Startup accelerators offer mentoring, seed capital, access to investors, networking and other great benefits to founders. Those founders tend to be men. Now Techstars, one of the best-known programs, is making a push to reach more women entrepreneurs.
At essence, Techstars wants to attract more women founders and mentors, and to eliminate unconscious bias from its selection process so more women-led teams are accepted. Cofounder and managing partner David Brown announced the effort last week during White House Demo Day.
Diversity in tech is a heated issue, and with accelerators playing an important role in bringing attention to startups in the industry, addressing the low percentage of women and minorities in the programs is an important step. This year, about 17% of Techstars companies have a woman on their founding teams, says Brown. At Y Combinator, 23% of companies in the most recent class had a women leader, compared to 9% in 2012.
Techstars announced these four goals:
- Double the number of women in our applicant pool and across our mentor network over four years.
- Track participation in our programs by underrepresented minorities and double that from the baseline over the same time period.
- Publish our diversity data annually.
- Train staff on ‘unconscious bias’ and ensure that every selection committee includes at least two women so that female founders are represented in the selection process.
Techstars has a three-month program in its home city of Boulder, as well as in cities including New York, Boston, Chicago, Austin and London. It accepts about 10 companies in each city, and founders receive $118,000 in seed funding for up to 10% equity. It runs a crop of programs with various brands as well. “We have an opportunity on this issue not just for our company, but because we touch all of these companies every year, we can have an multiplier effect,” says Brown. “Maybe we can impact some of the 600 companies in our portfolio and new ones that come each year.”
Brown says he felt a personal tug to act as well. He began running operations full-time about two years ago after cofounding a medical services company. He thought that industry much more diverse. “The contrast has been galvanizing for me,” he says.
Attracting more female applicants begins with raising the profile of successful women founders and mentors. “It starts by our providing more role models, such as mentors in our program, speakers at Demo Days, who we talk about on our site,” says Brown. “Women need to see others that look and sound like they do.” Techstars will increase participation in groups and events that encourage women entrepreneurs, and bulk up its partnership with the National Center for Women & Information Technology. It will also enhance its existing Rising Stars program, which provides mentoring to underrepresented entrepreneurs.
Requiring each selection team—generally 10 to 12 people—to include two women will help counter any bias, and bring a broader range of thinking into the room. “If you pick a bunch of old white guys for the team, they might have unconscious bias, so we want to have two women to provide another viewpoint,” says Brown.
Techstars’ goals, its worth noting, did not include a target number of women-led businesses accepted into the program. Brown believes acceptance rates will rise naturally as soon as more women apply and more women are included in the selection process. “As long as we reduce unconscious bias that number will go up,” says Brown. Women-led companies with enormous potential are out there, he says, “we just have to work harder to find and attract them.”
There are reasons other than the bro culture that some accelerators are known for that women founders don’t apply. Most programs have residency requirements that may not work for women with children or that simply don’t appeal to women, for example. In the past few years, more women-focused programs have started, giving women more options. But leveling the field for those women who do want to attend—or might do so if there were more women in the programs--is necessary progress.
