Techstars

Story

Techstars, a leading venture capital and accelerator program, understand the importance of mentorship. Techstars has a mentor madness event in each program where the startups and mentors come together individually and talk to each other. This part helps them to decide which startup or mentor they will choose for the rest of the program.

Techstars Payments powered by Stellar and MoneyGram class 2023 was selected on January 2023. These twelve companies are focused on innovative fintech solutions addressing gaps across the payments infrastructure in emerging and underserved markets.

• 1 Techstars team account
• 12 startup accounts
• 62 mentors account

744 unique mentor startup videos were analyzed from sessions over two weeks. Startups had 62 meetings each, and mentors had 12 meetings each.

Mentorship is the number one emphasis in this case study. The two users were startups and mentors. 744 20-minute-long mentorship sessions were analyzed. Meeting summarization and automated determination of next steps facilitated content tracking for every company. The Spiky platform enables easy review for lead-mentor selection with question records to show which questions kept popping up so startups could focus on those points.

Each session and participant has their own emotion, attention, and interaction score in the analysis. These scores provide objective feedback on the emotional state and level of engagement of meeting participants. Scores can also inform future meetings and interactions with selected mentee startups.

For the final step, using the Spiky tagging option, finding and accessing specific meetings or information from previous sessions becomes easier by grouping meetings. Users can also reach out to the insights of those tags. The insights include EQ collaboration scores to compare mentors and see which mentors were more interested in what they were building.

In the Techstars Payments 2023 program, mentors and startups have experienced a substantial increase in efficiency and effectiveness thanks to the integration of the cutting-edge automation technology of Spiky.

One of the most notable improvements has been implementing automated meeting review, note-taking, and to-do listing mechanisms. This revolutionary feature has led to an impressive 90% reduction in time spent on these administrative tasks. Participants can allocate their time and energy towards more impactful activities, such as strategic planning, product development, and relationship-building, by eliminating the need for manual note-taking and meeting summaries. They can focus on the human aspect of mentorship, the conversations.

Moreover, introducing meeting summaries and Spiky scores has brought a new level of sophistication to the mentorship process. These context-based EQ (Emotional Quotient) insights have been pivotal in elevating follow-up meeting productivity by a remarkable 20%. These summaries empower participants to engage more meaningfully during subsequent interactions by offering a comprehensive overview of discussions and emotional nuances. Additionally, the Spiky scores provide an insightful gauge of the overall conversation dynamics, enabling mentors and startups to tailor their approaches for enhanced collaboration.

The use of spiky has drastically changed my teams operations creating more efficiency, providing deeper insight, and enabling us to support our portfolio companies with an invaluable tool. I use spiky for mentor madness across all 3 of my accelerator programs and we continue to test more engagements that continue to solve our problems.

Tricia Martínez - Managing Director Techstars Chicago JP Morgan, Techstars

A noteworthy outcome of this technological integration has been the substantial enhancement in mentor-matching processes. Combining meeting summaries, Spiky scores, and context-based EQ insights have resulted in a more refined and practical mentor-matching experience. This improvement has facilitated more meaningful connections and paved the way for richer mentorship interactions, ultimately contributing to the growth and success of the startups involved.

The benefits extend beyond just mentorship dynamics. Incorporating Spiky's next-step and question-detection functionalities has yielded a 15% reduction in dropped connections and missed follow-up opportunities. This intelligent system ensures that essential action items and unresolved queries are systematically addressed, creating a seamless and efficient flow of communication and progress tracking.

The Techstars Payments 2023 program has harnessed the power of automation and advanced insights to revolutionize the startup mentorship experience. By streamlining administrative tasks, enhancing EQ-driven interactions, and optimizing mentor matching, this technological integration has not only saved time. It has also significantly amplified the overall impact and success of the program.