Come to sunny Colorado and get kick STARTED

TechStars has created an opportunity to get your startup or idea KICKED off the STARTING LINE. For 4 months (mid May-mid Aug) you'll be getting your "business" GOING....

1. bridge the startup funding gap by providing just enough capital to get your idea off the ground in exchange for 5% of the initial equity in your company. This is a non-controlling interest and comes with no voting rights. We won't ask for a board seat or for any uncommon investor rights. You will still run the show.
   
2. advice and mentoring from successful startup guys
   
3. get great advice on your product and strategy
   
4. connections to potential partners (angels, VC's) and customers
   
5. pitch during an investor event that we organize
   
6. only take ten companies
7. you get $5,000 per founder, up to 3 founders. So at most, you'll get $15,000 for the summer
   
8. about three times per week, we will organize an informal dinner and invite our mentors to speak on a relevant topic
9. you can come and go as you see fit. But we do require that you be primarily based here (Boulder, Colorado) during the summer
10. we don't provide a place to live
11. we will provide meeting and casual office space with Internet access. This space will be available on a first come, first served basis. We will have space available for the founders to meet, work, and play. We'll fill the space with couches, tables, and some dodgeball equipment.
12. free legal services to the selected companies
13. free servers, hosting, and bandwidth
14. application deadline for Summer 2007 is March 31, 2007

Mentors include:

• Jared Polis Chairman, The Jared Polis Foundation and Founder of BlueMountain.com and ProFlowers.com
  
• David Cohen Executive Director, TechStars
  
• David Brown Founder and President, ZOLL Data Systems
  
• Kimbal Musk Founder and CEO, Medium and angel investor, Paypal, X.com
  
• Alex King Independent Developer and Founder of FeedLounge and Contributing Developer, WordPress
  
• Mark Sawyer Entrepreneur in Residence, Borealis Ventures
  
• Chris Scoggins Principal, Sequel Venture Partners
  
• Jason Mendelson Managing Director, Foundry Group
  
• Greg Reinacker Founder and CTO, Newsgator Technologies
  
• Todd Vernon CEO, Lijit.com and founder of Raindance Communications
  
• Terry Gold Founder, CEO, and President, Gold Systems
  
• Gary Held President, CTEK
  
• Paul Jerde Director, University of Colorado Leeds School of Business and The Deming Center
  
• Dave Taylor Serial entrepreneur, author, and consultant
  
• Frank Moyes Entrepreneurship Scholar in Residence, University of Colorado
  
• Andrew Currie Founder of EMail Publishing, Inc., and Cyberspace Development, Inc.
  
• Brad Schell Founder & Board Member, Sketchup (acquired by Google)
  
• Brian Makare Founder & CTO, Email Publishing / MessageMedia
  
• Michael Platt Partner, Cooley Godward Kronish, LLP
  
• Paul Berberian Founder and CEO, Raindance Communications, and Founder Market Force Information
  
• Jim Pollock Executive Director, CTEK Boulder Venture Center
  
• Darren Crystal Founder and CTO, Photobucket.com
  
• Wendy Lea Chairman, Newmerix and SVP Siebel Consulting
  
• Niel Robertson Founder and CTO, Newmerix
  
• Lucy Sanders Founder and CEO, National Center for Women & Information Technology
  
• Rajat Bhargava Chairman and CEO, StillSecure
  
• Jim Lejeal Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Oxlo Systems
  
• Sue Kunz Founder and CEO, Solidware Technologies
  
• Ryan Martens Founder and CTO, Rally Software Development
  
• Tim Miller CEO, Rally Software Development
  
• Ben Casnocha 18 Year-old Entrepreneur & Writer
  
• Seth Levine Managing Director, Foundry Group
  
• Don Loeb VP of Partner Services, FeedBurner
  
• Dan King Founder and CEO, ReadyTalk
  
• Lisa Rutherford Venture Partner, Vista Ventures
  

some of these have excellent blogs on startup life, challenges, success/failure, raising money (or not), failed ideas etc...



this is what the May-Aug months look like ..


Date          Session                   Speakers

05/21/07 TechStars Kickoff   -David Cohen

05/22/07 Talk it up: What we're building -"founders only"

05/24/07 How to start a startup -Brad Feld, Jared Polis, Brad Schell

05/28/07 Early stage: Breaking even -TBD

05/29/07 Tech session: Technologies platform debate (Java/PHP/Rails/.NET) -founders only

05/31/07 Know your market (go to market strategy, market validation, etc) -Wendy Lea

06/04/07 Early stage: Find your calling (visit Webroot, Inc.) -David Moll

06/05/072Tech session: My coolest tools -founders only

06/07/07 Starting off right (legal & financial issues) Paul Jerde, Gary Held, Michael Platt

06/12/07 Transparency - blog or die?- Alex King, Don Loeb

06/14/07 Financing your company -Brad Feld, Gary Held, Brian Makare

06/18/07 Growth stage: Bootstrapping (visit ZOLL Data Systems) -David Brown

06/19/07 Tech Talk: My best tricks -founders only

06/21/07 Technology infrastructure- Todd Vernon, Greg Reinacker

06/21/07 People Power: Recruiting and timing your next hires- Terry Gold

06/25/07 Growth stage: Scaling the company (visit NewsGator) Brad Feld, Greg Reinacker

06/26/07 Show off night: 1 month demos- founders only

06/28/07 What makes angels want to invest? -Panel of CTEK Angels

07/02/07 Growth stage: Surviving Massive Adoption (PhotoBucket) -Darren Crystal

07/03/07 Independent thoughts- founders only

07/05/07 Working with early adopters -Alex King

07/12/07 Nailing your elevator pitch -Panel

07/19/07 Exit strategies -Panel of VC's

07/26/07 Pitching to investors -Panel of CTEK Angels

07/30/07 Success stage: The acquisition (Sketchup/Google)- Brad Schell, Brian Makare, Mark Sawyer

07/31/07 Show off night: 2 month demos -founders only

08/02/07 PR & Buzz: Crank the machine- Panel

08/07/07 Pitch Practice: Would you invest in this company? -founders only

08/09/07 Term sheets: what you need to know- Panel of VC's

08/16/07 TechStars: Goodbye, "now go kick some ass" party -David Cohen

Note that the dates are in US format MM/DD/YY


More news and blog info here
and FAQ here
from the blog ....

We expect to have somewhere around 100 investors present, and it's by invitation only. Our companies will get about 30 minutes each with this audience to show off their stuff and pitch their ideas (we'll help you prepare for that, don't worry).

The investors will consist of angel investors with strong reputations, as well as top local (Colorado) and coastal VCs. We already have commitments from VCs in Boston, Silicon Valley, etc. to attend. There will be no shortage of all-star investors to look at the companies emerging from TechStars at the end of the summer.

....

Get going only 2 weeks left and you could be the lucky one (or ten!)

Lal