Top 75 Quotes & Sayings by David Cohen

Part of the thing that's magic about TechStars is it's about a community that wants to make itself better.

Twilio is a great example of a company executing tremendously well on its vision and delivering a beautiful set of products that solves real problems.

If you're pitching to investors for the first time and expecting them to be so blown away by how thoroughly amazing your pitch is that they write a check on the spot - well, prepare to be disappointed.

Meetings with no goal, also known as 'coffee shop' meetings, can be huge time wasters if you're not efficient with them. 'Always know why you're meeting, and make sure it's important - try to keep them to 30 minutes, max.

Strong community and mentorship are the lifeblood of any successful entrepreneurial ecosystem, and it's exciting the Boulder is showing the world just what sort of impact these things can actually have.

I've done a bunch of consulting; I've actually spent time in Singapore, England, Denmark, all over.

Clearly, there is a gender imbalance when it comes to venture capital and entrepreneurship.

The two big startup killers are when there's just no market for what you are doing, and team problems.

Techstars has done a great job accelerating and providing venture capital to the most promising companies to make the biggest long-term economic impact.

Because Techstars is an intensely productive three-month program in which product development and iteration are primary goals, we're constantly looking to streamline our program to help entrepreneurs avoid recurring obstacles.

The future is going to happen in Toronto or Berlin or Bengaluru and not necessarily in the Valley.

The Internet is full of choices, and nobody is going to make the choice to use a product that is hard to use or unattractive.

I've just always been interested in moving past the keyboard and mouse.

I think just calling up a VC and saying 'I want to pitch you' is an enormous waste of time.

I think there are ways that perhaps organic partnerships can occur in local geographies with groups that are extremely focused on their communities. That's really how Techstars began, as a grassroots movement in Boulder, Colo., that happened to catch fire and expand around the world.

Entrepreneurship transparency, I think, is important because there are so many problems that you just have to be real about them. There are so many ways for a startup to die, so the transparency attitude is key.

If you're not working on something you're passionate about, it's a long, hard road.

Company naming is a key part of the branding process, but it's subject to contrasting tastes and an illiquid domain name market that results in startups wasting their time during the branding process.

San Francisco is a great startup community that you shouldn't even try to model yourself after because it's just special.

Quality and a great product matters, in startups, and in accelerators.

There are not enough female VCs in an industry so traditionally dominated by males. There are not enough female mentors who are actively engaged with female founders. We need women VCs and entrepreneurs to stand up, get loud, and help guide their peers.

Deciding whether or not to bring in an outside CEO is one of the most gut-wrenching decisions that a founder will ever need to make.

Our goal is simply to make entrepreneurship more accessible to everyone around the world throughout the entrepreneurial journey, from inspiration to IPO.

Ultimately, we measure ourselves on the success of our investments.

There will always be a capital shortage from the perspective of entrepreneurs.

If I'm an entrepreneur and I have an idea, and I don't have the development talent around me but I need to find a developer, I would do my selection just like I would with hiring an employee.

My attitude is there are at least hundreds of interesting startups that are going to get going in every year.

I had done six or eight traditional angel investments and basically just thought it sucked.

Focusing on the right priorities can help you do more faster.

Twitter needs to become more of a platform on the web. If Twitter went away today, people would just turn to Facebook. If Facebook went away, people would start screaming - it's so universal.

TechStars is mentorship-driven.

The rise of digital technologies has eroded boundaries: Anyone can participate, start a business, and reach a global audience.

For most people, their home is their most valuable asset. Yet most of us don't take care of it.

People look up to Techstars because they get funded by Techstars; they go through the accelerator. What we do impacts what they do. What we care about we hope has a meta impact on those entrepreneurs and how they think about the world.

Rules designed to ensure competition ensure that innovators with new ideas can challenge incumbents on a level playing field.

We've been publishing the TechStars data fully since the beginning on TechStars.com. For every single company, you can see if it's a failure, success, how much they raised. Entrepreneurs deserve that sort of transparency from accelerators, and it's not hard to do.

People are starting companies at young ages. They fail fast, learn a lot, and keep going.

What Techstars is fundamentally a global ecosystem in which entrepreneurs are enabled and empowered to bring new technologies to the market.

I'm often asked what it takes to be 'Series A ready' in terms of metrics, progress, and traction. Unfortunately, there's no easy answer.

The more you're real with people, and the more you let people help you, the more they get to understand how you operate as an entrepreneur. The stronger that relationship is, then the more likely there's a future together in that relationship.

I wish I had had more mentorship and more access, not only for capital, but the critical thinking.

Consumers have zero time for products that are not simple, intuitive, and attractive to use. This is especially true with Internet products, where clean and useful design is a prerequisite to keeping anyone on your site for more than 30 seconds.

I think entrepreneurs should demand transparency for startup accelerators.

You may have a small network, but growing that network has become easier with the use of social tools. LinkedIn, Conspire, even Facebook and Twitter allow you to grab branches that may have previously seemed out of reach.

We believe that startups can be built anywhere.

I think motivation and drive, coupled with raw talent, help make founders successful.

To have a diverse set of perspectives and backgrounds enables you to understand the market at large much more effectively.

Every year, it seems to be there are more people right out of college who are willing to jump into a start-up.

When fundraising, your network is critical. Leveraging it early and often is the key. Don't make the mistake of waiting until you need money to engage sources of capital.

Aspiring entrepreneurs are often advised to work at a startup for a couple of years first, to understand what's involved. But often, each company's approach to success is very narrow. So my advice is, 'Just do it.'

If you're in a squeeze for capital and you have a solid, mutually beneficial relationship with a VC, your chances of raising will increase dramatically.

I'm an investor in a lot of things that have to do with human-computer interaction.

Going public is one step in the life cycle of a company; it's not the last step.

In innovation, you're trying to create something from nothing.

When we talk about Techstars, we think of it as this worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed.

If you look at the history of innovation, the innovations coming through the defence department have been some of the most important innovations ever. Little things like drones, sensors, and the Internet of Things are defence-type initiatives, but the big one is the Internet itself.

We're pretty broad as investors. Our thesis is work with great entrepreneurs that believe they can change the world.

We're pretty broad as investors. Our thesis is work with great entrepreneurs that believe they can change the world. But there are specific areas that we get excited about - areas like hard tech, deep tech, companies that deal with really difficult technology, etc.

I think the best developers can learn any language; if they are a good developer, they can learn whatever. But the raw talent, the ability to learn it and do it and demonstrate the ability is helpful.

Techstars is truly global; you'll see us continue to expand all our programs worldwide, including accelerators, our venture capital, as well as the UP Global programs including Startup Weekend, Startup Next, Startup Digest, etc.