Matt Kozlov, Techstars Managing Director: The Ex Terra Podcast
https://open.spotify.com/episode/02HDGyIl74xfG81hu3tHz3?si=OSv33thjQPu_T5lx-qap2g
On this edition of the Ex Terra Podcast, we talk with Matt Kozlov, Managing Director of Techstars, a technology accelerator located in Los Angeles, CA.
The Techstars mission is to grow the ideas of startup founders, corporate employees, visionary dreamers, and entrepreneurs into world-changing businesses.
The history of breakthrough technology is the history of people, teams, and partners working in sync to achieve their goals and scale their ideas. By bringing together ambitious founders and corporations, Techstars enables innovation through creative, powerful relationships.
Techstars works with businesses in a variety of disciplines, including the commercial space industry. Matt Kozlov manages the company's interactions with those companies engaged in the commercial space sector.
Among the companies that have received funding from Techstars include:
Infinite Composites Technologies
Urban Sky
Morpheus Space
Novo Space
Orbit Fab
Pixxel
The Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator program is a three-month intensive program designed to accelerate businesses by working closely with Techstars, Starburst, its network of expert mentors, and a group of formal sponsors from industry and government. Those include:
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Lockheed Martin
Maxar Technologies
SAIC
Israel Aerospace Industries North America
U.S. Air Force
The Aerospace Corporation
According to Kozlov, Techstars' looks to work with companies that have a well-established and qualified leadership team, then at market, progress and idea, in that order. Their clients range from startups to companies that have working prototypes and established, deployed programs.
We look at team, team, team, market, progress, idea—in that order.
For this reason, Techstars says it is less likely that they will accept single founder companies (you’re less likely to have all the skills your company needs to succeed). The best things you can do to strengthen your Techstars application are:
Round out your team with business, technical, and other necessary skills;
Make progress on your prototype or product and reference it in the application;
Show us you’ve really thought about your business and have gotten out there to do something about it;
Demonstrate early traction or provide data points to validate your core assumptions.
However, nothing is too early. Techstars says it has accepted companies with no more than an idea, a dream, and maybe a dog.