If you’re an automotive mobility startup, secure your spot to exhibit June 9-11th at the 2020 Detroit Auto Show (aka the North American International Auto Show).

Yes, this is June, NOT January. The show has moved to the warmer months. Even hotter is the increased exposure for startups that will have booths on the main floor, alongside automotive OEMs and suppliers.

→If you'd like to attend, APPLY NOW (select startup form) to secure your spot for $499. First come, first served — don't delay.

What you need to know

• Attend the 2020 Detroit Auto Show from June 9 (setup) through June 11 (teardown).
• The cost is $499 and there are only 50 startup spots available. Space is open on a first-come, first-served basis. The deadline for applications is April 30, 2020, or until all startup spots are confirmed and paid.
• All startup applications will be reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis. Once an application is approved, payment will need to be completed to secure the spot.
• Startup applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis starting March 2. Notifications will begin going out mid-March with payment due on receipt. Startups that fail to pay will vacate their spot to the next qualified startup.

Why I’m #LongDetroit and the Detroit Auto Show

As I wrote in a previous blog post, I’m #LongDetroit as the startup ecosystem continues to grow. I’m working closely with my friends (and Techstars mentors) Jake Sigal and Massimo Baldini. Together, we’re supporting PlanetM’s efforts to shape the future of mobility at the North American International Auto Show.

The move of the auto show to June is symbolic.

It’s a sign of the changing automotive industry and a sign of a changing Detroit.

Detroit is a magical place with tons of amazing things going on. Having the show in the summer will highlight all of the significant changes going on in Detroit. While you can certainly see them in the winter, it is much easier to experience them in the warm outdoors.

The last five years have shown the importance of Detroit in the future of mobility.

Silicon Valley did NOT beat Detroit. Detroit did NOT beat Silicon Valley.

Future Mobility = (manufactured steel) Detroit + Silicon Valley (serviced software)

That’s always been my perspective. We go further when we’re together.

What Startups Can Expect

The North American International Auto Show (aka the Detroit Auto Show) is one of the most prestigious auto shows in the world hosted in downtown Detroit. AutoMobili-D is the tech startup innovation part of the show. Last year, AutoMobili-D featured more than 180 startups, companies, and organizations, 5,101 journalists from 61 countries, and over 40,000 industry attendees.

New this year: all startups part of AutoMobili-D will be on the main show floor with access to all the OEMs and suppliers showing off their latest cars and tech.

For $499, your startup gets three days of booth space at the Detroit Auto Show with plug and play booths for easy setup. You also get access to the main show floor with all the OEMs and suppliers.

You also get access to:

• Kickoff Networking Event (June 9): Expand your network to include those leading the future of mobility.
• PlanetM Startup Pitch Competition (June 10): Pitch your startup in front of investors and industry professionals. Applicants must be an exhibitor to apply.
• PlanetM Mobility Awards (June 10): Gain recognition for your innovative mobility-focused platforms and technology. Applicants must be an exhibitor to apply.
• Startup Exhibit Space (June 10-11): Highlight your latest technology innovations in the AutoMobili-D Powered by PlanetM exhibit area, featuring more than 200 mobility and startup companies.
• Match Meetings (June 11): Connect with corporate OEM, suppliers, and investors through one-on-one match meetings curated and facilitated by PlanetM.

Today, I start my next adventure in startup investing - I’m the new Managing Director of the MetLife Digital Accelerator powered by Techstars. The program will run this summer on MetLife’s Global Technology Campus outside of Raleigh-Durham, NC.

My objective is to give the startups I invest in tremendous support in acquiring customers and fundraising from investors.

If you’re a founder that wants to work with me and gain inside access to the leaders at MetLife, then this is the program for you. Read on to learn more about my investment thesis or skip to the bottom for how to learn more about the program and apply.

My Mental Model for Investing in Startups

I’m excited to expand my network to the emerging startup market of Raleigh-Durham while keeping my roots in my hometown of Detroit. I’ve learned a lot over the past 10 years operating in San Francisco and Detroit, and I’m excited to bring these learnings to North Carolina with me — and see what new things I can learn, too.

I’ve been a Managing Director at Techstars for over 5 years. During this time, I’ve talked to over 1000 startups around the globe. These conversations have led me to make 54 investments in founders from 11 different countries. I’ve witnessed founders’ perception of doing business in an emerging market, like Detroit, change from negative to positive. I’m excited to bring this mentality with me to Raleigh-Durham.

Early-stage startup investing is my 生き甲斐 (Ikigai), a Japanese concept for the reason for being. I have 5 guiding principles that shape my mental framework for startup investing. Ultimately, for me, this all comes down to my 1:1 relationship with each founder.

1. Transparency builds trust
2. Empathy creates authentic human connections
3. Synergy leads to better results when the sum is greater than the parts
4. Networks grow exponentially exposing hidden opportunities
5. Curiosity leads to improvement and breakthroughs

Here’s how I’m using these 5 guiding principles in my next chapter of startup investing with the team at MetLife.

01: Transparency — Expanding My Investment Thesis

I’m obsessed with venture funds that have a clear investment focus. They show conviction, clarity of thought, and don’t waste founders’ time when there isn’t a fit.

Throughout my tenure as a Managing Director at Techstars I’ve been investing in technologies that impact how people and goods move around, across industries. Historically, I was all about “make and move” — but something was missing for me.

Over a recent conversation with one of my personal mentors, I found the clarity I was seeking. The missing piece was centered around the impact those technologies have in our lives.

As a result, I’ve updated my investment thesis to be:

Technologies that have a positive impact on life. From how technologies make things, to how technologies change how things and people move, to how technologies manifest in our daily lives.

Or, in a more abbreviated way:

Technologies that “make, move, and manifest” impacting life positively.

What we’re looking to invest in for the 2020 Class of the MetLife Digital Accelerator powered by Techstars

For this program, I’ll be focusing on the “manifest” component of my thesis. For me, “manifest” is any startup building solutions that improve quality of life, with a holistic view on how everything is interconnected. Working closely with MetLife, a few of the sub-themes of this thesis include (but are certainly not limited to):

• Employee Engagement: Solutions to create on-going and personalized touchpoints, content, and interactions with employees through employee benefits and financial wellness
• Expertise On-demand: Flexible and scalable solutions that provide on-demand, localized or virtual human expertise/guidance/aid to consumers
• Financial Personalization: Solutions that capture significant information about an employee to understand financial behavior and/or provide personalized education and recommendations related to financial decisions, management, and benefits
• Life Stage Product Packages: Solutions for different life stages delivered through the employer/worksite around benefits, financial planning and management (i.e. student loan repayment, early wage access, retirement products, new parent solutions)
• Behavioral Health: Workplace solutions to aid the employer in managing employee behavioral health (i.e. prevention, education, support, retention, claims management, return-to-work) with an emphasis on mental health

02: Empathy — I’m Relocating Too

The MetLife Digital Accelerator powered by Techstars runs in Cary, North Carolina from July 13 to October 8. As a founder, committing to take part in a 90-day program can be grueling. There’s a clear start and end date, and everything in the middle seems like a race to the end. Compounding this fact, many founders often relocate from around the world to participate. It’s a lot to ask a founding team to commit to a relocation for 90 days to work on their business. This can be very hard on founders, especially ones that are parents (I’m a dad with 4 kids under the age of 5, I can relate 😃)

Putting the human first, above their startup, and above the program, is my approach. For this program, I’m taking it one step further. I too, like many founders, will be relocating for the duration of the program. I’m taking my family and 4 kids with me to a place I’ve never lived. While I’m still passionate about my hometown of Detroit, I’m excited to explore the emerging startup market of Raleigh-Durham, immerse myself in a new area and build deep bonds and new relationships with founders and members of this thriving community. New environments unhinge old habits and thought patterns as our brain neurons rush to build new connections. I look forward to the mental upgrade.

03: Synergy — MetLife Supporting Startups to Succeed

This is my favorite principle. It ties into my personal strengths of “strategy” and “futurism” according to my ‘StrengthFinders’ test. I invest in founders building synergistic relationships that drive 1+1=3 results. With the MetLife Digital Accelerator powered by Techstars, there is an entirely new level to this.

10 startups from around the world will have deep access across MetLife. MetLife’s goal is to establish relationships with startups that leads to real results. John Geyer, MetLife’s Chief Innovation Officer, describes this process for startups as akin to a “Pilot E-ZPass” to start pilots and POCs with MetLife.

Successful Outcome = Internal access to corporate knowledge + an optimized process to have MetLife as a customer

This type of relationship can transform a startup’s trajectory. While not guaranteed for any startup in the program, the intent is to create as much synergy as possible. And that synergy gives the startups in the MetLife Digital Accelerator opportunities to enhance their fundraising and succeed in the market against competitors.

04: Networks — Connecting the Dots to Uncover Opportunities

Metcalfe’s law states the value of a network exponentially grows with each addition.

For me, this applies in two areas:

1. People—Expanding my personal network of startups, investors, industry execs, and mentors
2. Ideas—Expanding my investment focus into an entirely new area

I previously had a successful exit as CTO and cofounder of a startup. During this time, I built up my network in San Francisco. When I moved to Detroit, I saw my network grow exponentially. Driving this growth was the combination of my networks: San Francisco + Detroit. Important regional networks that attracted people from all around the world. This combination turned into a differentiator: uniqueness. I was embedded in an emerging market with a defined thesis aligned with corporate industry insight. This led to global exposure that drove (and continues to drive) a range of opportunities.

This uniqueness led to me to uncover my own personal mission: to change entrepreneurs’ perspective of doing business in emerging and underserved markets. As we go out to source startups for the 2020 year of the accelerator, we are leveraging networks as an advantage. To support this effort, I’ve brought on two amazing individuals to bring diversity and their networks to help us find the best startups in the world.

• John Emery(Founder-in-Residence) has been working with founders to untangle the byzantine world of insurance since 2013 when he started AAA’s venture capital group (now Avanta Ventures). He invests in relationships vs. companies and his superpower is bridging the startup-corporate gap, helping founders uncover opportunities to build differentiated and durable businesses. John is based in San Francisco.
• Tapan “Tops” Kataria(Associate /Entrepreneur-in-Residence) has been working with founders across 3 Techstars programs. He has served as Director of Backstage Capital investing in 24 diverse founding teams across 4 cities (Los Angeles, London, Philadelphia, and Detroit). He runs an angel investment group and is a Venture Partner at Venture Catalysts, a non-profit focused on building inclusive startup ecosystems in emerging markets. He splits his time between New York City and Detroit and you can learn more at iamtops.com.

05: Curiosity — Time to Breakthrough

If you’re a startup that has read this far—or maybe an investor or mentor—then keep following your curiosity. It’s time to find that breakthrough and this program might be exactly what you’re looking for.

To learn more and apply to be in the 2020 MetLife Digital Accelerator powered by Techstars:

• Watch this previously recorded AMA to learn more about the program and MetLife’s involvement by clicking here.
• Click here to request office hours to have 1:1 time to start a relationship with me and the program team.
• Ready to apply? Click here to start your application and make sure to finish it before the deadline of April 5.

I love talking to founders and learning about them and their businesses. I let my curiosity lead me and I’m always surprised at what I find. Perhaps your startup will be next!

— Massive thanks to Gretchen Knoell, Jake Sigal, Brad Johnson, and Ali Donnermeyer for providing valuable feedback to this blog post. Feedback make life better!

If you’ve read the news, it’s been covered here (TechCrunch), here (Wired), here (Automotive News), and here (Crain’s Business). Mentors, investors, supporters, and friends have all emailed their condolences and best wishes. The magnitude of the response is humbling.

To everyone: I’m not going anywhere. In fact, I’m going to keep doing what I’ve always been doing.

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

As the Techstars Detroit Accelerator winds down, I’m still very bullish on Detroit’s startup ecosystem.

From my perspective, the experimental Techstars Detroit Accelerator (yes, 6 years ago we had no idea if this would work) was exceedingly successful. Mission accomplished.

My mission running the accelerator was to break down silos, connecting startups around the world to the Industry of Detroit. To embrace diversity of people and ideas. To build synergistic relationships throughout the industry and help startup founders succeed. To accelerate founders’ learning of the Industry of Detroit. To accelerate metro-Detroit’s engagement and exposure to more startups.

The Detroit ecosystem has blossomed over the last 5 years. There is a massive opportunity in industry-agnostic mobility (more than just automotive). The impact of the Techstars Detroit Accelerator over the last 5 years has exceeded all expectations.

So why did the Techstars Detroit Accelerator shutdown?

1. The program could not secure enough corporate funding to continue in 2020. Corporate Innovation in the automotive mobility industry has changed greatly in the past 5 years. Startup accelerators, while once a necessity that seemed to come standard with any innovation strategy, now seem to be more of an optional luxury addition.
2. Senior leadership at Techstars shut down the program due to this lack of funding. Every startup is an experiment to find a sustainable business model. Techstars is still a startup on that journey and loss-producing programs don’t help (no matter how successful).

Despite the program shut down, my day-to-day is the same. I’m continuing to do what I’ve been doing since I moved to Detroit 8 years ago.

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.
— Robert Louis Stevenson

• My mission is the same: to change entrepreneurs’ perception of doing business with the Industry of Detroit. When I say “Industry of Detroit” I’m using this to describe the vast resources across Michigan and the Midwest. Detroit is an iconic American city that connects these resources and represents this mindset well.
• My approach is the same: to break down silos, connecting dots to improve the collision of ideas and thoughts that spark growth.
• My work is the same: I’m staying at Techstars as Managing Director investing in startups. I’m still investing in passionate founders around the world.

The First Wave of Mobility Startup Innovation

The Techstars Detroit thesis was simple: investing in technologies that change how people and goods moved around. In fact, the blog post I wrote was one of the first posts describing it so simply.

The mission: to transform Detroit’s startup ecosystem by connecting startups, mentors, investors, and corporations around the world to the Industry of Detroit.

We announced the Techstars Detroit Accelerator on December 11, 2014. That was the same day Detroit exited the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Mobility was not a buzzword yet. In fact, many were puzzled by the decision to call it mobility and not “connected car”. Bill Ford in March 2011 gave a TED talk that mobility was more than just making cars. His fund, Fontinalis Partners, based in Detroit, was the first fund dedicated to mobility startups around the world. It was no surprise they were hugely supportive of helping get Techstars Mobility Detroit off the ground.

The word “mobility” really didn’t become a buzzword till GM’s acquisition of Cruise in March 2016. And overnight, automotive mobility startups were the new overnight craze.

From my perspective, this event sparked the first wave of mobility startups.

Automotive OEMs, suppliers, and investment funds were popping up left and right to tap into the mobility goldrush.

Silicon Valley believed its software was going to eat Detroit’s steel for lunch.

Headlines read Can Ford Turn Itself Into a Tech Company? and Silicon Valley Dominating Self-Driving Tech? Motor City Says Not So Fast.

The Techstars Detroit Accelerator benefited from this period of time. Corporate innovation budgets were growing and money was flowing.

Times were good.

The Second Wave of Mobility Startup Innovation

Then 2019 hit. And the entire automotive mobility industry shifted course. The hype and easy money were drying up as reality sank in. The future seemed farther away then the hype made it out to be.

Unlike GM’s acquisition signaling a goldrush, the industry is more fragmented than ever. In aggregate, I believe we are entering the second wave of mobility startup innovation.

From my perspective, there are 4 drivers changing automotive mobility and rippling out to the edges:

1. The Uber IPO: This defining moment made it clear how hard it is to make money with new mobility services. Eventually, any business is subject to the core premise: make money or shutdown.
2. Autonomy hit the trough of disillusionment: In 2019, autonomy hit the trough of disillusionment found in the Gartner Hype Cycle. Autonomy is certainly coming, but just not as soon as the PR hype was making it out to be.
3. The rise of Tesla: Investors seem to be quite bullish that the future is electric. So does the public with the response to anything Tesla does. This company has made electric cars a desire and the rest of the industry is chasing to catch up.
4. Slowing automotive sales: If the whispers around the industry and news are right, auto sales are heading down even more in 2020 and beyond. The cash fueling a lot of this innovation is being rerouted to save core businesses.

The result of these events?

Silicon Valley didn’t beat Detroit. Rather, the inverse became the headline: Detroit is kicking Silicon Valley’s ass in the race to build self-driving cars

Corporate strategies started shifting to maintain core revenue streams as a priority.

The easy money for corporate innovation experiments was drying up and being repurposed.

I saw this first hand as we were securing corporate partners in early 2019 for our 2020 program. The conversations were the same – the value was there – but the budgets were smaller or non-existent.

This created a gap in funding for the program.

And unfortunately, that gap was wide enough to shut the program down.

I’m Still Investing to Help Founders Succeed

I’ve been investing in startups for the past 10 years. 8 of those years I’ve lived in Detroit. And I plan to continue doing the same going forward.

My friend and mentor, McKeel Hagerty summed it up best:

Sorry to hear this news, but TechStars Detroit’s impact will live on through the dozens of startups it helped. Congratulations to Ted Serbinski on a job well done.
— McKeel Hagerty, quote source

A humbling remark that distills the essence of the Detroit Mobility Accelerator program: to help founders succeed.

That’s why I’m continuing to support the AutoMobili-D exhibit at the 2020 North American International Auto Show. To help founders succeed with working with the Industry of Detroit.

And to continue my mission to change founders’ perception of doing business with the Industry of Detroit.

To continue to reach more founders, I’ll continue to do what I’ve always been doing: invest in world-class founders making the world a better place.

To do so, I’m expanding my investment thesis: technologies that improve life from how things are made and move to how they manifest in our daily lives.

That last part “how they manifest in our daily lives” is what I’ll be focused on investing in next. Details on that in a future blog post.

— Special thanks to Jake Sigal for reviewing this blog post in advance.

At the beginning of 2019, Techstars Mobility transformed to Techstars Detroit.

The word “mobility” was becoming too limiting to attract world-class founders. I wanted to reach a broader audience of entrepreneurs who may not label themselves as mobility but still fit my thesis for the future.

My thesis expanded from the movement of people and goods to:

Investing in technologies bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds.

This thesis is a superset of the technologies transforming all sorts of industries like transportation, automotive, manufacturing, agriculture, and healthcare.

As Matt Burns from TechCrunch put it succinctly, “Mobility is baked into Detroit, but Detroit is more than mobility.”

No longer is Detroit telling the world how to move.
The world is telling Detroit how to move. — Ted Serbinski

And that’s what Techstars Detroit is all about.

The 2019 Class of Techstars Detroit

• Airspace Link (Detroit, MI)
  Developing highways in the sky for safer drone operations.
• Alpha Drive (New York, NY)
  Solving the challenge of how do you determine driver risk when the driver is an AI.
• Le Car (Novi, MI)
  An AI-powered personal car concierge that matches you to your perfect vehicle.
• Octane (Fremont, CA)
  Octane is a mobile app that connects car enthusiasts to automotive events and to each other out on the road.
• PPAP Manager (Chihuahua, Mexico)
  A platform to streamline the approval of packets of documents required in the automotive industry to validate production parts.
• Ruksack (Toronto, Canada)
  Connecting travelers with local travel experts to help them plan a perfect trip.
• Soundtrack AI (Tel Aviv, Israel)
  Machine learning technology to analyze the acoustic signature of mechanical assets (for example manufacturing machines, vehicle transmission or wind turbines) in order to monitor their operational state and predict maintenance issues in real time.
• Teporto (Tel Aviv, Israel)
  A simple one-click smart platform for managing commute shuttle services that seamlessly adapts routes and schedules to commuters’ needs on a daily basis.
• Unlimited Engineering (Barcelona, Spain)
  The next-generation OEM powertrain for micro-mobility. A patented modular battery architecture that allows unprecedented flexibility and compatibility across vehicles.
• Zown (Toronto, Canada)
  We help properties generate new revenue streams by renting out their curbspace and parking to mobility providers.

To get in touch with any of these startups, please send me a note and I’d be happy to connect you to them.

The #1 question I get asked by startups is “How can I work with the automotive mobility industry?”

It’s a hard question to answer and depends on the startup, the specific part of the industry, and the desired outcome.

I’ve wanted to blog on this topic for a while and write an answer I could refer startups to. Just my own perspective might be too limiting on this complex subject. So I decided to turn to a few friends and colleagues to help me frame a response that could be shared widely. This is the assembled crew of experts sharing their knowledge:

• Alisyn Malek, Co-Founder and COO of May Mobility, who have raised $33M to bring autonomous transportation to the public. They have automotive supplier partners including Magna to help bring their product to market.
• Lyden Foust, Co-Founder and CEO of Spatial.ai, who have raised $2.1M to build the world’s first human-driven location dataset. Customers include automotive companies like Ford and real estate companies like SiteZeus.
• Jay Ellis, Co-Founder and Lecturer of TechLab at MCity, where he’s helping 6 startups engage with over 55 corporations supporting the world’s first connected and automated vehicle testing facility.
• Ted Serbinski, Managing Director, Techstars Detroit, who has invested in 44 startups from 8 different countries that have raised over $90M. These mobility startups have built relationships with over 143 leading automotive and transportation organizations.

Watch the Live Discussion

Together, we recorded a webinar of us talking about these strategies in detail. We’ve also posted below a list of the 13 strategies for startups and some of the discussion points from the webinar. There are even more nuggets of wisdom in the webinar so give it a watch to learn even more.

Note: when we recorded this webinar, we only had 12 strategies. The concept of “why” came out of a question asked and we realized this was important enough to be its own strategy which we’ve added below.

Top 13 Strategies for Startups to work with Automotive Industry

1. Build multiple “lines” into corporation: champion, exec sponsor, and supporters

• In fishing, when you have more lines in the water, you can catch more fish
• The same is true with corporations, building multiple “lines” (e.g., relationships) into the organization
• At a minimum, a champion that will shepherd your deal through the org, an executive sponsor that can sign off on budget and make this a priority, and other supporters that can +1 the interaction
• The larger the org, the more relationships you need across business units

2. Remember, you’re a mouse dancing with an elephant

• Your startup is small and nimble, it’s a huge advantage
• But the corporation is large and slow and when it moves, it can crush you — whether on purpose or accidentally
• Understand your customer’s roadmap so that you’re able to understand how it compares to your company’s roadmap
• Do your homework and make sure that you understand where you can negotiate the process ahead of time (terms, milestone deliverables for payment, project coordination) vs where you might have to adapt to their business

3. Understand, timing is everything

• Management and strategy cycles change every 2-3 years, and in a race towards electrification, autonomy, and shift to software services, these cycles can change every 12-18 months
• Make sure you understand their process for planning and technology roadmap development.  You don’t want to find out they are ready to launch a new technology and realize that you missed the stage for qualification
• Time is on their side, not yours — eventually, your startup will run out of cash chasing the wrong corporation
• Read the book Never Split the Difference to learn to negotiate better (note: affiliate link)

4. Identify “sherpas” (aka mentors and investors) that can guide you early on

• Augment your own knowledge and fill gaps by learning from those that have already worked with corporations or that specific one you’re targeting
• Techstars Detroit is a mentorship-driven accelerate who’s main value prop is just that. The program is geared to accelerate a startups understanding of the industry and corporations facilitating 200+ meetings with industry insiders and investors, speeding up 2-3 years of biz dev into 2-3 months
• Lyden, from Spatial (a 2016 Techstars Mobility alum), goes on, “without our mentor, Jake Sigal (who sold his previous startup to Ford and has lots of experience working with big corporations), we would have not landed our first deal”

5. Build rapport with key stakeholders

• Network, network, network
• Spatial developed a super deep relationship with Ford and share insights:
• Proximity is important. If you don’t live near your customers, you need to fly there often. “Happenstance” and face to face meetings keeps your company top of mind and improves trust tremendously
• The quantity of meetings is important. There is a good chance there are many direct and indirect decision makers. The more meetings the better as long as you have the point #1 trifecta and are turning the corner
• Thought partnership is important. One very helpful thing with Spatial is we became very much thought partners with our Ford clients. We’d often talk about industry shifts, share ideas, etc. For us, this informed our product and informed some of the strategies Ford used
• Keeping in contact with a breadth of people in the company is important. Why? Because they eventually get promoted. Even if they aren’t a decision maker now, they are a decision maker somewhere in the future
• Start small, push for visibility. We started with a small project but were strategic about the type of visibility we could get within the company. This expanded the use of Spatial across three departments.
• Go where they go - study up on the people within the business that you want to meet and make sure you’re showing up at the same industry events.   CES is great to build awareness, but you don’t always get the full attention of all of the decision makers so targeting additional more sector-specific conferences to help cement relationships is a good idea.

6. Identify and define your value prop

• Always start with small projects to find a fit as you refine your value prop
• Understand how the corporation is incentivized to work with you. Big organizations can have multiple business units with different customer profiles and value props
• Check out the Value Proposition Canvas to learn more

7. Know how your customer can improve their bottom line with your offering

• Can your offering increase revenue or save costs? Either one can affect the bottom line in a positive way.
• The value equation that the customer is running in their head — if I buy this thing will I make more money on cars? For Spatial, their first project with Ford did not ultimately move forward into production with Ford because it was not obvious how furthering the tech would help them sell more cars. They are glad they did it, but ultimately it could have saved time and $$$ on both sides if they were honest with themselves about this earlier.
• Get out and learn, can you bring learnings earlier — maybe saving money or generating revenue in the long run but need small tests to validate thinking

8. Keep in mind, pilots aren’t always the validation you need

• Pilots can heat up or cool down depending on the impact on the business (e.g., see #7, if you can drive improvements to bottom line, it’ll add heat fast)
• Don’t focus on the wrong metric as a startup, pilots don’t always mean validation, it’s a way to learn usually more than a signal of a deep relationship
• One auto OEM we dug into ran 52 pilots in one year but only ended up working with 1 startup on a customer basis
• The auto industry has “cooled” off doing pilots since peaking with pilots in 2017. It turns out the majority of those pilots weren’t really tied to a business model improvement. Investors noticed too, demanding more demonstration the startup has a business model versus just a technology
• Do your homework and make sure you know if the group doing the pilot is the group that would bring your technology into production, if not, then you need to decide what other value that pilot brings if it won’t bring long term business. Make sure to understand how the group you’re working with is related to groups that are responsible for production. Get the introduction to the production group and keep them updated on the work you’re doing with the pre-production group.

9. Hire someone with deep automotive industry experience

• If you are selling into the auto industry, having someone with credibility that knows the lingo will go a long way for early acceptance
• This person can help your startup navigate more quickly and adapt your internal sales materials to resonate with industry experts
• Remember that expertise does not replace learning. Someone with deep experience may be able to learn and adapt faster but it’s rarely just an experience issue but a combination
• For startups, this is another great reason to consider Techstars Detroit: if you don’t have that person yet, Techstars Detroit can give you an education in the lingo and business processes as well as get you to a place where you are credible through the automotive industry.

10. Avoid pitfalls of the legal process that can derail the relationship

• NDAs can offer a veil of protection but proceed with caution. Just because an NDA is signed or even not signed, doesn’t mean your technology or unique insight can’t be duplicated by the corporation
• Sometimes you’ll be negotiating with their lawyers, who just put boilerplate language in every contract - don’t take it too personally when the contract basically says if you work with us we own you. Definitely push back on some of those items. Your champion wants you to land the deal.
• Think what are we trying to accomplish and what we are bringing to the table. Focus then on the jointly owned IP.
• Understanding how the industry works can help you set up a framework (see #9 above)
• Pick and choose what you are willing to relent on, but be conscious of what the trade-off now could mean in 12 months
• Make sure you run the contract by another supplier who has landed deals in the past, you want your deal to scale across corporate customers, not be custom each time (though in the very beginning this may be the case as you refine your value prop and process)
• Make sure you have a great law firm that understands startups, large corporations, and bonus, the automotive industry nuances (yes those firms exist, usually multiple partners within that firm)

11. Remember, it is not done till the money is in the bank

• Anything can happen till money hits the bank
• One time, Ted was about to sign a major automotive OEM and needed one more signature to make official so money could be wired. That person was the CIO and was let go that day the signature was needed. The deal was lost and never recovered from.
• If your product offering is tied to production, most money won’t hit the bank till production starts

12. Identify the trifecta: budget, pain point, priority

• The most important thing. The rest becomes easy when you have all 3. If you only have 1 or 2 or part of 3, it’s a bigger uphill battle and you have to lean in more
• While at PolySync we found that our best partner/customer was one that we knew their pain point and roadmap in most detail. It felt as if we moved from being a supplier to, nearly, part of their internal organization. We showed that we understood a particular problem in great detail, we helped them understand additional problems they were going to face down the road, we gave them supporting arguments for this project budget to get approved, and laid the groundwork for subsequent projects that matched roadmaps.
• Is this a nice to have or a must have? As a startup, you need to quickly understand in detail a customer’s pain point and how urgently, or not, they need to solve that pain. If you find that a pain point isn’t that painful or it isn’t urgent move on. Those are the situations where the budget is likely earmarked or more easily negotiated.

13. Know your why

• Why do you want to work with this corporation? What good will come of the relationship?
• You can’t hit a target you’re not aiming for. You can’t build a great relationship unless you know in the first place why you want it (hint, it’s probably not validation, see #8 above)
• For more, read the book Start with Why (note: affiliate link)

Keep In Mind

YMMV — Your mileage may vary. We’ve tried to summarize key lessons that work most of the time in most situations. There is always nuance to everything but in our experience, these rules seem to play out year after year, corporation after corporation, startup after startup.

If we’ve missed something, leave a comment below.

If this was helpful, leave a comment too, this helps me figure out what future content to blog about as well.

Are you a startup looking to develop deep relationships across the automotive industry? Apply to be part of the 2019 Techstars Detroit class and receive $120k investment and access to 143+ leading automotive and transportation organizations.

Fill out an application by clicking here by Apr 7, 2019.

If you have questions about the program and how it might help you, request offers with the Techstars Detroit team here.

Today I’m excited to announce a massive transformation to the Techstars Mobility program—now called Techstars Detroit.

This marks the biggest change to the program since we launched it December 2014. Today we are:

• Renaming the program to the Techstars Detroit Accelerator and expanding its focus to invest in even more incredible founders (we’re still looking for mobility too)
• Opening startup applications today (startups click here to applybefore April 7), looking worldwide for founders building the future of mobility, manufacturing, or IoT, or who will benefit from the unique competitive advantages of being immersed in the growing Detroit startup ecosystem
• Welcoming new corporate partner Lear, who joins returning partners Ford, Honda, AAA, USAA, Nationwide, and PlanetM for the 2019 Detroit Accelerator program
• Relocating our office and program to the Lear Innovation Center in downtown Detroit, allowing us to strengthen our program and community impact
• Welcoming Kelly Kang as new Program Manager to co-run Techstars Detroit with myself

Techstars Mobility is now Techstars Detroit

The name change is a reflection of how the program has been investing since 2015 and a commitment to the Detroit startup ecosystem.

Since 2015, we have invested in 44 startups from 8 different countries. These startups are building transformational businesses across mobility, automotive, transportation, logistics, city infrastructure, manufacturing, IoT, and travel industries.

I defined mobility in this blog post as technologies and services that enable people and goods to move around more freely. This was a broad definition on purpose. We didn’t want to be too narrow in the types of startups we were looking for.

Over time though, it’s become clear that the word “mobility” means something very different depending on your context and industry. Instead of being broad, it was becoming too limiting. Too many startups were identifying as artificial intelligence or robotics, for example, instead of mobility. What once helped us find the best startups was now limiting our ability to attract and invest in the best founders.

The new name allows us to still continue investing in the best mobility founders around the world. But it also allows us to invest in founders in all of those ancillary supporting industries that Detroit happens to be great at too—like manufacturing and IoT.

The new name also allows us to support founders in entirely different industries that would benefit from the unique advantages of being in the Detroit ecosystem too. This is an exciting addition that I will dive into more detail in future blog posts.

Lear joins Detroit Consortium with Their Detroit Innovation Center

The evolution of Techstars Detroit is a direct reflection of the 16 corporate partners we’ve had the opportunity to work over the years, who span a variety of industries including automotive, manufacturing, insurance, communications, IoT, and more. In our fifth year, we welcome back Ford and Honda, who have been with this program since the start. We also welcome returning partners AAA, USAA, Nationwide, and PlanetM.

Today we welcome new corporate partner Lear, to the Techstars Detroit Accelerator consortium.

The partnership with Lear brings another great benefit: relocating our office and program to the Lear Innovation Center in downtown Detroit. This new office is a combination of the best elements of our previous offices at WeWork Detroit and Ford Field: an open, industrial floor plan, great amenities, in an ideal location in downtown Detroit. It’s a great way to showcase Detroit to the thousands of individuals we bring from around the world to Detroit to visit our program each year. We’re excited to continue to grow and support the greater Detroit startup ecosystem.

Welcoming Kelly Kang as new Program Manager

Today I’m also excited to welcome Kelly Kang as the new Program Manager for Techstars Detroit. 2019 represents a huge transformation of the program. Kelly and I plan to rebuild and grow the program substantially in 2019. We’ll be expanding our Detroit network engagement and community impact, along with bringing a refreshed group of activities to further engage and support the Detroit startup community.

Kelly takes over the wonderful foundation that has been built by Lisa Seymour, the Program Director for the first four Mobility programs. Lisa has been an amazing colleague building the program into what is today. I’m sad to see her leave but excited that she’s taking her skillset with her to help spin up programs globally for Techstars—I wish her the best of luck in this new endeavor!

Calling All Startups to Detroit for 2019

We are looking worldwide for founders building the future of mobility, manufacturing, and IoT that would benefit from being immersed in the Detroit ecosystem for 90 days. Startups may be building solutions across the mobility, automotive, transportation, logistics, city infrastructure, manufacturing, IoT, or travel industries. Startups may also be in other industries but benefit from the unique competitive advantages of being immersed in Detroit.

If you want to learn more, schedule office hours to meet the Techstars Detroit team here.

If you are a startup and ready to apply, click here to fill out an application before April 7.

Techstars Mobility and PlanetM today are excited to announce the mobility startups selected as finalists for the PlanetM Startup Pitch Competition powered by Techstars. The pitch competition will be held on January 15, 2019, on the PlanetM Stage in the AutoMobili-D exhibit area of the North American International Auto Show.

These 17 mobility startups were selected from the 65 mobility startups coming to the 2019 Detroit Auto Show. They will be competing in 3 categories: Mobility Application, Mobility Technology, and Mobility Service. Additionally, all exhibiting startups will be qualified to compete for the Startup of the Year award as well.

These startups will be pitching in front of an impressive roster of judges. These judges include:

• Accenture, Mindy Doerr
• Bosch, Kevin Mull
• City of Detroit, Mark de la Vergne
• Denso, Zhe Huang
• Detroit Venture Partners, Aaron McClendon
• EcoMotion, Orlie Dahan
• Fontinalis Partners, Chris Stallman
• Ford, Jessica Robinson
• Hemi VC, Kate Yuan
• Lear, Robert Humphrey
• M25 Ventures, Abhinaya Konduru
• PlanetM, Amanda Roraff
• Story Ventures, Hannah Pianko
• Techstars, Kelly Kang, Laura Kennedy, Ted Serbinski
• Thirdware Solution, Kristin Slanina
• USAA, Steve Harrison

Here are the mobility startup finalists in each category:

Mobility Application

Tuesday, January 15, 2019 – 12:30pm

• Busie — Kingston, NY, United States — Busie simplifies online booking and logistics for operators and organizers.
• DeepHow — Detroit, MI, United States — The first AI solution for skilled trades know-how capturing and training.
• FAIRFARE — New York, NY, United States — FairFare is a direct booking, ride hail marketplace app. Our algorithm tailors a client-oriented response. It’s a marketplace that cross matches tailored transportation with lifestyle spending habits.  Thereby becoming a direct asset to businesses, government and consumers.
• Fantasmo — Los Angeles, CA, United States — Fantasmo is building a decentralized platform for 3D spatial maps and camera-based positioning. Our end-to-end solution enables the creation, access, management, & monetization of 3D maps which is critical for mobility, autonomous robotics, augmented reality, and many other emerging industries.
• Xapix — San Francisco, CA, United States — Xapix is building an orchestration platform for digital mobility services, providing vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, and service providers with ultimate flexibility, speed, and security around data interoperability. This allows mobility companies to scale services faster and more secure than ever.

Mobility Technology

Tuesday, January 15, 2019 – 1:50pm

• Alchemy — Kitchener, ON, Canada — We are a nanotechnology startup pioneering two nanocoatings: a passive anti-frost coating and an abrasion resistant coating. Our coatings enable multi-climate reliability for AVs by providing impact/scratch resistance, frost prevention, deicing to combat snow/freezing rain, and water/dirt shedding.
• Autobon AI — Chicago, IL, United States — Autobon is providing trucking fleets with the first after-market autopilot system that enables existing semi-trucks to deliver freight autonomously on US highways. We are deploying the system in a way that builds trust with operators while increasing job safety and efficiency.
• CARMERA — Brooklyn, NY, United States — CARMERA is building the world’s most robust street intelligence platform, specializing in “living” high definition maps for autonomous vehicles.
• Derq — Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Derq is an MIT-spinoff and Techstars mobility alum with a mission to eliminate crashes. Our AI-based ITS and V2X software applications predict the behaviors and intentions of road users to warn cars with enough time to avoid crashes. We are deployed in Dubai and Detroit.
• Toposens — Munich, Bavaria, Germany — Toposens developed the world’s first 3D ultrasound sensor, a robust and affordable 3D sensor enabling close-range object detection for autonomous driving cars or mobile robots.
• WaveSense — Somerville, MA, United States — WaveSense is accelerating the arrival of self-driving vehicles by using subterranean maps created with ground penetrating radar. Vehicles with WaveSense can navigate in common but challenging conditions such as snow, rain, fog, poor lane markings, and areas with sparse landmarks.

Mobility Service

Tuesday, January 15, 2019 – 3:10pm

• Alto — Dallas, TX, United States — Alto offers on-demand rides that are safe, consistent, and tailored to our members’ preferences. We use a dedicated fleet of new cars, employee drivers, and elegant apps and in-car technology to deliver exceptional rides, every time.
• HAAS Alert — Chicago, IL, United States — Vital safety information streamed to drivers, connected and autonomous cars via in-vehicle systems and smartphone apps when emergency vehicles are approaching and on-scene. Drivers, emergency crews and roadway operators use the C-V2X enabled solutions to avoid collisions and reduce traffic delays.
• IntelliTire — San Mateo, CA, United States — Making tires smarter
• Parkofon — Alexandria, VA, United States — Parkofon delivers automated on-street and off-street parking by using its high-accuracy geolocation device. We pilot with Avis and launch in Brooklyn NY next month.
• Priva — Chicago, IL, United States — Priva is a regional transportation alternative to commuter flights - taking customers door-to-door in a private, connected, mobile office.
• Sawatch Labs — Denver, CO, United States — Sawatch Labs provides algorithmic decision making to vehicle fleet stakeholders around electrification, infrastructure, fleet rightsizing and more.

Today I’m excited to introduce the 65 mobility startups coming from around the world to the 2019 the North American International Auto Show (aka the Detroit Auto Show). These startups will be exhibiting at AutoMobili-D, the technology-focused expo of the Detroit Auto Show that is running in its 3rd year from Monday, Jan. 14 through Thursday, Jan. 17. No other event in North America provides an international platform for this vast array of companies, organizations and mobility thought leaders under one roof.

I continue to be blown away by the growth of the mobility startup area at AutoMobili-D. Since its inception 3 years ago, the startup area has grown by 59%. The founders of these startups understand that any key decisions in automotive and supplier strategy eventually go through Detroit. With startups coming from all around the world to Detroit, it’s clear that Detroit’s role in the future of mobility is as strong as ever.

For 2019, a few stats on the startup area at AutoMobili-D:

• 65 mobility startups, a 14% increase over 2018, hailing from 10 countries around the world
• The mobility startups’ exhibits take up 27% of the floor space at AutoMobili-D and represent 45% of all exhibitors at AutoMobili-D
• 86% of the startups have existing relationships with automotive OEMs and suppliers
• 77% of the startups are first-time exhibitors
• Collectively they employ over 872 individuals worldwide

These mobility startups are building a wide range of technologies and businesses that span:

• Autonomous
• Connected Car
• Electrification
• Fleet Management
• Hardware / Sensors
• Logistics
• Manufacturing
• Mapping / Journey Planning / Multi-Modal
• Personal Mobility / Last Mile Vehicles
• Security
• Services / On Demand / Ride Sharing
• Smarty City and Infrastructure

For the third year in a row, Techstars Mobility has partnered with the North American International Auto Show to bring mobility startups from around the world to Detroit. These startups will be showcasing their innovative mobility technologies as part of AutoMobili-D, a dedicated mobility technology expo. This partnership is part of Techstars Mobility’s ongoing mission to connect the automotive mobility industry to startups by facilitating connections and building partnerships.

The 65 Mobility Startups Exhibiting at 2019 Detroit Auto Show

• 14bis Supply Tracking — Houston, TX, United States — Proprietary middleware provides systems interoperability & full asset traceability with real-time awareness for supply chains of trust.  We track physical or digital assets providing on-demand auditability.
• Advanced Connected Vehicle Solutions — Farmington Hills, MI, United States —  ACVS provides software solutions for securely connecting vehicles to cloud services.  Our modular telematics client software supports needs such as remote operations, FOTA, and diagnostics.  The client is code generated from our IoT Workbench tool providing complete API documentation and simulation.
• Aimotive — Budapest, Hungary — Aimotive provides artificial intelligence-based software solutions for self-driving cars to global car makers and Tier 1s. Our product suite includes artificial intelligence-based perception algorithms, state-of-the-art simulation and Neural Network acceleration technology.
• Airspace Experience Technologies — Detroit, United States — We enable private air mobility for the mass traveling public.
• Alchemy — Kitchener, ON, Canada — We are a nanotechnology startup pioneering two nanocoatings: a passive anti-frost coating and an abrasion resistant coating. Our coatings enable multi-climate reliability for AVs by providing impact/scratch resistance, frost prevention, deicing to combat snow/freezing rain, and water/dirt shedding.
• Alpha Drive — Brooklyn, NY, United States — Validation of Autonomous Vehicle AI
• Alto — Dallas, TX, United States — Alto offers on-demand rides that are safe, consistent, and tailored to our members’ preferences. We use a dedicated fleet of new cars, employee drivers, and elegant apps and in-car technology to deliver exceptional rides, every time.
• Arbe Robotics — Tel Aviv, Israel — The world’s first company to demonstrate ultra-high-resolution 4D imaging radar with post processing and SLAM
• Autobon AI — Chicago, IL, United States — Autobon is providing trucking fleets with the first aftermarket autopilot system that enables existing semi-trucks to deliver freight autonomously on U.S. highways. We are deploying the system in a way that builds trust with operators, while increasing job safety and efficiency.
• Axle Travel — NYC, United States — We help businesses create and manage their own ancillary mobility services.
• Bedestrian — Ann Arbor, MI, United States — We develop autonomous lead robots and modular trailers for driverless delivery (indoor/outdoor) of food and prescriptions drugs, as well as hauling of goods.
• Bollinger Motors — Ferndale, MI, United States — Electric Vehicle OEM Manufacturer
• Busie — Kingston, NY, United States — Busie simplifies online booking and logistics for operators and organizers.
• C2A Security — Jerusalem, Israel — C2A provides protection from automotive life-threatening cyber attacks.
• CARMERA — Brooklyn, NY, United States — CARMERA is building the world’s most robust street intelligence platform, specializing in “living” high definition maps for autonomous vehicles.
• CellularEMT — Detroit MI, United States — CellularEMT is an on demand platform that connects certified repair contractors to consumers who need their smart devices repaired.
• Comet.ml — New York, NY, United States — Comet is doing for ML what GitHub did for code. We allow autonomous vehicles and perception teams to automatically track their datasets, code changes, experimentation history and production models creating efficiency, transparency, and reproducibility.
• DeepHow — Detroit, MI, United States — The first AI solution for skilled trades know-how capturing and training.
• Derq — Dubai, United Arab Emirates — Derq is an MIT-spinoff and Techstars mobility alum with a mission to eliminate crashes. Our AI-based ITS and V2X software applications predict the behaviors and intentions of road users to warn cars with enough time to avoid crashes. We are live in Dubai and Detroit
• Detroit Flying Cars — Livonia and Ypsilanti, Michigan, United States — At Detroit Flying Cars, we are developing a uniquely more flexible form of transportation. Fly when you what to, drive when you want to. A distance airplane with VTOL option, and roadworthy EV with 400 miles range – the ultimate freedom machine.
• Drive Spotter — Omaha, NE, United States — Investors ask every CEO one key question – every single answer hinges on their team – we help CEOs incentivize their teams, which is increasing crucial to effective supply chains.
• Drive Time Metrics — Jamestown, Rhode Island, United States — Media analytics and monetization of connected car data
• Driver Technologies Inc. — Brooklyn, NY, United States — Driver delivers a dashcam with cloud storage, augmented reality navigation, AI-powered forward collision warnings and attention-assist through a free mobile app. At the same time, Driver gathers valuable data for the insurance, advertising, mapping and autonomous car software industries.
• Enertia Microsystems Inc. — Ann Arbor, MI, United States — We are commercializing small, low-cost, and ultra-high-performance inertial sensors for dead-reckoning for Level-4 or Level-5 autonomous vehicles.
• FairFare — New York, NY, United States — FairFare is a direct booking, ride hail marketplace app. Our algorithm tailors a client oriented response. It’s a marketplace that cross matches tailored transportation with lifestyle spending habits. Thereby becoming a direct asset to businesses, government and consumers.
• Fantasmo — Los Angeles, CA, United States — Fantasmo is building a decentralized platform for 3D spatial maps and camera-based positioning. Our end-to-end solution enables the creation, access, management, and monetization of 3D maps which is critical for mobility, autonomous robotics, augmented reality, and many other emerging industries.
• FenSens — San Francisco, United States — FenSens produces smart car accessories and services for the full connected vehicle experience.
• Fleetonomy — Tel Aviv, Israel — Fleetonomy offers artificial intelligence-based solutions to enable fleet owners, OEMs and smart mobility service providers to maximize their fleets by enhancing efficiency, generating more insights from their data, and creating new revenue streams by launching new smart mobility services.
• Gridwise — Pittsburgh, PA, United States — Gridwise provides a mobile platform that increases rideshare drivers earnings 39% by helping the find more rides and track their performance across each service they drive for.
• HAAS Alert — Chicago, IL, United States — Vital safety information streamed to drivers, connected and autonomous cars via in-vehicle systems and smartphone apps when emergency vehicles are approaching and on-scene. Drivers, emergency crews and roadway operators use the C-V2X enabled solutions to avoid collisions and reduce traffic delays.
• Hanseatische Fahrzeug Manufaktur GmbH — Holm, Schleswig-Holstein , Germany — Hanseatische Fahrzeug Manufaktur GmbH (HFM) specializes in the development of highly complex mechatronics systems for electric and autonomous vehicles.
• HiHo Mobility — Waterloo, Ontario, Canada — Shared work fleets with on-demand logistics (tools, supplies and assets). Already in-use on University campuses. Greatly reduce costs, vehicles and go green. Human-driven for now, self-driving soon.
• Humanising Autonomy — London, United Kingdom — Humanising Autonomy improves safety and efficiency of autonomous mobility systems through better understanding of human behaviour in cities.
• Integral — Detroit, MI, United States — Integral brings a silicon valley mindset of continuous innovation to mobility. Our Detroit-based product development consultancy brings expertise in lean product, human centered UX, and cloud engineering to collaborate with our customers on solving problems in CV, AV, EV, and shared mobility.
• IntelliTire — San Mateo, CA, United States — Making tires smarter
• INVENTEV LLC — Detroit, MI, United States — Startup based in Detroit to provide vehicle mobility services, advisory services and commercial vehicle electrification
• IXR MOBILITY — Detroit, MI, United States — Provide non emergency transportation and shuttle services with an emphasis on Autonomous Automated Shuttles.
• Jrop — Toronto, ON, Canada — Jrop has developed the most efficient way to generate machine-readable property maps, to optimize first and last meter operations for driverless cars.
• Kepler51 Analytics, PBC — Austin, TX, United States — Kepler51 is a Big Data analytics solutions provider with a core focus on predictive and real-time road weather information for automotive safety and mobility.  We are pioneering the next step in ADAS applications for road safety. We are a Public Benefit Corporation for the Vision Zero movement.
• LaneSpotter — Pittsburgh, PA, United States — Mapping and navigation created for cyclists by cyclists, with a focus on safety. Think Waze for bikes!
• Metamoto, Inc — Redwood City, CA, United States — Metamoto’s Simulation as a Service platform provides orders of magnitude more testing and training hours, miles, scenarios and data for testing, training, validating and debugging autonomous system software.
• Mobiag — Lisbon, Portugal — Mobiag is a solution provider in the shared and electric mobility space. We build tools to empower sharing organizations and bring them together in a global independent network. We are based in Lisbon and currently serve over 25 clients in 4 continents, with over 6k cars managed on our platform.
• Numeero — Monterrey, Mexico, Mexico — Automotive RFQ Collaboration Tool
• ParkMobile — Atlanta, United States — We enable consumers to reserve, book and pay for parking through our App - ParkMobile and through our APIs for in-car head-unit integration.
• Parkofon — Alexandria, VA, United States — Parkofon delivers automated on-street and off-street parking by using its high-accuracy geolocation device. We pilot with Avis and launch in Brooklyn, NY next month.
• Pitstop — Toronto, Canada — Automotive Prognostics Platform (PaaS)
• Powerlink Systems — Detroit, MI, (PlanetM’s Landing Zone), United States — Powerlink Systems is an EV charging station distributor and installer with office locations in Rochester and Detroit, MI (Planet M’s Landing Zone). We provide turnkey solutions to businesses, cities and residents looking to install EV charging stations.
• Prestio — Kansas City, MO, United States — Prestio is an end-to-end Dealership eCommerce platform that enables dealers to sell cars fully online via our eCommerce Operating System that has three components: AI Marketing & Sales, Consumer portal, and Dealer OS.
• Priva — Chicago, IL, United States — Priva is a regional transportation alternative to commuter flights - taking customers door-to-door in a private, connected, mobile office.
• Reality AI — New York, NY, United States — Artificial Intelligence for developing Automotive products using sensors.  Runs in real-time, in firmware, on inexpensive commodity hardware. Reality AI holds 12 patents and 6 patents-pending, all in the field of machine learning as applied to sensors and signals.
• Safecar — Detroit, MI, United States — Safecar is an Emergency-as-a-Service company that automatically connects people with 911 assistance without talking to dispatch.
• Sawatch Labs — Denver, CO, United States — Sawatch Labs provides algorithmic decision making to vehicle fleet stakeholders around electrification, infrastructure, fleet right sizing and more.
• SEEVA Technologies — Seattle, WA, United States — SEEVA Technologies creates safety and perception enablement systems to help vehicles see better in the ADAS/AV world.
• Seoul Robotics — Seoul, South Korea, Korea South — Seoul Robotics specializes in real-time 3D data perception software that enables intelligent and safer mobility technology. It helps companies to fully utilize their 3D sensors at a fraction of development cost and time, without sacrificing the performance. Democratize Lidar software technology!
• SICdrone — Boston, United States — SICdrone is a veteran owned unmanned aircraft company founded by aerospace engineers featuring aircraft effective in the small unmanned (sUAS), urban transportation (UAS) and satellite markets.
• Sway Mobility Inc. — Cleveland, OH, United States — The Sway Mobility carshare platform combines operations, insurance, and technology to allow municipalities, neighborhood groups, transit authorities, and stakeholders to start or expand local carshare programs in small to mid-market cities.
• Tesloop — Los Angele, United States — Connected Car Network for Data Driven Services and Car Sharing. Toposens — Munich, Bavaria, Germany — Toposens developed the world’s first 3D ultrasound sensor, a robust and affordable 3D sensor enabling close-range object detection for autonomous driving cars or mobile robots.
• Vartega — Golden, CO, United States — Vartega creates low-cost recycled carbon fiber to make cars and trucks lighter for fuel economy improvements and emissions reductions.
• Voxel51 — Ann Arbor, MI, United States — Find the signal in the noise of your video data using our automotive grade computer vision platform.
• WaveSense — Somerville, MA, United States — WaveSense is accelerating the arrival of self-driving vehicles by using subterranean maps created with ground penetrating radar. Vehicles with WaveSense can navigate in common but challenging conditions such as snow, rain fog, poor lane markings, and areas with sparse landmarks.
• Weather Telematics Inc. — Toronto, Canada — Weather Telematics Inc. provides the essential data to enable autonomous vehicles to operate safely in poor weather conditions.
• Wise Systems — Cambridge, MA, United States — Wise Systems is an autonomous Dispatch & Routing solution that empowers operations teams and drivers to improve fleet efficiency and customer service, seamlessly adapting to the everyday challenges they encounter.
• Xapix — San Francisco, CA, United States — Xapix is building an orchestration platform for digital mobility services, providing vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, and service providers with ultimate flexibility, speed, and security around data interoperability. This allows mobility companies to scale services faster and more secure than ever.
• Xtelligent — Los Angeles, United States — Intelligent traffic signal integration using V2I/X2I connectivity and edge computing

100% Diverse Founding Teams

The 2018 class is our most diverse class of founders to date. Of the 11 startups, all 11 startups have diverse founding teams in regards to gender, ethnicity, or age. I’m incredibly excited to bring such a talented and diverse set of founders to Detroit for the summer.

The teams come from all around the world including Hong Kong, London, and across the United States. None of the teams come from Michigan.

With the diversity of teams comes the diversity of ideas. I define mobility as the movement of people and goods, spanning industries like automotive, transportation, supply chain & logistics, travel, healthcare, agriculture, and more.

The incoming teams have a range of business spanning autonomous single rotor drones to applying machine learning to pedestrian intent to a connected bicycle helmet now available in Apple stores.

To see these companies in action, join us on October 9 at the Detroit Institute of Arts, where will host our 4th annual Mobility Demo Day. We’re expecting 1000+ attendees from around the world again this year. To join in on the fun (it’s free!), signup here to be notified when invites open up.

The 2018 Class of Techstars Mobility

• Aerotronic (Indianapolis, IN): Autonomous inspection of the energy grid with drones.
• Autobon AI (Chicago, IL): Eliminating many problems truckers and fleet owners face by retrofitting a connected sensing platform for existing commercial vehicles.
• DeepHow (New York City, NY): An enterprise solution that transforms static technical manuals into interactive workflow guidance powered by artificial intelligence.
• Driver Technologies (Brooklyn, NY): A hardware-free mobile app enabling drivers to video-record their trip while warning them of dangers in the road and monitoring their alertness.
• Humanising Autonomy (London, UK): Helping autonomous vehicles understand pedestrian behavior across cultures.
• IntelliTire (San Francisco, CA): Making tires intelligent to improve the safety and performance of vehicles on the road.
• LaneSpotter (Pittsburgh, PA): Mapping and navigation for cyclists by cyclists, with a focus on safety.
• Lumos (Hong Kong, China): The next generation of bike helmets.
• Priva (Chicago, IL): Inventing a new way to travel in luxury while skipping the hassles of flying.
• SkyHi (San Francisco, CA): Claim last minute seats on planes for a low monthly subscription fee.
• Zohr (Kansas City, MO): New tires delivered and installed for your vehicle.

To get in touch with any of these startups, please send me a noteand I’d be happy to connect you to them.

In this post, I detail my favorite hack for conquering a massive inbox: email segmenting. I used time-based filtering in Gmail to see segments of my inbox. Processing segments of emails is much easier than an entire inbox. It's also easy to get those segments to 0. That creates achievement momentum to feel like your inbox is shrinking versus ever growing. Read on for how to filter your email in Gmail with these time-based searches.

A few weeks ago on a Monday morning, I opened my inbox with a tense tightening in my stomach. My inbox a few weeks prior was around 20 emails. This Monday, however, it had ballooned to 1,061 emails.

Within 90 minutes, I had it down to 100 emails. So how did I process so many emails so fast? Read on.

If you’ve read my other post, 3 Rules I Use to Stay Productive and Not Overwhelmed, you might think I have it all together.

Well the fact is, life is hard, and things ebb and flow. I feel directionally correct, but we all fall off the proverbial bike. So it’s time to get back on. Here’s how I get things back in order and manage the overwhelm.

There are four strategies for managing an overwhelming inbox:

1. Process it all (who has that many hours free?)
2. Continually pick at it and ignore most of it (e.g., let it constantly nag and overwhelm you as it compounds with time)
3. Delete it all (hey, the nuclear option sometimes is a good option)
4. Process in segments (my personal preference)

My preferred method to manage an inbox is to process it in segments. What follows is my general strategy for getting an out of control inbox back under control. It’s also an excellent strategy for keeping it tidy each day and week too.

Why process email in segments

Eating an elephant take one bite at a time — Creighton Abrams

The challenge with any inbox is anyone can put something into it. The more emails you send, the more emails you get. It’s a never-ending battle. It’s why managing your inbox is so hard.

To counteract this, I recommend creating segments, or chunks, of your email, to process. These chunks are finite in size and can go to 0 much quicker than a single inbox.

Processing emails in segments gives a sense of accomplishment as you process email — the number of emails is shrinking versus growing!

Rules to process in chunks

Two basic rules to follow to make this work.

If the email is actionable:

1. If an email can be taken care of in less than 2 minutes, process it right away.
2. If this email will take longer than 2 minutes to process, add it to your todo list. My favorite is Things, but Todoist, Nozbe, Asana or any task manager will do.

If the email is non-actionable:

1. Read and delete
2. Read and archive

How to segment your email inbox

The rules below apply to any email inbox but are tailored to those that use Gmail. For other email tools like Outlook or Yahoo, please consult the help docs for how to filter your email the same way.

So my total inbox right now is 1,061.

Time-based segments

Type the following commands into Gmail’s search bar to see all emails for that particular time period. For more ways to filter by time, check out Gmail’s full list of search operators here.

Yesterday’s emails

in:inbox newer_than:2d older_than:1d

I first discovered this technique from Tony Hsieh’s post, Yesterbox. This is one of my go-to filters for maintaining my inbox.

When I applied this filter to my inbox of 1,061, only 2 emails appeared. It’s low because today is Monday and I get very few emails over the weekend.

1 minute to get this segment of email back to 0!

Today’s email

in:inbox newer_than:1d

I process this one next since it’s the next smallest list. While it’d be great to respond to old emails, that list is a lot longer. I’m working to build up momentum clearing my inbox, not just maintaining it.

While I applied to this my inbox of 1,061, only 21 emails appeared.

22 minutes to get this segment of email back to 0!

This past week

in:inbox newer_than:7d older_than:1d

With today and yesterday’s emails processed, this list is only 87 emails deep. A bit longer but still much more manageable than 1,061 emails.

I like to start at the bottom of this list (oldest to newest) and work backward.

This segment took me 75 minutes to process.

Older than 30 days

in:inbox older_than:30d

For those emails that are lingering for a response or action (even if deleted). When applied to my inbox of 847, only 29 emails appeared here. Another quick 20 minutes to process these.

Leftovers in inbox

Everything not recent or not old. The middle always gets ignored eh? :)

After processing the above segments, I had 101 emails left in my inbox. You could create additional filters or handle all at once. Since it is around 100 emails, I decided to process this all together.

For this bucket, I usually set a Pomodoro of 25 minutes and get through as many emails as I can in 25 minutes. I repeat this 1-2 more times to get through the inbox. Pomodoro is a useful technique to break down work into time intervals, usually 25 minutes. Makes a dizzying list of emails to respond to more approachable.

What if something is urgent in there? Don’t worry. I’m sure that sender will ping you to bring it to the top of your inbox. Otherwise, it’s probably not time-sensitive.

Automatic filtering with Sanebox

Those above date filters are great for quickly responding to important emails. However, if you add them up, you’ll notice a gap.

2 (yesterday) + 21 (today) + 87 (this week) + 29 (older than 30 days) + 101 (leftovers) = 240

That’s not 1,061.

Where are the rest of my emails?

In my @Sanelater folder, powered by Sanebox.

Sanebox is one of my favorite tools. It works with any email client out there. It essentially puts all unimportant emails into a folder to process later. It works through a combination of artificial intelligence through training, social media profiles and more.

My @Sanelater folder had 806 emails in here. Mostly newsletters, notifications, and emails from people I have never communicated with nor are connected to on social networking sites.

8 minutes later, I went from 806 emails to 48. Those were mostly ones I’d like to read more of when I have free time.

I try to process this folder once a week on Fridays. While it sounds like a lot, it’s super fast. I usually end up deleting 99% of the emails, I read a handful, and a couple I move to my Inbox since they are important emails I need to respond to (this is how you train Sanebox).

2 Hours to Process 912 Emails

In a little under 2 hours, I went from 1,061 emails to 149. Of those 149, only 101 were in my inbox. 48 were a low priority, interesting ones to read if I had time.

Quickly segmenting my inbox made it much easier to process a large backlog of email.

Segmenting emails works because it creates momentum and each segment goes to 0 much faster than the overall inbox (which could take hours or days).

And that unruly inbox? Well, it doesn’t feel so bad anymore.

Maintaining Inbox 0

So what do once your inbox is back under control?

Keep using those segments daily. For me, that means at least 3x a week (Mon, Wed, and Fri) I will look at the “this week” filter to get to emails this past week. It helps to save those searches in your browser’s bookmarks bar too.

Some days I’ll spend just 20 minutes and ceck my “today filter” and get that to 0. If I have other emails in my inbox, I get them via scheduled time on my calendar.

Happy emailing!

Thanks to Jon Harmer, Lisa Seymour, and Rachel Fukaya for reading drafts of this blog post.

Three years ago, Techstars Mobility opened its office in downtown Detroit at Ford Field. We began our mission investing and mentoring entrepreneurs from around the world building the future of mobility.

Since then, we’ve invested in 33 startups from 6 different countries, who have raised $45 million valued at over $200 million. This summer, we’ll announce 11 additional startups that we’ve invested in that will be part of our fourth class. We’ve built a burgeoning mobility community, with 359 active mentors spanning 143 organizations. We’ve facilitated 7,500 meetings between founders, investors, corporations, and government organizations. We’ve hosted over 3000 attendees across our Mobility Demo Day, held annually in the fall. Two of our investments have been acquired as well—Bosch acquiring SPLT and Hagerty acquiring Classics&Exoctics.

Techstars Mobility Moves to WeWork and Announces 9 Corporate Partners for 2018

Today, I’m excited to announce we’re moving to the 7th floor of WeWork Merchant’s Row, centrally located in downtown Detroit. We will continue to run our program out of this space, foster the growing mobility community, and plug into the increasing density of companies along the Woodward corridor. In partnership with WeWork and PlanetM, we’re designing a community and space where the future of mobility will converge. We’ve also teamed up with Oblong Industries to offer their visual collaboration technology, Mezzanine, in two of our new meeting rooms.

In addition to the new office, we’re also welcoming back several returning corporate partners and a few new ones for our fourth program. Techstars Mobility’s corporate partners work closely mentoring and supporting the founders going through our Mobility program.

Thank you to our 2018-2019 Techstars Mobility corporate partners:

• Bosch
• CSAA Insurance Group, an AAA insurer
• Ford Motor Company
• Honda
• Nationwide
• PlanetM
• Siemens
• USAA
• Volvo Car Group

And if you’re looking for ways to get involved in Detroit, visit the startup community website #StartupDetroit and join the Slack room for the latest events, job listings and conversations happening in the city right now.

Corporate Partners Share Why they Partnered with Techstars Mobility

Here’s a quick look at why our outstanding mobility partners chose to work with Techstars Mobility to drive global innovation in the future of mobility.

“We look at innovation as a necessity to serve the evolving needs of AAA members and society at large. Partnering with Techstars Mobility offers us the ability to understand better how mobility is shifting and support the entrepreneurs that are driving disruptive change. Ultimately, our work is centered around being there for people when they need us, and there is no better way to serve them than to understand what they will need in the future.”
— Sanjiv Parikh, Managing Partner of Venture Capital, CSAA Insurance Group

“Identifying meaningful ways to engage startup ecosystems across the world is a growing priority for Nationwide, as it ensures we’re keeping up with the pace of innovation within and beyond our business, directly translating to improved services for our members. We’ve been following Techstars Mobility closely, and it’s become clear that their graduating companies are leading the future of mobility. We want to be on the ground floor with these startups and couldn’t imagine a better place to be than in Detroit, with Techstars.”
— Erik Ross, Associate Vice President, Nationwide’s venture capital arm

“At next47, we not only invest in external startups, but we also help Siemens, our parent company, identify and nurture the best entrepreneur teams from within, and help them carve out their ideas into successful startups. We chose Techstars to partner with in this endeavor for two reasons: 1. Their proven expertise in selecting the best early-stage teams, and 2. The access they provide to expert advice, mentorship and investors is invaluable to the long-term success of the start-up.”
— Susana Quintana-Plaza, Partner, next47

“PlanetM is excited to enter into a partnership with Techstars Mobility and include their accelerator companies in the PlanetM Landing Zone, located at WeWork Merchants Row in downtown Detroit. This new partnership will allow the PlanetM team and Techstars the opportunity to work collaboratively on programming, events, recruiting and matchmaking efforts as well as provide increased access to Techstars worldwide network. The presence of Techstars Mobility in the PlanetM Landing Zone will be a valuable resource for current Landing Zone member companies as we work together to strengthen Michigan’s growing global mobility startup community.”
— Trevor Pawl, Group Vice President, PlanetM

“At USAA, we’re always looking for ways to cultivate our culture of innovation while searching for ways to improve the financial well-being of our members whether through added services, products or advice. Keeping a pulse on the latest innovations coming from startups helps our teams evolve our offerings while enabling us to give back to the entrepreneurial community that helped found our business nearly 100 years ago. We chose to partner with Techstars Mobility because the companies coming out of each program are some of the most promising innovations we’ve seen on the market.”
— Randy Termeer, Senior Vice President, USAA

“In addition to our internal product development efforts, Volvo Car Group is partnering with leading startup entrepreneurs both in the US and globally to co-create the future of mobility and transportation. Techstars is a leading platform to engage with innovative startups, and our partnership enhances our ability to guide, mentor and nurture companies that can add value to Volvo’s future offering. Some of the most important things for the survival of a young startup are establishing product-market fit and having the necessary funding runway to achieve it. By engaging with Volvo Cars, promising startups can gain access to our leading global R&D network to validate their product as well as our newly launched investment fund for strategic capital.”
— Zaki Fasihuddin, CEO, Volvo Car Technology Fund AB

“We’re thrilled to welcome Techstars Mobility and the 2018 accelerator companies to the WeWork Detroit community. When we launched the Planet M Landing Zone last year, we envisioned WeWork to as the home of the next generation of mobility companies in Michigan. With the addition of Techstars, that vision is one step closer to becoming a reality.”
— Megan Dodds, Midwest General Manager, WeWork

“We’re delighted to support Techstars with next-gen workplace technology as they develop next-gen mobility talent working to transform the industry. Mezzanine is our flagship technology for meeting spaces, and executives from NIO automotive to NASA aeronautics are using it to move forward on projects that demand multiple streams of data and visual information from multiple stakeholders in multiple locations.”
— Mike Brown, Chief Revenue Officer, Oblong Industries

I define mobility as technologies and services that help people and goods move around more freely. But this movement can be very different depending on where in the world you are located.

Mobility is a global problem with different challenges in every market. Cost, access, technology, infrastructure, and regulation vary significantly around world impacting how people and goods move around. At Techstars Mobility, we think a lot about the global impact of mobility as one of our core investment themes.

In the past three years, we have invested in 33 startups from 6 different countries. As we head into our 4th program this summer, we’ll jump to 44 startup investments. With a globally diverse set of companies we’re reviewing now, I anticipate we’ll invest in a new country or two as well. I believe this is where a major investment opportunity lies, as the ability for people and goods to move is unequally distributed around the globe.

Below, are three startups that we have invested in with global impact. They each participated in a different class of Techstars Mobility spanning 2015, 2016, and 2017.

Voyhoy - serving customers across South America

Voyhoy is a multi-modal booking platform where travelers can compare and buy bus, plane, train, and ferry tickets throughout South America.

Globally, many parts of the world are still not yet connected. Travelers in Latin America are faced with ever-increasing options to get from point A to point B, but with limited connectivity and route coverage, disproportionate trip prices, and a lack of transparent information, the best route is rarely apparent. This fragmentation forces travelers to buy their tickets in person or on the individual sites of each operator, unable to compare multiple companies at once to discover the best option for their journey.

Founder and CEO, Jake Moskowitz explains more:

How did Techstars Mobility help you build your global network to secure partnerships?

If it weren’t for Techstars Mobility, we would have never decided to relocate our HQ to the US, which ultimately transformed our business, strategy, and scalability. We initially came for the program but decided to stay and open up our new office in Miami after recognizing the value of the network and the startup ecosystem in the US. All in all, the Techstars network helped us secure strategic partnerships with corporates, close funding from venture investors, and recruit top-tier talent to join our team. Equally important, Techstars taught our team the skills to grow, nurture, and cultivate our networks, even those outside of Techstars’ reach.

What is one key area you have grown as a leader since participating in Techstars Mobility?

Personally, Techstars Mobility helped me grow as a leader in two principle areas: communication and analytical thinking. I learned how important communication is in all aspects of being a leader, whether that’s strategizing with my team, engaging with partners or investors, or developing our brand. Techstars Mobility helped me understand that how you present yourself, your business, or your strategy must be efficient, clear, and tailored to each specific audience. Communication is the foundation of any business, team, or partnership, and learning how to harness it effectively is a powerful tool. Techstars Mobility also introduced to me new perspectives in prioritization and decision-making. I learned how important it is to stay focused and how to truly experiment, validate, and adjust for any goal, project, or task. My team and I were hungry for these kinds of lessons and thanks to Techstars Mobility, we completely overhauled the methodology of how we run our business, improving the speed of our overall execution.

SPLT - working with organizations across Latin America and Europe

SPLT is an enterprise transportation management platform changing the way people meet and move worldwide, partnering with organizations (corporations, universities, and municipalities) to develop customized shared commute programs in a closed network.

Globally, SPLT views city livability as a burden on traffic congestion, health, and economic development. In the US alone, 76% of commuters drive to work alone, with wasted time commuting resulting in $160B in losses of productivity. In every market SPLT enters, the transportation landscape is different. SPLT’s flexible approach to different regions allows SPLT to align locally with new transit ecosystems.

Business Development Leader and First Employee, Ben Seidman, explains more:

How did Techstars Mobility help you build your global network to secure partnerships?

First and foremost, the Techstars program gave SPLT the credibility and platform to engage with corporations on a high level. It was front and center on our email signatures and Linkedin descriptions. Secondly, the refined accelerator and networking programs such as Demo Day and Biz Dev Day have allowed SPLT to make strong contacts to work and learn from to grow. Techstars sponsors know that its startups are the best in the world, and this shows through their level of engagement. Possibly the most powerful of all mechanisms within the Techstars ecosystem is the mentor network, which always #GivesFirst and never ceases to surprise us with the knowledge, insights, and generosity we’re afforded. Our mentors supported SPLT, some joined our team, and others invested in SPLT, all becoming the #SPLTFamily.

What is one key area you have grown as a leader since participating in Techstars Mobility?

As a Techstars Mobility alumni, I’ve been given access to witness the intense ambition and drive of fellow entrepreneurs. Learning from mentors like Brad Feld, Ted Serbinski and even our own CEO & Founder, Anya Babbitt, I’ve consumed more knowledge than I know. I’ve worked for and alongside entrepreneurs with more hunger, passion, and drive than I could ever imagine. As a leader, this has given me a true benchmark understanding of what a successful leader should embody.

Derq - deployed in Dubai and Detroit

Derq is a MIT-spinoff with patented artificial-intelligence software that works with V2X infrastructure to predict and prevent crashes.

Globally, 1.3M people lose their lives in crashes, and 30M more suffer crash-related injuries each year. This creates a $2 trillion loss to the global economy, as well as negative social and environmental impacts. Many of these accidents are preventable, and Derq uses artificial intelligence to predict and prevent crashes to make roads safer across the globe.

US Business Lead and First US Employee, Will Foss explains more:

How did Techstars Mobility help you build your global network to secure partnerships?

Techstars created “forced serendipity” to interact with Global Tier 1s, auto manufacturers, and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) providers, which have led to pilots and demonstrations of our technology. Through the Techstars network, we received mentorship from buyers and partners at these companies. We were able to attend the ITS World Congress in Montreal with leaders from Michigan, were showcased at CES by GENIVI to 1000 industry leaders, and showcased at an industry event in Amsterdam with Siemens. We’ve also been able to find a direct line to the decision makers in our home markets, like Dubai and Michigan, which is accelerating our ability to close pilots.

What is one key area you have grown as a leader since participating in Techstars Mobility?

Personally, learning to embrace the Techstars “give first” and “do more faster” mantras helped me make our teams more effective. My background is as an entrepreneur and consultant, so I really needed to learn to step back and jump in wherever needed to help enable the team to move faster, and to help us all stay focused on the activities that are critical to driving the business and not all the little stuff that feels important. Working as an Associate inside the program, I helped cold call prospective customers, build financial models, and hung signs on doors for important visitors, all of which helped our companies be successful. With Derq, the same is true, and the ability to jump in and help with any task while staying focused on the goal helps me lead our US business and operations.

This summer, I will make my 44th investment in a mobility startup. I’m still in awe as I think about that number. The definition of mobility has grown and changed a lot in the past few years. I define mobility as the “technologies and services that enable people and goods to move around more freely.” Check out my previous post for how I define mobility for the automotive industry. I’ll have an updated definition of mobility soon on this blog.

Looking at 100s of mobility startups over the past few years has sharpened my viewpoint. I like the idea of thematic investing and first stumbled across this looking at Foundry Group’s investment themes.

What follows is my evolving thoughts on how I think about investing in mobility startups. Please share in the comments what mobility themes you find interesting. I’m always learning and adjusting my perspective.

My mobility investment themes

1. Today and tomorrow

This theme is about startups finding customers for today’s transportation infrastructure and tomorrow’s (e.g., self-driving, connected, electric).

A great example of this theme is my investment in SEEVA which makes heated washer fluid. Every vehicle on the road today would benefit from their technology. With backup cameras being mandatory on all vehicles manufactured after May 2018, keeping those clean (and windshields, especially in Michigan!) is a present opportunity. In tomorrow’s environment, their tech is even more crucial to keep the dozens of sensors on a self-driving vehicle clean.

2. Always on

This theme is about vehicle uptime and maintenance schedules.

I am super interested in maintenance and uptime. As vehicles make the shift from self-owned to shared, from self-driven to autonomous, from single to fleets, we’re going to see a radical increase in uptime of vehicles. Today, cars are driven only 5% of the time. Tomorrow this could be closer to 100%. This increase in uptime will transform vehicle maintenance. On top of that, as vehicles shift to electric with autonomous computer brains, the types of technicians that service these will have a very different skillset than today. One such example, Bosch is already looking into training autonomous vehicle technicians.

My investments in My Dealer Service, Pitstop, and Acerta are part of this theme.

3. Data, data, data

This theme is about the vast amounts of data that will be generated, stored, and analyzed through new mobility systems.

An Intel analysis predicts that each self-driving car will generate upwards of 4 TB of data a day, or 250x more data the average person would generate using the phone and connected devices. That doesn’t count for the data that will be generated by entirely new sets of mobility systems including smart traffic intersections, road sensors, and more. The computing, storage, and bandwidth needed to retrieve, analyze, and store this data in near real-time to make decisions (e.g., drive a vehicle) will be staggering.

My investment in Invision AI (formerly Algocian) fit this theme using edge computing with a new neural network design to make every camera smart.

Specific applications I’m looking for: using blockchain to improve the integrity of data with applications in shared services, logistics, and maintenance (e.g., Carfax built on blockchain)

4. Autonomy as a platform

This theme frames self-driving vehicles as a platform for new services and businesses to be built on, much like Google and Facebook are built on the HTTP protocol.

I like to think that vehicles on the roads, in the skies, on the oceans, are transport capsules much like a packets on the internet. They both carry a payload from one destination to another. A fully autonomous system then could be seen as a network layer where technologies and services could be built on top of. Ride sharing is a simple example. Replace human-driven Lyft rides with self-driven ones. Ford thinks it can be the self-driving OS of the future, testing with Lyft and Domino’s as partners.

5. Global diversity of mobility

This theme acknowledges that getting around for people and goods is very different in all parts of the world

People and goods moving about can be very different depending on where in the world you are. The United States to Japan to Africa all utilize different preferred modes of transportation. Access to technology differs, as does socioeconomic statuses. Bill Ford sums this up best, “Mobility is a human right” as is food, shelter, and medical aid and impact on the environment.

My investment in Voyhoy fits this category, as it sells bus, flight, train tickets across South America.

6. City systems

This theme is the transformation of cities today to cities of tomorrow with entirely new ways to move about

Mobility in a city sense is a system of interconnected services and technologies helping people and goods move around. This is also referred to a “smart city” and often is the basis for first / last mile problem. As urban environments continue to grow at staggering rates, we see the rise of megacities, populations of more than 10M. These dense environments have specific needs to mobility to keep people and goods moving while minimizing congestion, environmental impact, and maintenance costs.

Both my investments in HAAS Alert and Derq fit this theme.

7. Mobility as a service

This theme is about finding companies that contribute top line revenue to OEMs and suppliers

According to CB Insights, software and services will drive more profit than vehicle sales by 2030, growing from 4% to 36%. This is the transformation from manufactured steel to software and services, hitting automotive head on, but also any type of vehicle across sea, air and land. As Marc Andreessen puts it, “software is eating the world.”

My investment in SPLT, which was acquired by Bosch, fits theme as a corporate service for carpoolers.

8. User experience

This theme is about the end user’s experience getting from point A to point B.

Buying a car sucks. Maintaining one isn’t any better. In fact, car ownership is a huge burden as I outlined in this previous post. But the experience is more than vehicle ownership. What about the experience riding in a vehicle? What about the experience renting a car or using a rideshare like Lyft? What about the experience of the rising bike-shares or scooter-shares? Or the experience riding in a self-driving vehicle? Or the experience on a bus, train, or flight? Or experiencing navigating from A to B? The experience of shipping something, receiving a shipment, and improving access? User experience is everywhere. As we’ve seen with Apple, technology is essential but the user experience trumps it all.

My investment in Braiq fit this theme, personalizing the self-driving vehicle experience.

Hey founders, are you building a startup that fits in with one of these mobility themes? Or, maybe a different theme that should be on this list? Let me know, I’m actively investing in mobility startups around the world, and I’d love to hear from you.

Disclaimer: I actively supported this research through participation on the Study’s Advisory Committee and engaged my peers at Techstars.

At Techstars Mobility, I like to say “mentors are where the magic happens” and “the secret to our success: the mentors.”

A new research report,  “Mentoring in Startup Ecosystems” (click here to download it) written by researchers from the University of Michigan and Enterprise Futures Network and funded in part by the Kauffman Foundation, provides concrete evidence to support this belief. This research study is the largest survey to date on success factors in entrepreneurial mentoring.

At Techstars Mobility, we’ve had 357 mentors actively engage in our last three startup programs. Those mentors have mentored the 33 startups we’ve invested in. I’ve seen the power of mentorship firsthand. It’s wonderful to see this research study backup what we know is our strongest value proposition at Techstars: our engaged mentor network.

This mentor network further compounds itself when you add up all of the active Techstars Accelerator programs worldwide. That number balloons to 10,000 mentors supporting entrepreneurs around the world. Techstars is the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed.

I wanted to share my key 3 takeaways from administering three mentorship-driven accelerator programs. I also wanted to share the takeaways the researchers noticed as well.

3 Takeaways from Administering 3 Mentorship-Driven Startup Accelerator Programs

Techstars Mobility is a mentorship-driven accelerator program that is going into its 4th year. Here’s what I’ve taken away seeing the power of mentorship first hand amongst hundreds of mentors and founders from all over the world.

1. Forced serendipity leads to the strongest connections
   At Techstars Mobility, we arrange 2000+ meetings a program between mentors and entrepreneurs. I don’t believe there is one size fits all approach to mentorship. I believe size matters. Engaging hundreds of mentors raises the randomness and collision of ideas that lead to breakthroughs. Sure you introduce more noise into the system, but you also introduce more signal. After all, it takes a lot of attempts to catch lightning in a bottle.
2. Great entrepreneurs aren’t born, they’re made
   Mentorship is only effective when the receiving end is open to learning. After all, mentorship is about taking someone’s else experiences and adding it to your own. At Techstars Mobility, I look for founders with a learning mindset. We look at mentors with a teaching mindset. Together, these create a powerful relationship. Multiple by hundreds and that forces serendipitous moments and connections (see above #1).

As Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus writes, “It is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.”

1. Founder/mentor fit is an important ingredient
   Lots of meetings between high-quality people doesn’t always lead to great results. As a startup seeks to find product/market fit, a mentorship-driven program needs to find founder/mentor fit to make an impact. This is nearly impossible to do assigning mentors. Doing so introduces your own biases into the process. Instead, I prefer to opt for “forced serendipity” — get as many smart people together as possible and see what happens. This lets the mentors and mentees find the fit as quickly as possible.

The important corollary here is to have a diverse mentor pool. We strive for that a Techstars Mobility but still have work to do. We’re especially looking for more female mentors as outlined in my previous post. Diversity of mentors leads to diversity of ideas and outcomes.

8 Takeaways from the Researchers

Grab your copy of the research report,  ”Mentoring in Startup Ecosystems” by clicking here.

Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation partially funded this research report conducted by two acclaimed academics and one practitioner in entrepreneurship:

• Dr. David Brophy, Director of the Office for Study of Private Equity Finance, University of Michigan
• Dr. Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Professor of Management and Operations, University of Michigan
• Thomas Jensen, Enterprise Futures Network, Founder and Executive Director

Dr. David Brophy adds, “I engage 30 mentors in my Financing Technology Commercialization class, and we are using the findings of our study to improve the linkage among our mentors, growth company founder/management, and our graduate and undergraduate student apprentice teams from all schools and units of University of Michigan.  We’re finding this quite effective and encourage incubators and accelerators to try this out as well.”

Thomas Jensen encourages “founders and mentors who want to up their game to carefully review and apply the study’s findings on how to develop and sustain mentoring relationships.” Below are eight insights that Tom shared with me as takeaways from the research. Tom also shared those takeaways on LinkedIn. Copied and shared below with permission.

1. Mentoring is fundamental to entrepreneurial success, but founders must be committed to the process and mentors must be highly qualified and fit well with entrepreneurs.
   The vast majority of entrepreneurs believe that mentorship has contributed to their ventures’ success.  However, entrepreneurs benefit commensurate with their perspective and commitment to learning (i.e., growth mindset) and capacity to establish and sustain mentoring relationships including frequent interactions and meetings.
2. Both university and private entrepreneurship program directors cite mentor availability and the difficulty in effectively managing the entrepreneur-mentor relationships as their biggest challenges.
3. Entrepreneur growth mindset is critical to learning and mentoring impact.
   Entrepreneurs who have the mindset that they can learn to be successful entrepreneurs (rather than a belief that successful entrepreneurs are born with certain skills that cannot be learned) makes them see more value in the mentorship they received.
   
4. Training and support of the mentorship experience significantly improve entrepreneur satisfaction.
   Although fewer than 40% of the programs train and actively support teams and their mentors, entrepreneurs are more satisfied with the experience when this support exists.
5. Lack of quality mentoring is a significant disadvantage.
   Overall, mentoring is a career/life-changing experience for entrepreneurs, but unfortunately, most entrepreneurs don’t have strong mentorship.
6. Mentors are motivated to give back.
   Both entrepreneurs and mentors believe that mentors volunteer to give back to the community and to help make the journey smoother for struggling entrepreneurs.
7. More effective tools (online matching and management) will improve outcomes.
   Fewer than 40% of all programs use any online tools to help entrepreneurs and mentors match and/or to manage their work together.  Without interactive online tools, entrepreneurs don’t have the ability to choose their mentors. While entrepreneurs want to choose their own mentors, unfortunately, 70% of the programs don’t offer this option (i.e., they match mentors to teams themselves).
8. Diversity is an issue.
   While 50% of entrepreneurs are non-white, mentors are overwhelmingly white and male (80%).  Only 20% of entrepreneurs are women. Most mentors are concerned about this and there is a consensus regarding the need for greater awareness about gender issues, including support from mentors. For example, mentors stated that women’s success can be enhanced with encouragement and access to dedicated mentors.

What has your mentorship experience been?

Have you engaged as a mentor before in an entrepreneurial startup setting? Or as a founder that has had great mentors?

We would love to hear about your mentorship experiences. Please share your own insights and thoughts by commenting below.

Are you a founder that wants to grow your network, secure capital for your startup, and scale your business? Do you want to tap into the rich network of mentors at Techstars Mobility? Subscribed to Ted’s blog and apply for the 2018 Techstars Mobility program (be sure to select Mobility 2018 as your first choice in the application).