This is a blog post in a series written during the first fortnight of our participation in Techstars London 2015.
What did you do today?
The crux of the TechStars program is serving as a mentor-driven accelerator. Teams will meet with over 80 people in just 2 weeks – known as ‘Mentor Madness.’ No. Big. Deal. Max Kelly gave our teams and overview on how to engage and work with future mentors ranging from email etiquette, asking for help, and building authentic relationships. It is inevitable that mentors will provide conflicting feedback known as ‘mentor whiplash’ throughout the frenzy of soaking up their knowledge. They warned all the start-ups to understand you will need to decide, synthesize, and act.
The rest of the day was spent searching for a flat across London. We have called so many agents and written about numerous properties, and still remain homeless. We seemed pretty optimistic that we’d be able to get one property – though we are negotiating for a short-term let.
Sam: After flat hunting I started working with two Hacksociates (a group of 5 Associates [bad-ass business gurus] and 4 Hackstars [world-class engineers] who are here to help with our startups) to fix up a few points on our website, including adding a floating ‘modal’ sign-up form, saving users from scrolling all the way to the bottom to sign-up. In the evening, there was some time to continue work on the app, adding a bunch of small user interface features.
What did you learn?
Sam: Cookies have massive value and will be super helpful in bribing various Hacksociates to help with our projects. Also: days go quickly, even 15 hour ones. I’ve been super-mega busy all day and only got chance to write about half the code I had planned.
Quotes?
Advice on how to rally and maintain top level mentors:
“Seriously, just don’t suck at communicating.”