‘You are here because you have what it takes to be a great founder. You’re here because we like you. You’re absolutely not here because of your idea. In fact, some of you are here in spite of your idea. You're here because you respect mentorship, data and experience. You’re here because you’re fast, talented and intellectually honest.’

Those exact words were on the first slide that Techstars showed to us. As I read those words, I started tearing, for I have never read or heard a more empowering message addressed to me as a founder.

Somewhere between 97-98% of the early stage investors, VCs and accelerators out there state that the team is the most important factor in their decision when selecting which startups to invest in. To be frank, I was starting to think that this is just BS, but the Techstars application finally cast some light on this matter.

It was only after the initial application, after the churn of around 95% of the startups, that team actually mattered. And it really did!

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We wrote 3 essays, each one feeling like a personal dissertation as to why the fuck us. Why are we the right founders to solve this problem? How do we make decisions? What’s a difficult moment that we overcame together? Answering these questions and many others was actually very valuable to us.

Once the program started, it became clear to us that Techstars really meant team team team and their whole emphasis was on the founders. We were finally surrounded by a bunch of people who not only understood what eating glass meant, but also respected it. It felt truly empowering and we couldn’t have been more proud to have them as the first name on that cap table apart from us.

But soon that warmth was swept away by an overwhelming feeling as we started to realize just how much stuff we needed to do. We had to work on the business, not just in the business.

So we jumped from the get-go into the program, calendars filled with workshops preparing us for the Jobs To Be Done, or JTBD. Oh, those JTBD, they still make me shiver. Hell, they’re still here with me, I need to do a report tomorrow!

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The best way I can describe a JTBD = a methodology for doing customer interviews that is radically different from how we were doing customer discovery before. It makes the founder understand that the customer does not actually want a drilling machine, but a hole. And they are hiring the drilling machine to do the job of creating a hole for them.

It took me a lot to fully grasp the concept; they thought they needed to bring a surgeon to drill a hole into my brain and rewire some neurons. But once you do that flip, the effect is truly irreversible and the output is an insight that is sometimes closer to the truth than even the customer realizes. Spooky.

So the first week was about unlearning, which is always extremely hard. There was nowhere to go but through that drilling rabbit hole, with nothing but a ‘trust the process’ quote and the full confidence of Techstars that we were a bunch of awesome founders who would somehow figure it out. It felt fun and sick at the same time.

You can follow me, Gabriela and Chambr on our Linkedin accounts.

And if there is anything you would like to know about being accepted at Techstars, feel free to ask us.