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Where did the summer go? I’ve been meaning to create a post for the last few months on why I’m a TechStars mentor. Last night, as I celebrated with the Boulder teams on their fantastic Investor Day presentations, it suddenly hit me that this years TechStars in Boulder has sadly come to an end. It is way too soon for me.
I originally envisioned a long post that described in detail the reasons why I spend time being a mentor. However, when I started writing, I quickly realized the reasons can be boiled down to one simple (selfish) fact: I enjoy spending time with smart energetic individuals that are open to new ideas and are brave enough to try new things (even if they might fail in the process). These attributes sound straight forward enough, but I can assure you that these characteristics are hard to find in people and even harder to find in companies. David Cohen and the TechStars team do a fantastic job finding these rare individuals and teams.
One of the teams I worked with this summer was Vanilla . The founders, Mark O’Sullivan and Todd Burry, represent everything that is right about TechStars. Today I was lucky enough to sit down with Mark just as he finished his very last session with TechStars. Mark spent a few minutes reflecting on his experiences in TechStars this summer. Take a look at our conversation and I think it will be obvious to you why I enjoy spending time with people like Mark.
The good news is that TechStars isn’t finished yet! I’m doing some mentoring with a few teams in Boston too. Investor day in Boston is set for September 10th. So, I’ve still got a few more weeks of being energized by these amazing entrepreneurs. After that it is going to be a long cold winter.
Vanilla Interview with Mark O’Sullivan from Chris Moody on Vimeo.
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[...] of my life”, and hopefully that comes across in the interview as well. Here’s Chris’ post about it, and here is the [...]
Even after sitting next to Mark all summer, I still learned some new things from this interview. I think we’ll be taking him up on that whole “help other people” thing.
Congrats Mark & Todd. Go Vanilla!