
TechStars sees its main strength as the being the quality of its mentors “They are the best and the brightest entrepreneurial minds around, and they’ll all be at TechStars working with your company. They’ll participate on panels, present topics and provide the feedback that will help your company succeed.”
Video
The Founders | TechStars Boulder | “Behind the Scenes” from TechStars on Vimeo.
Contact Info
Brads’s blog.
Brad on Twitter.
Brad on Facebook.
Brad on LinkedIn.
Interview questions:
1. You don’t put much stock into the secretive startup founder whose idea – without any actual execution – is supposedly worth millions, perhaps billions. Nor do I. How do you change people’s mind’s about this? Or do you treat it as a leper’s bell and leave them to their fate?
2. Two tried and true approaches is “scratching your own itch” and “finding/solving the pain”. But most, if not nearly all successful startups end up radically redefining their product. Given that, is “scratching your own itch” and “finding the pain really the right places to start?
3.Matt Mullenweg, your coauthor David Cohen, and others in your book highly praise getting the product out in the marketplace absolutely as soon as possible. How do you do that and not ship dreck? In other words, how do you go from developer perfectionist to entrepreneur quickdraw?
4. Niel Robertson says in your book, “Go get customers, then listen. It really can be that simple.” Really?
5. What do you do if you find initial customers, but you realize what you’ve built, what they love, is a direction you’ve fallen out of love with? How do you know when it’s time to fire your original customers, pivot and go in a different direction?
6. You devote a chapter to people, and lead that off with Mark O’Sullivan’s piece, entitled “Don’t go it alone.” But, there a plenty of solo entrepreneurs, micro-ISVs, out there who do just that successfully. If it work, why not do it? If it doesn’t work, why does it work for those people?
7.in your book, Micah Baldwin says, “Salespeople hunt pink Cadillacs. Startups seek friends.” Huh? I thought i needed customers?
8. Brad, tell us about your “screw me once” rule: why do you have it, and why did you decide to include it in the book?
9. Laser-like focus, a commitment way past obsession, a burning need to execute. And being open to randomness? And having a work-life balance? How do you committed and random, determined and balanced?
10. “It’s about doing. Do more faster.” Besides avoiding sucking at email, sticking to simple and free software, taking incremental technology steps, not celebrating the wrong things, being specific, focusing on quality,and having a bias towards action, how else do you do more faster?
11. Isn’t life-work balance something you do after becoming successful? What’s your rejoinder to those who would say, “How dare you have a life when you are spending other people’s money?”
12. you’ve been there, you’ve done that. What gets you up and out of bed, what gets you excited?
(Interview set for March.14th, 2011, Show date: TBD)
What would you like to ask Brad?
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