One month ago, the TechStars Boulder 2011 program concluded with Demo Day, an event held at the Boulder Theater where the twelve participating teams pitched their businesses to a room full of investors. While the teams still have a ton of work to do despite the program being finished, my role is ending. The experience, however, was tremendous. I worked with the nicest people, aided in and witnessed the growth of innovative new startups, refined my own work, and made invaluable connections for the future. Now that summer is coming to an end, I thought I’d take some time to share what I learned during my time in TechStars Boulder 2011.

A Few of the More Important Lessons I Learned

Boldness is key.

Whether you’re a startup or a freelancer, making the right connections can make or break your success in the startup world. It follows that you need to be bold enough to make connections with those who might be of benefit.  If it turns out that they can’t directly help you, they might at least be able to introduce you to someone who can.

Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses, and learn those of others.

In a fast-moving environment, trying to tackle a project that’s above your head can eat up valuable time.  There’s no reason to attempt to do everything by yourself.  Instead, see if someone else is better qualified or if they can at least help you learn what you need to finish the job.

Don’t just be busy, be productive.

I would have to say that this is the most valuable lesson I learned this summer and one that others I’ve worked with need to improve upon the most.  In any business, it’s important to execute fast in order to get new product out, receive feedback from users, and fix the problems (i.e., use an iterative design process).  However, many seem to interpret this need as an obligation to always be doing work.  While it’s important not to be slacking off everyday, the type of work you accomplish makes a difference.  For a successful iterative design process, don’t waste time with small subtleties.  Focus on the features on which you need feedback and finish those.  After all, many smaller features might not even make it into your product because product evolution may prove them to be irrelevant.

Execution is more important than the idea.

Apple wasn’t the first to make an MP3 player, and Google wasn’t the first to build a search engine.  What I’m saying is that success is based less on the idea and more on how you execute it.  Team dynamics, product development, and every small or large decision you make all are a part of this how.  With that said, it’s important not to get overconfident about your idea and overlook the importance of the execution.

What I Learned About Myself

I still work best in coffee shops.

For some reason, even given my own desk in an office, I still work best in coffee shops.  I seem to do horribly with absolute quiet because it makes me want to fidget.  Coffee shops give me just the right amount of ambient distraction, as well as sunlight, to be able to delve into code for several hours.

I suck at networking, and it’s probably what I can improve upon the most.

Above I said boldness is key.  It really is.  Unfortunately, I’m a bit shy and really suck at it.  I was able to make a few connections, and those got me introductions to even more useful connections.  However, if I had reached out even more at the beginning, I would have made exponentially more connections, and who knows what other options I’d have on the table.

I love ping pong.

Pretty self-explanatory.  Whenever we needed a coding break at TechStars, the ping pong table was right there, and it grew on me throughout the summer.

Here is a handy little helper function that will truncate a string to the word closest to the set limit (in other words, it won’t truncate in the middle of a word). Even though it’s pretty simple, I’ve already used it in a few projects, so I thought it would be worth sharing. Feel free to improve it and/or rip it apart. If you see a change to be made, let me know by leaving a comment.

function truncate_str($string, $limit)
{
	if (strlen($string) <= $limit)
	{
		$string = $string; // Do nothing
	}
 	else
	{
		$string = wordwrap($string, $limit);
		$string = substr($string, 0, strpos($string, "\n"));
		$string .= "...";
	}
	return $string;
}

Update: Here’s an updated, condensed version of the above code.  It shortens the function and gets rid of some redundant lines (i.e., $string = $string).

function truncate_str($string, $limit)
{
    if (strlen($string) > $limit)
    {
    	$string = wordwrap($string, $limit);
      	$string = substr($string, 0, strpos($string, "\n"));
      	$string .= "...";
    }
    return $string;
}

It’s clear from looking at my last entry that it has been a long time since I’ve posted. My main priority has been finishing up university, and outside that, my free time has been devoted to work, some web side projects, photography, and enjoying the college years. However, now that I only have one semester of school left — one class, in fact — I’d like to refocus on my blog and expanding my presence on the web. I’ll go into details below, but this summer, I’m going to have lots of exciting things to write about, and, as before, I plan on sticking to four areas: tech, travel, photography, and random thoughts of mine.

So, an amazing opportunity has just recently come to me. I’m pleased to announce that this summer I’ll be participating in the TechStars Boulder 2011 program as a HackStar! For those not familiar with it, TechStars is a start-up accelerator program that helps new tech start-up companies get up and running through mentoring from Boulder’s amazing community of successful entrepreneurs and investors. As a HackStar, I will float among the eleven twelve participating start-ups, helping them develop and improve the web side of their businesses. My focus will be front-end development (i.e., user interface and user experience).

I’m extremely excited for this opportunity. Not only will I get to use and improve my skills while being part of something big, I’ll learn all about creating new start-ups, and I’ll make amazing connections that could come in handy if I ever launch my own (and I definitely do have some ideas!).

Besides TechStars, several concerts are on my schedule, including U2, Blues Traveler, Matisyahu, and Death Cab for Cutie. I’m also crossing my fingers that I’ll be able to head to Florida for the final launch of the Space Shuttle, tentatively scheduled for July.

That’s all for now. If you’d like to know what I’m up to until the next post, follow me on Twitter.