Mr. Shimmerlik. (Photo: NYU Stern)

Last year, the New York City Economic Development Council gave a local business school student a $17,500 grant to fund what was basically the best idea ever: Miniature vending machines, sized to fit snugly in the backseat of a taxi, ready to dispense items that New Yorkers on the go really need.

Well, we know how hard it is to get new technology up and running in a New York City taxi cab.

But fear not. Brian Shimmerlik, the NYU MBA candidate behind the idea, figured taxis weren't the only market for his miniature vending machines, and went on to raise $1 million in seed funding to expand the concept. The result: Vengo, a touchscreen, credit card only vending machine that debuted yesterday at an East Village bar. According to the New York Post, the first machine is vending gum, mouthwash, Old Spice cologne. Coming soon: condoms.

“The purpose is to update the vending machine of the ’80s,” Mr. Shimmerlik told the Post. “They’ve become extinct.”

Meanwhile, the Long Island City-based company is looking to place 10,000 machines throughout the city, in such varied locales as office buildings (cell phone chargers, anyone), doctor's offices and eventually—taxi cabs.

According to TechCrunch, it's a question of engineering a machine that operates dependably in a moving vehicle, at which point, some combination of energy drinks, headache medication and condoms, would sell pretty well, we think.

Mr. Chung (Photo: TechStars)

In December, after reports about an impending downturn in the accelerator boom, some local investors expressed concerns about the future of TechStars New York. Would the next Demo Day be the same parade of oversubscribed startups when much-hyped graduates were still stuck in beta? Were the lessons learned in TechStars enough to prepare companies for life outside the bubble?

David Tisch's departure as managing director added to that uncertainty. But TechStars CEO and founder David Cohen dismissed those worries, pointing to "heavy inbound interest" in the role. Today, he announced his new hire from the 35 candidates interviewed: Eugene Chung, a former venture capitalist with New Enterprise Associates. 

NEA has been making a number of high-profile investments in New York startups, including leading Buzzfeed's recent $19.3 million Series D. Mr. Chung was "instrumental in managing" investments in BuzzFeed and Bedrocket. The Harvard MBA also has experience as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and an energy investor at Warburg Pincus. In a prior stint at Pixar, he programmed an app that automated analysis of a film's story development.

Mr. Chung has already been mentoring TechStars companies, including Poptip, Moveline, Bondsy, Condition One, Classtivity, Wander, and Pickie and wrote about how accelerators were disrupting venture capital for the Harvard Business Review. Not too shabby as far as cover letters go.

Interim managing director Nicole Glaros, who was shipped in from Boulder to take the helm, will co-manage the spring class and be based here for the duration.

Mr. Cohen told Betabeat he expects to announce the companies selected by the end of March, before the program starts on April 2. Interest was at an all-time high, with 1,700 startups applying.

You can read posts about today's announcement from Mr. Cohen, TechStars cofounder Brad Feld, and Mr. Chung himself.

Photo: Edward Reed (via Inc.com)

At any startup accelerator, Demo Days are a relentlessly upbeat affair--a parade of promotional pitch decks and stats about market size that somehow always reach up into the billions. But in New York City, Techstars' biannual showcase takes the cake.

Founded in Boulder, the program launched in New York in 2011 (just as the startup scene cried out for tent poles to rally around) and easily fills auditoriums. Companies often announce “soft-circled” funding or even that the round has already closed. Mayor Bloomberg even called the number of investors who fly to New York to check out presentations, "proof positive that the TechStars is going to change this world and certainly change America and this city.”

Or as TechStars mentor Joel Spolsky put it before introducing one of the startups at Webster Hall: "Time to get my company oversubscribed."

However, some investors and entrepreneurs have expressed concerns about whether the spring 2013 class of TechStars New York will yield the same financial windfall--and the same amount of interest from potential applicants.

Part of the worry is related to the Series A crunch and fears of funding cliffs and falling valuations. Economic conditions are unlikely to support the accelerator boom we've seen over the past couple years. "We grew too fast," Paul Graham wrote this month, announcing that Y Combinator, the mother of all incubators, would reduce the number of startups in its program from 84 down to 50. And that was after downgrading the investment per company from $150,000 to $80,000. Under the headline, "We know accelerators are headed for a shakeout — but do they? "PandoDaily recently pointed out, there are "at least 100 such programs churning out thousands of startups a year and the expectation that 90 percent of them won’t return their money."

"I'm not sure why you'd say there's an overall constriction based on one data point on the opposite side of the country," TechStars founder and CEO David Cohen retorted by email when we brought up changes at Y Combinator as a sign of things to come for other accelerators. "The fact that TechStars is in NYC, offers more funding than Y Combinator, has an awesome alumni and mentor network right there means that more startups from the area will likely apply," he said. (In exchange for 6 percent equity, TechStars invests $18,000 per company and a $100,000 convertible note.)

Mr. Cohen noted that New York's first program raised $24.2 million including follow on rounds, where the second program raised $13.8 million and the third raised $11.6 million. As for whether the next class will see as much investment, he said, "Time will tell."

But in interviews with Betabeat, local sources also listed specific concerns related to the management of TechStars New York, which recently saw a changing of the guard. David Tisch, who rose to prominence in his role as managing director of the program, stepped down in August to focus on investing through Box Group, his boutique angel fund, which has already seen a number of exits including GroupMe and just this week Behance.

Betabeat has learned that Adam Rothenberg, a director at TechStars for the past two years, has also left the program and will likely be working on investments through Box Group as well. Both Mr. Tisch and Mr. Rothenberg declined to comment for this article.

In November, rather than announcing a permanent replacement for Mr. Tisch from within the New York ecosystem, TechStars shipped in an interim managing director from the Boulder: Nicole Glaros. Ms. Glaros, a serial entrepreneur, comes equipped with plenty of relevant experience. She's run five previous TechStars' programs and will be living here.

So far, the absence of a hometown cheerleader like Mr. Tisch doesn't appear to have affected applicant interest. Mr. Cohen told Betabeat that the April program already boasts 735 application with a month to go before the deadline. "My guess is we'll break another record--which has happened every year since inception. As you know our acceptance rate is around 1% nationally, and we've seen 1200-1400 applications in the past in NYC for 10-12 spots. This doesn't seem to be slowing down," he said.

Mr. Cohen will be "very hands on with this program as usual," he added, noting that TechStars cofounder Brad Feld "will be spending extra time with this program as well."

However, those familiar with TechStars New York noted an unusual aura of silence around this program's candidates. "It's still a big mystery. Rumors usually spread like wildfire within the TechStars community," said one source, noting that around this time insiders typically know who is applying.

A couple of sources wondered if there was difficulty in finding a permanent replacement because of the way managing directors, who get a cut of TechStar's equity in companies, are compensated. Details offered are always hazy in terms of whether the position requires a buy-in. "There is limited salary at best for the position, but there are PLENTY of great people in NYC who can make this work," one TechStars mentor told Betabeat.

Mr. Cohen dismissed speculation about compensation, adding that although no offers have been made, TechStars has "heavy inbound interest in the role." Including other cities, TechStars boasts 17 exits overall. "In the past it's helped us attract high quality people such as Katie Rae, Jason Seats, Andy Sack, Nicole Glaros, Luke Beatty, and David Tisch in the past, and I don't expect that will be a concern at all."

Then there are some more pressing issues related to the startups themselves. One angel investor attributed skepticism about this class of companies’ ability to raise to the success rate of previous graduates. "TechStars bets on a category and hopes they can shape the startup," the investor explained. "People that invest after TechStars do it with the assumption that they've been vetted." However, the investor said, some graduates, "get the money and don't understand that it's money to build a business--or at least get LAUNCH. Where's Wander? How long has it been that they've been in beta?" Bondsy, another much-hyped startup, is also still in beta.

The investor also wondered if the lessons learned during the program were enough to prepare them for life outside the accelerator's bubble. "They teach them all this crazy shit about pitching that's not applicable in the real world. When going for your next round after TechStars, you can't go with your 10-slide TechStars deck and a promise that you're going to produce."

Mr. Cohen pointed out that TechStars New York has already had one exit from its first class: ThinkNear, a hyperlocal ad company that was acquired for $22.5 million by Telenav in October. "We're talking about 2011 here, last year," Mr. Cohen said in response to those concerns about the caliber of companies. "I wonder what sort of success people expect in that timeframe, now that it's the end of 2012?" It's often mentioned that Y Combinator, which was started in 2005, depends on a handful of blockbusters for its returns, including Dropbox, Airbnb, and Heroku.

Mr. Cohen encouraged anyone with questions or concerns about the upcoming program to reach out to him. There is an upcoming recruiting event, TechStars for a Day, scheduled for January 10th. The event will feature talks from Ms. Glaros, Mr. Spolsky and Thrillist and Lerer Ventures cofounder Ben Lerer. "Most importantly, it's a chance for us to spend time with interesting companies who want to learn more about TechStars." To get an invitation, startups have to apply before the January 4th early deadline.

Ms. Glaros. (Photo: NearlyNicole.com)

TechStars NYC has been quiet since August, when managing director David Tisch announced that he would be stepping back from his day-to-day role at the accelerator program. Almost exactly a year ago, we profiled Mr. Tisch's rise to prominence in New York's startup scene largely through his role in building a satellite program for TechStars, which entered the local market just when it could benefit from a little infrastructure.

(Early observers will recall that the first class of TechStars New York was filmed for a reality show, but managed to escape the humorless vitriol directed at Randi Zuckerberg--probably because the TechStars version was for Bloomberg instead of Bravo, and involved about 100 percent fewer toga parties.) Over the past few years, Mr. Tisch has become a prolific angel investor through Box Group, and his name frequently shows up in seed funding rounds for New York companies--TechStars and otherwise. Thus finding a replacement who is as well-versed in the scene might be tricky.

But accelerator season waits for no man. Today, TechStars founder and CEO David Cohen announced an interim replacement for Mr. Tisch. Serial entrepreneur Nicole Glaros, who has been managing director of TechStars in Boulder since 2009, will be moving out East for the spring. With a new figurehead in place, applications are officially opening today for the program that starts April 4. In a blog post, Mr. Cohen, who will also be "partially based" in New York this session, wrote:

Of all of our Managing Directors nationally, Nicole has the most experience with the culture and heart of TechStars and has run five TechStars programs since 2009. She’s been responsible for funding and working with many great companies such as Ubooly, Cloudability, Mobiplug, Orbotix, and dozens more. Once we name a new permanent Managing Director for NYC, Nicole will be on site to train that person alongside her during the program next spring.

In an email to Betabeat, Mr. Cohen said "we think the permanent Managing Director in NYC will be someone from that area." As for the program's criteria, it's the same as it ever was. "We're simply looking for the best founders that we can meaningfully help," he said. "We've funded very diverse things in the past, and we'll continue to go after big ideas. I think our recent Boston class was as good example of that."

In the meantime, Ms. Glaros, who says she "love[s] people, but hates crowds," might want to steel herself for the subway-riding experience:

@leithstevens yes, excited! I'll be a little fish in the worlds biggest ocean. :-)

— Nicole Glaros (@nglaros) November 19, 2012

This post has been updated to include comments from Mr. Cohen. 

Cheryl Mills (Photo: Wikipedia.org)

A lot of startups are letting their employees work from home for the next few days because of hurricane Sandy. That's all swell news, but those members of New York's tech scene who were supposed to go out and party or sit through conferences are screwed. Tech events are getting cancelled left and right, though some scene luminaries don't seem to mind.

AllThingsD's "D: Dive Into Mobile" conference has been postponed until a later date that will be announced as soon as possible. The event had originally been set for tomorrow and Tuesday in New York City. If you booked a room at the Ritz Carlton (looking at you, VC's), the hotel is apparently giving full refunds and waiving cancellation fees. Speakers like Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy and Hillary Clinton's Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills, will just have to wait until another day to make their speeches.

The Big Apple Smackdown Tourney, a ping pong tournament held at Susan Sarandon's SPIN and co-sponsored by this very blog, was postponed until further notice. Gilt's Kevin Ryan will have to wait to face off in a heady match of pong against David Tisch and AllThingsD's Kara Swisher. Ping Pong'ing with the Tech Stars sounds like a Bravo reality show just waiting to happen. Maybe the rain delay will give Andy Cohen some time to hash out that concept. The event will be postponed "until a later date."

Facebook, however, is the company shedding the most tears about Sandy. They've had to cancel two of their New York events set for this week. The first is a Tuesday engineering open house that was planned for the social networking site’s New York HQ in midtown. And, more importantly, Facebook's Gifts event--set for Thursday at FAO Schwartz--has been nixed too. According to AllThingsD, Facebook was set to use the occasion to announce partnerships for its new platform that allows users to send gifts to each other in real life.

Monday's Google event in New York has also been shut down ahead of schedule. They were expected to present the Nexus 10 tablet and an updated version of Android OS. Guess you'll just have to use your old gear through the storm and dream of the bigger and better things that will come after the skies clear.

From left to right: Mr. O'Donnell, Mr. Tisch, and Mr. Penenberg.

New York University's premier tech club, Tech@NYU, is in the midst of its annual Startup Week. This year's series of panels featuring familiar faces from Silicon Alley are all organized under the theme "Hacking as a mentality."

Hence last night's event starring Charlie O'Donnell, partner of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, and David Tisch, the former managing director of Techstars NYC was dubbed, "Hacking the Future."

Moderating the panel, hosted in the auditorium of NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, was NYU professor Adam Penenberg, who also happens to be the editor of PandoDaily.

Despite the future-facing title, most of the talk consisted of the two panelists walking the student-filled audience through the history of their careers. Mr. Penenberg asked what they hated to see demoed. Mr. O'Donnell said that he wasn't comfortable with video because "it asks too much of its user."

When asked how his portfolio companies can get his best attention, Mr. Tisch said, “I tend not to sleep, I'm on Gtalk from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. It's the companies awake at that hour that get a lot of attention. I don't have any distractions at that time.”

But the most educational--and surprising--moment of the evening came when the floor was opened up for questions, and the first person asked about pivoting.

"Paul Graham has this philosophy that's like, 'Keep pivoting until you find an idea,'" Mr. O'Donnell said. "I don't know when that became a thing."

At this, Mr. Tisch shook his head in agreement and said, "I don't think you can pivot after raising money. I think you fail."

Mr. Tisch emphasized the fact that some pivots were were incredibly beneficial, particularly in cases where teams live out their passions. He pointed to the Burbn team using their love of photos to create Instagram, the Turntable.fm boys realizing that their love of music was more interesting than the QR codes of Stickybits, and the founders of Fab harnessing their love of design and shortening Fabulous.

It's a different story, he explained, for founders switching to a new idea they care nothing about. In that case, Mr. Tisch said, "If you're thinking about pivoting, you should think about getting a job. That's a pivot."

Added Mr. O'Donnell: "The one thing that doesn't change in a pivot is you. Maybe you didn't have project management skills or sales skills. Maybe there's something you should've learned to be a better executor. Maybe you couldn't close a deal, maybe you should get a job that would make you better at closing a deal."

Nervous students in the audience who thought they could just pivot on their startup idea until they came up with the next Facebook quickly pivoted to an entirely different train of thought.

 This post has been updated to add additional statements from last night's panel.

(Photo: wikipedia.org)

Among the Natives David Karp put on his salesman hat this week and preached the Tumblr gospel in front of execs at an Advertising Week event. Karp pushed his company’s new approach to “native” non-intrusive marketing. He went as far as to call Tumblr the "brave new world." The site now nets 27 million visitors a month and is expected to release some sort of earnings report this week, six months after ads started running on the site.

Pass The Popcorn MoviePass, a subscription service for unlimited movie-going, launched today, but is still invite-only. The app lets you check into a movie theatre, which then unlocks your MoviePass card. You pay at the credit card ticket kiosk using your MoviePass card, like you would with an ordinary card. The service is starting out at $29.99, which makes it a steal for New Yorkers because that's a little under the price of two movies with popcorn in Manhattan.

The Most Eligible Bachelor Wendr, an app for planning a night out with your friends, won Samsung and Thrillist's "Speed Dating For Startups" competition. After submitting a 30-second video advertising their app, the team had to demo with other finalists in front of a panel of judges. The winner was picked by Thrillist founder Ben Lerer, Samsung Senior Manager Jason Redmond, and and David Tisch, former managing director of TechStars NYC. The prizes for winning the competition include a write-up on Thrillist (bro outreach!), launch services from MRPR, KinPixel and LiftFive, and a collection of Samsung Series 9 laptops. Does this mean Wendr has to plan its own startup date?

Get Checked Y'all! In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, Hologic, Inc, rang the opening bell of the NASDAQ this Monday. They also parked a mobile facility in Times Square that was filled with 3D mammogram technology called The “Tomo Coach.” Their 3D technology is locating cancer faster and better, so go get felt up for a good cause.

1 Billion Amateur Editors Can't Be Wrong Aviary, the photo editing app, announced this week that one billion photos have now been edited on their app within the first 12 months of launching. For a comparison, it took Instagram 18 months to accomplish the same feat. The company estimates that they will double that number by the end of 2012. That's a whole lot of sepia tones and stickers slapped on people's faces.

Streets Now YouTube'able StreetEasy, New York’s best way to avoid getting scammed on Craigslist, has partnered with internet travel show Sonia's Travels, to make video content that spotlights individual neighborhoods throughout the city. "Partnering with her on this type of video series was a no-brainer, especially as we build up our original content," said Michael Smith, CEO of StreetEasy.

Witness the iResurrection Digg, still making its climb out of the Internet grave, introduced a universal app for the iPhone and iPad. It's stark white, just like the new site, which looks really great on the iPad. It also has a cool feature called Reading Sync that uses iCloud to sync up articles between devices.

A British Boost Earlier this week, Rightster, a service that helps content providers maximize revenue from online video, announced a digital revenue services company, announced the hire of Robin Pembrooke as VP of Product & Solutions. He's a former Yahoo! guy, but more recently he led the online operations of Britain's biggest advertising funded TV and radio broadcasters--ITV and Global Radio. He should be able to help them out in a big way in the U.K. market.

The End of the Valley, But Not Advisory Boards Twist, the app that gives your friends your ETA, announced this morning that Yammer founder David Sacks would join Twist's advisory board. Sacks started a small firestorm after he claimed that "Silicon Valley as we know it may be coming to an end" shortly after selling his company to Microsoft. Sacks was quoted in the company's announcement as saying he uses Twist everyday and that "apps that help people manage or save time possess huge market value."

A Better Second Round Betterment, a low cost personal investing website, announced today that they've acquired $10 million in second round financing led by Menlo Ventures. The company says that since its start in 2010, they've increased customer assets under management at 500 percent per year. The company also just launched Betterment Gift, a service that allows you to gift money that you make from investments. Feel free to gift Betabeat as much as your better angels allow.

(Photo: flickr.com/classicchanelhandbags)

Healthy Hills? Everyday Health, the SoHo-based and more successful version of WebMd, has acquired EQAL, the creators of Lonelygirl15 and the owners of LaurenConrad.com. Everyday Health's ad revenue grew 40 percent in the first quarter, compared to WebMD’s decline of 20 percent. This coincides with Everyday Health's announcement that they're moving beyond YouTube and launching a version of it's web show "Recipe Rehab" for ABC stations around the country.

Diller Brings Back Dog Ben Silverman's multimedia entertainment studio Electus, part of Barry Diller's IAC, just sold ten episodes of a new show starring Dog the Bounty Hunter and his wife Beth to CMT. "Dog and Beth are not only great television characters," said Electus CEO Chris Grant, "They are the best bounty hunters in the world, and this show is a natural evolution of their life story.”

Exit This Way Indeed, which describes itself as "the #1 job search engine worldwide," has been acquired (for a rumored $750 million to $1 billion price tag) by Recruit Co. Ltd, a large-scale Japanese HR company with over $10 billion in revenue. Rony Kahan, co-founder of Indeed, says that half of the site's traffic comes from outside the U.S and that they see this buyout to further that.

Thrillist on the LES Jackthreads, owned by Thrillist, just launched Goodale's Fall 2012 collection. Swedish singer/songwriter Sebastian Mikael modeled the clothes at the Lower East Side's Hotel Chantelle. There are a few days left of the heavily discounted sale. What, no Asher Roth seasonal playlist to shop by this time?

Shop Local Smallknot, the site that lets backers help small businesses get off the ground in exchange for rewards, had a pretty busy couple of weeks. They launched their first three Los Angeles businesses this week. The company partnered with Accion USA, a microlending company, to help fully fund A7, a Brooklyn-based shop that makes handcrafted leather camera straps. The team at Smallknot is also hard at work at a new product that will help small business owners get the word out about their products.

But It's So Dead At Night The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) launched a competition called “Take the H.E.L.M.: Hire + Expand in Lower Manhattan." The contest invites all companies that plan to either open or expand office space in Lower Manhattan in the next 12 months to apply for the opportunity to win a grand prize of $250,000. Twenty finalists will also will also receive $20,000 each. David Tisch and former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt will join Reddit's Alexis Ohanian as judges to pick the winner.

Will Hack For Food NYU's Courant Institute will be holding a hackathon this weekend with over 300 hackers already planning to attend. It starts this Saturday at 2 p.m. and goes until Sunday at 2 p.m. Appetude will be providing free food at the event for sleep-starved participants.

Mongo Matriculation 10gen announced today that it will offer free online training courses for its parent company's key product, MongoDB. The courses are open for registration now--there's one for developers and one for administrators. Lead MongoDB developer Dwight Merriman will teach the first class that starts in early October. Learning MongoDB is apparently the second most wanted skill companies are looking for right now.

Très Fab Custom design shop, Fab, just expanded the site's European version, which already has 2 million members. These updates essentially make the site just as fully functional as the U.S. version. There are already 200 million Fab employees overseas. The company says that Fab Europe is on pace to represent about 30 percent of the company's 2012 sales.

Changing That Ratio Women 2.0, a media company that offers resources for aspiring women in tech, just announced its partnership with Google. Their first effort together will be pumping up Women 2.0's signature event, Founder Friday, a monthly networking meetup. Detroit and Mexico City will host the event on November 16th, followed by Sao Paulo, New Orleans, and Moscow later on. Mary Grove, head of entrepreneurship outreach at Google, said, "We're looking forward to hosting these important gatherings in Google offices around the world and working together to help female entrepreneurs turn their ideas into innovative, sustainable businesses." No word yet on whether the gift bag includes What Would Marissa Mayer Do? bracelets.

Mr. Tisch (Photo: We are New York Tech)

My, how quickly they grow. It seems like just yesterday Betabeat was following TechStars managing director David Tisch around Union Square for a profile of the new crown prince of the tech scene. But in an unexpected August surprise, Mr. Tisch just announced on his blog that he would be stepping back from his day-to-day duties at the startup accelerator.

"The program was at a point of stability. I was incredibly proud of what we built over two years: three programs, 36 companies," Mr. Tisch, who also invests personally through Box Group, told Betabeat by phone. "We were in between a big lull in the program, so it felt like the right time."

Mr. Tisch's new title will be cofounder of TechStars New York. "I'm still going to be involved and help with all the other stuff. It's just not day-to-day anymore. I'm going to mentor, I'm an investor in the program. I'll help with the selection committee and stuff like that and we'll figure out where it goes."

TechStars New York's next class won't be named until 2013, "so there's no delay or anything like that," he explained.

As for his replacement, "I literally have no idea," Mr. Tisch said. He won't be directly involved in naming his successor, "But I have a good relationship with David Cohen and we'll continue to chat about it," he added.

"I tried to brainstorm [candidates], but I don't know," he said. "I think over time somebody will emerge. I was that person last time. I think somebody will just show up and do it who is great, I guess."

There may have been a lull between classes, but Mr. Tisch--known for his tough love and 3 a.m. emails--has kept himself busy. "I've never been more excited about the companies I'm working with," he said. "It's been a busy summer. I made probably about 15 investments over the past three months."

We tried to prod for details about which startups in particular he was enthused about working with, and the dutiful leader naturally pointed towards the most recent TechStars flock. "I think there's some really interesting companies that have emerged from that group. They're young, they're early, but there are some good teams in there. Lua has announced their funding, they're super interesting, what Kelsey is doing at Poptip and Jeremy at Wander and Moveline and Pickie as they launch, as they emerge that will be really interesting."

Mr. Tisch also name-checked a couple of investments. "I did CasaHop. I was an investor in Behance earlier this summer. OpenAir publishing is doing some cool stuff on the iPhone with creating books and before that 9GAG, which has a lot of pageviews since people have written about it." He also said there were about 10 or 15 other deals he couldn't yet disclose.

Whatever his next move, expect him to stick to early-stage startups. "I love doing what I'm doing. There are not really many changes besides taking a step back at TechStars. I see no change in my day-to-day, my deal flow, etc. Hopefully I can continue to work with awesome people and awesome companies."

More time to plan his upcoming wedding? "I've outsourced that," he said, laughing. "I luckily have a partner who cares to do that for me. She has a lot more opinions that I do."