[bradhe]

I live in Berlin and am an active mentor with the Berlin program, too. I also participated in TS in the US, actually the Seattle program in 2016 with Chris DeVore (author of this post).

> it's kind of time consuming and I got the vibe that Techstars took my time a little too much for granted.

The Give First ethos applies here. If you approach TS with this mentality, you'll get more out of it.

> The promise of a great network (to both mentors and founders) is hard to live up to if you don't nurture that network.

I agree that, perhaps, there should be more, consistent events to bring the network together. For instance, in Seattle, we had regular mixers that were just at Startup Hall--swing by, grab a beer from the keg, and have a chat. Events pulling the network together don't have to be a heavy life.

But I think you also get out of it what you put into it: Again, give first, and follow up with folks and you'll get more out of it.

[jillesvangurp]

> The Give First ethos applies here.

That's the theory. I gave quite a lot of time to them first. There's just not a lot coming back in kind. Techstars seems a bit complacent about people giving them their time. But they are not a charity. So they've been cutting on giving back. From having talked to other mentors, the quality of the network used to be better when they were more engaged. Even the networking events seem to be very infrequent at this point and frankly the last few ones weren't great. Somehow that never recovered after COVID.

I still mentor BTW. Just not via Techstars.

[itsoktocry]

>The Give First ethos applies here.

Does that apply to TechStars themselves, or just the people donating their time?

[mc32]

In life it’s a two way, else it burns out. People will tire of “gimme”.

[rexreed]

Give first as a general mantra sometimes works. But in situations where you're constantly giving to new people who have never gotten anything from you before, and therefore want the same "give" that you gave the earlier people means that you never get to the return part. Instead you're always giving. New people come in, want the same give that you gave others, and then at some point you're not getting the return because those new people are placed with even newer people. This is the revolving door of give, and why the give first never results in the... what next? Give first, get later? A lot of times it's give, give, give, with no return, until you finally tire out.