Max Kelly is Managing Director of Techstars London for those of you that are not so familiar with Techstars, Techstars is the leading global ecosystem for entrepreneurs to bring new technologies to market helping to create the next generation of amazing startups and prior to joining Techstars, Max had a long background running innovation and entrepreneurship at Virgin. While there, he was responsible for the strategy of the group and for starting several companies which eventually exited for over $500M. Alongside his Virgin commitments, Max also co-founded lastsecondtickets.com which had a successful exit in 2014. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.)How did Max make his way into tech and investing? How was his time at Virgin? 2.) What is Techstars and what is the fundamental differentiator to the plethora of other accelerators that exist? 3.) What does Max think of Sam Altman’s recent article on the damning nature of incubator hopping? Does he agree? In what situations is it acceptable? 4.) With many companies graduating from Tectstars every batch, how does Max retain the same quality control and level of mentorship for every company? 5.) What is the most common sector prospective Techstars companies are looking to enter? What is the least common? 6.) How do the VCs play a role in the process? Do some get exclusive access to prior to demo day? What do the best VCs do to make the most out of Techstars? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Fave book: Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance Most used app: Citymapper, Voxer, Headspace, Fave Blog: CB Insights, The Daily Shop, Exponential View As always, you can learn more about SyndicateRoom here: www.syndicateroom.com and see Max's latest tweets here: www.syndicateroom.com/maxkellyuk

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