Techstars Universe

Techstars Universe on Discord fostered a global community of founders, mentors, and Techstars staff, enabling real-time collaboration and peer support. We facilitated networking, AMAs, support loops, and resource sharing to help entrepreneurs navigate their startup journeys. By curating discussions and engagement initiatives, we scaled the community and strengthened connections across the Techstars ecosystem.

As the Community Manager, I led initiatives that scaled the community userbase by 900%, improving engagement through structured programming, creating relationships, and listening to the founders. In addition, I created our community annual strategy just before layoffs occurred, approved by senior management and executives.

Key Achievements

1️⃣ 🚀 Scaled the Community by 900%

  • Began working on Techstars Universe with just over 300 users, and grew to over 3,500 users in our time.

  • Implemented onboarding workflows and automated engagement tracking to retain new members.

3️⃣ 📢 Created a High-Impact Newsletter with an 18% CTR

  • Designed and launched a Techstars Universe newsletter to highlight top discussions, upcoming events, and valuable startup resources.

  • Achieved an 18% click-through rate (CTR), well above industry standards for community-driven emails, and highest CTR in the company.

2️⃣ 📈 Increased Active Participation & Engagement

  • Grew Techstars Universe from a small, underutilized Discord server into a high-engagement community.

  • Implemented onboarding workflows and automated engagement tracking to retain new members.

4️⃣ 🧐 Leveraged Extensive User Research

  • Led qualitative and quantitative research to understand the needs and pain points of founders, mentors, and staff.

  • Conducted 1:1 interviews, surveys, (75+ total founders) and leveraged data analysis to refine engagement strategies and improve the community experience.

Growth Strategy

📢 1. Built a Scalable Onboarding & Retention System

  • Designed a seamless onboarding process that introduced new members to key channels, resources, and networking opportunities. We worked directly with engineering to leverage accelerator data to bind certain datapoints to private Discord roles, creating a personalized experience on user-join.

  • Automated welcome messages, role assignments, and guided introductions to encourage participation from day one. Based on our findings with Discord being a difficult platform to learn, it was important to listen to our users, and build an onboarding flow that points users in the proper direction.

🌍 2. Leveraged Existing Networks for Rapid Expansion

  • Partnered with Techstars accelerators, mentors, and program managers to Integrate Techstars Universe into official Techstars programs, making it a key part of the founder experience. Integration of Discord is crucial to the accelerator experience. Having access to community ensures support at any point, and a longer period of time to learn how to use the platform properly.

🎟️ 3. EVENTS!!

  • Organized live networking sessions, online demo days, pitch practice with Investment Managers, AMAs with David Cohen, and weekly community events to provide founders with real-world value.

  • Partnered consistently with Education team, Mentorship team, Perks partners, Techstars MDs, and industry experts for exclusive events, fireside chats and investor Q&As.

  • Created a structured event pipeline, ensuring regular engagement touchpoints that encouraged ongoing participation.

  • Encouraged community-run events

📊 4. Implemented Data-Driven Community Optimization

  • Conducted ongoing user research, surveys, and analytics reviews with over 75 users to refine engagement tactics. In addition, conducted casual research with hundreds of founders through DMs, casual events, and outside platforms.

  • Used Discord analytics and engagement tracking paltforms to identify active vs. inactive members and adjust outreach strategies.

  • Measured and iterated on key metrics: Weekly Active Users (WAUs), Monthly Active Users (MAUs), retention rates, and discussion participation.

🛠 5. Built Active Support System

  • Guided Responses & Training Materials: Created a library of structured responses, support videos, and training modules to address common challenges and ensure smooth onboarding.

  • Live Support Sessions: Hosted real-time interactive sessions to assist founders facing platform-related challenges, fostering a hands-on, problem-solving environment.

  • Scalable Knowledge Base: Built a centralized resource hub to ensure ongoing accessibility of critical information, reducing friction and improving user experience across the community.

Challenges & Lessons Learned

📢 1. Is Discord the Right Platform for Founder Communities?

One of the top complaints in our focus groups was that Discord was unprofessional. The majority of our active users already had Discord experience, or were apart of the gaming community prior.

Pros

  • Real-time interaction & engagement – Great for fostering quick discussions and networking.

  • Community-driven culture – Encourages peer-to-peer support and casual founder interactions.

  • Customizable channels & roles – Allows segmentation of discussions and user management.

Cons

  • Not optimized for professional networking – Unlike LinkedIn, Slack, or private platforms such as BetterMode, Discord lacks professional context and structured knowledge sharing.

  • High noise-to-signal ratio – Conversations can become chaotic, and unstructured making it hard for founders to find valuable insights.

  • Retention issues – Learned from our interviews, many founders join but don’t stay active due to the platform’s gaming/casual-first design (especially woman founders). In addition, the learning curve on Discord is significantly more difficult than other platforms.

🎯 Key Takeaway: While Discord worked for Techstars Universe in its early growth phase, we found that founders preferred platforms with more structured discussions, better long-term content discovery, and a stronger professional network focus.

2. 📉 The Fragmentation Problem

When a community exists across multiple platforms (e.g., Discord, Slack, Techstars Universe website), members become scattered and engagement drops.

  • Observation: Some founders preferred Discord for casual conversations, while others engaged more on accelerator Slack/Whatsapp communities or email—leading to siloed discussions.

  • Observation: Users had to receive an invite, navigate Techstars Universe, find a banner to sign up for Discord, join the community, and then learn how to use the platform—all before they could even introduce themselves.

  • Observation: The core value of Techstars Universe—Perks, Investor Connections, Mentor & Alumni Networks—was housed on the Techstars Universe website, while discussions happened separately on Discord and Slack. As a result, many founders didn’t see immediate value in engaging with the community because the most useful resources were elsewhere.

  • Observation: Founders faced challenges in discovering events and fully understanding the core value of the community due to the existence of two separate entities: the "Techstars Universe website" and the "Techstars Universe Community," which created numerous support tickets, emails, confusion and lacked alignment.

🎯 Key Takeaway: A community cannot thrive if its core value and discussions are fragmented across multiple platforms. When users must navigate multiple steps just to engage—and when the most valuable resources are housed separately—engagement suffers. To foster real participation, communities must integrate their core value directly into the engagement platform, ensuring immediate and seamless access to what matters most. In addition, founders are seeking an easy path to find resources, and solutions to problems that are happening RIGHT NOW. Having immediate support and resources for our founders is crucial.

Conclusion: The Success & Untapped Potential of Techstars Universe

Techstars Universe proved that a global startup community can be a powerful force when founders, mentors, and investors come together in a shared space. Through structured programming, engagement initiatives, and founder-driven conversations, the community grew by 900%, connected thousands of entrepreneurs, and became a valuable hub for networking and learning.

However, challenges in platform fragmentation, onboarding complexity, and value disconnect limited engagement and long-term retention. The core value—Perks, Investor Connections, and Mentorship—existed separately from community discussions, making it harder for members to see immediate value in participating. This represents a major opportunity to centralize resources, streamline access, and create a seamless experience that maximizes engagement.

In addition to post-accelerator operations, which Techstars Universe was initially targeting, Techstars also has a massive and growing ecosystem of founders through programs like Startup Weekend, the soon-to-launch Techstars Colorado, Rising Stars, Founder Catalyst, and more. This presents an incredible opportunity to expand the community beyond alumni founders, creating a truly interconnected global network of entrepreneurs at every stage of their journey. By bridging these programs together under a unified engagement strategy, Techstars can foster deeper connections, provide ongoing support, and empower founders in ways never seen before.

Despite the challenges, the potential for Techstars Universe is immense. By refining platform strategy, embedding value directly into the community, and continuously iterating on engagement, Techstars Universe has the foundation to become the most impactful startup community in the world. With the right improvements, it can not only support founders but accelerate their success at a scale no other community can match. 🚀