Today is @Techstars Demo Day! As I get pumped for today's pitches, I've been thinking about what I gained from Techstars that I didn't expect. 1. Techstars taught me how to run a rigorous fundraising process. This means not doing a bunch of ad-hoc calls and instead building an investor pipeline with volume. 2. A successful fundraise means combining the Techstars network with your own. People assume Techstars gives you access to a huge network of investors and that's where the raise comes from. Yes, that's helpful but you can actually leverage the people you already know who are on your journey for your fundraise. 3. There's no shortcut to building a pipeline. It's manual gritty work and just takes sitting down and looking up intros. 4. The peer group from my Techstars classmates has had an enormous impact on my business and my ability to enjoy the journey. Although I had great support before Techstars, I now have a group of peers that have full context on what I'm doing and the challenges I go through as a founder…3 years later we still meet every month. Tune in at 10am PT for Demo Day! lu.ma/techstarsanywheredemod…