Techstars is a startup accelerator that doesn’t require a long introduction. They’re consistently rated as one of the best accelerator programs in the world, investing in more than 500 companies per year and supporting entrepreneurs in every corner of the world with over 10,000 mentors and corporate partners.
Over the years, Techstars has incorporated Miro into its day-to-day operations. Miro helps facilitate their interactive meetings across every phase of the startup accelerator program, including brainstorming, product roadmaps, mentoring meetings, and even Techstars’ own internal processes.
Martin Olczyk, Managing Director in Turin, initially viewed Miro as the perfect addition for virtual meetings but soon realized the value of using Miro for in-person programs as well.
“Miro is a very user-friendly, easy to access, and collaborative tool that is much more than a digital whiteboard. We were able to integrate Miro from day one in our program successfully and will continue to use it in the future. For us, Miro is here to stay.”
Among the various use cases within the startup program, Olczyk was pleasantly surprised by how well Miro helped with both fundraising and hiring. Let’s take a closer look.
Miro helps investors ‘see’ the potential
Russian playwright Anton Chekhov famously said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” In other words, show, don’t tell.
During the fundraising phase, investors want to see your startup’s entire journey to understand its potential while also learning how you think as a founder. Techstars knows very well that you need more than a traditional pitch deck to get your story across. It takes a lot of planning and practice.
Olczyk explains, “The last month of the program is dedicated to fundraising. We work with the teams on pitch decks, financial models, fundraising strategy/roadmap, and investor pipelines. Founders learn how to fundraise properly, create the necessary documents, and learn how to handle investor meetings. We also invite VCs for office hours to practice with real investors.”
The key to getting investment is not to simply show a bunch of statistics. Founders must clearly explain the problem they plan to solve and how they’ll solve it. Getting the story right is paramount, which is why Techstars startups spend a ton of time brainstorming and planning even before they think about setting up fundraising meetings.
Olczyk adds, “We use Miro for pre-planning meetings with the teams. It makes it easy to brainstorm their fundraising ideas, map out VCs and angel investors, create a pipeline, and manage it across several team members, mentors, and the Techstars staff. We also use Miro to pin ideas for their storyline within the pitch deck. It is easy and transparent for everyone to collaborate.”
The stakes could not be higher when it comes to pitching and selecting the right investors. With Miro, startups can put all the pieces together to visually craft and easily share their story.
Miro streamlines the hiring process
Believe it or not, many startups consider hiring to be more challenging than fundraising. Hiring requires smart planning and selling. And getting it wrong can be costly.
Techstars has helped thousands of startups fine-tune their hiring process and applied their knowledge to develop hiring resources. Their toolkits help startups find the best talent, interview properly, and make the right offers.
During the hiring process, all the decision-makers must see the same candidate information and share their opinions in one place for all to see. Techstars found they could use Miro o bring everyone together in a virtual workspace to review candidates.
According to Olczyk, “Miro is used to streamline the interview process. We use it to create a hiring funnel for everyone to see, and each participant can add notes during the interviews and share them with team members across the globe so we receive feedback quickly.”
Miro centralizes candidate hiring discussions. By visualizing the hiring process, the decision-makers can weigh in while reviewing the same video recordings, notes, and background info.
“Depending on the company’s roadmap,” adds Olczyk, “startups can create hiring profiles while integrating them within the company journey.” When the team can see how their hiring plan fits into the broader startup story, they can make better decisions.
Crafting your startup story
Your startup doesn’t have to be in an accelerator program for you to craft your investor story or fine-tune the hiring process. Miro has pre-built startup canvases for you to start working on now.
Some final thoughts from Olczyk: “Miro is the best tool to map your ideas, build pipelines, structure your processes, and share with your teammates. Covid forced us to run the program fully virtually. Miro not only replaced the traditional whiteboard, but provided much more value to our staff, the teams, mentors, and partners.”
