But back in the day, those first 23 companies were all the rage. Like shiny new toys, they were exciting and fascinating. There was even a reality television show about them. So even though their three-month, highly-competitive startup accelerator program has ended, these companies are still around. They didn’t just vanish into thin air. (Well, some of them did).

But all of this begs the question, where are these companies now? How have they fared in the big, bad world? Did they flop? Or surpass expectations?

We didn’t know, so we decided to find out. And it turns out that we weren’t the only ones who were curious about what these companies have been up to.

“When we launched, everything was a concern,” managing director David Tisch told Betabeat in an email. “We were new, a startup.” New York City, he said, brought a unique set of challenges and advantages to these first two classes, but you never how things might turn out. So, Mr. Tisch, what’s the verdict? Have the first 23 New York City companies done TechStars proud?

“The progress shown so far is very promising,” Mr. Tisch said, “and I expect a few very big companies to emerge. There are some early standouts who have shown progress on the product side, revenue side, and team side.”

In the last year, about half of the companies raised over a million dollars in funding from investors (in addition to TechStars's initial $18,000 in each company) and only two companies failed. A third company, FriendsList, also failed, but its two cofounders shifted gears and transformed into another company, Timehop, a popular app that has since raised $1.1 million.

“I think the quality of the people we funded stands out to me,” Mr. Tisch added. “[And] as I look back at the companies from our first two classes at TechStars NYC, I am confident we have funded some amazing teams who are building big businesses.” -Jess Schiewe

Webster Hall on TechStars NYC Demo Day.

Red Rover, part of the inaugural New York TechStars class, is a four-year old, revenue-generating start-up that provides Facebook-esque student and alumni directories for schools and employee social networks for corporations--the kind of later-stage company you might be surprised to find in an incubator program. CEO Kevin Prentiss was unsure if the TechStars experience would be worth the six percent stake he'd have to hand over. 

"We’d bootstrapped to success. I was not convinced raising money was the right thing for us to do. This was my fourth company. It was easy for me to understand the present and probable future value of 6% of the company, but how could I measure the value of “mentorship”? Going into TechStars meant exchanging the known for the maybe," Mr. Prentiss writes in a lengthy retrospective on his blog.

He was concerned about the cost, in money and time. He was concerned about the optics--how would it look for a four-time founder with a four-year old start-up to join an incubator full of saplings? He was also unconvinced of the value--TechStars Boulder had a great reputation, but the New York program had no track record.

The final minutes of a meeting with David Tisch, who didn't impress him at first, were what pushed him over the edge. "I wasn’t really convinced," Mr. Prentiss writes about the meeting. "It sounded like marketing and he couldn’t back it up with case studies yet--he was simply hoping that he could deliver in NYC."

The turning point was when Mr. Tisch made a personal appeal, explaining why he'd decided to get involved with TechStars--"I could be doing anything – and there is nothing I can think of where I would learn more," in Mr. Prentiss's recollection. For some reason, that resonated with the meticulous, thrifty CEO.

"What I needed, and what I got from the TechStars process, was a huge shift in focus--from minimizing risk to maximizing the opportunity for Red Rover," he wrote.

Red Rover is a revenue-generating, four-year old start-up that sells a Facebook-like platform to colleges that need student and alumni directories and corporations that want an employee social network. "Over 30,000 people use our software to connect to other people who share their passions and discover relevant information in their community," the company says. The company, founded by Kevin Prentiss, has bootstrapped it so far. Betabeat talked to Tom Krieglstein, director of operations and two-time founder himself, about TechStars, hiring developers and raising Red Rover's series A.

Q: You guys posted an ad for a Ruby on Rails developer on Craigslist, I see. Does that work?

A: Not yet. We're just spreading the word as far as possible. We did get a lot of responses, but they are low quality. It's harder and harder now--well, sort of. Developers want to work with trending companies or do their own thing.

Q: Trending companies such as?

A: Us, or any TechStars company. And then there are the mid-tier companies that are gobbling up all the developers right now. Artsy, Etsy. And then of course Google and Facebook are fighting for everyone they can. But being able to attach the TechStars brand to our name helps with opening doors faster that would've taken longer to open... any number of investors, advisors, sales leads, and thought leaders, people who before would've probably just pinned us as yet another start up, will at least give us their ear for a moment because we've been vetted by TechStars already... TechStars is like a VIP card to get in the club, but once in you have to dance on your own.

The TechStars mentor list is 90 people deep (or more). It's not one specific person, but the whole list. Imagine trying to convince 90 separate, busy VCs or advisors to set up meetings, then get the time to go to their office both here in NYC and across the country in San Fran. With TechStars, all 90 came to us, in our office, and were excited to help and support us. That's amazing. People as high up as Fred Wilson.

Q: But it's not easy to get into TechStars, either. How'd you guys swing that?

A: We did it the same as everyone else. We submitted an application, interviewed twice with Tisch and Cohen, and then got accepted. No dancing or flashmobs needed. Just a great team, great idea, and great market.

Also... we came in with real revenue and real clients. TechStars isn't just for start-ups. The value extends for those, like us, that are further along in the process.

Q: Any advice to summer applicants?

A: Focus on the team above anything else. Expect that your idea and market will pivot during the program.

The biggest shifts that happened with us through the program were in market and product clarity (being really clear about our pitch, messaging, and who we were targeting) and our advisory board. We didn't put a lot of resources into this before TechStars because we just didn't have the time. Through TechStars, we've built up an amazing group of advisors that are helping us take Red Rover to a 100x growth company.

Also, fundraising. Again, we didn't focus on this pre-TechStars. We've been completely self-funded. But to reach the next level we want to partner with the VCs that share our vision and through TechStars we've found them.

Demo Day is a huge day for a lot of companies. For us it was really exciting and a ton of fun to use as a deadline to work against. Deadlines force clarity and results. But almost 90 percent of the people we are talking with now about funding we'd been talking with weeks (or months) before.

We are in the process now of raising a Series A for $1.5 million. It'll be our first outside capital. We did all our hard work before Demo Day so by the time we stepped on stage we were just solidifying relationships.