I’m spending about 95% of my waking hours right now on TechStars – reflected so in this blog!  Bare with me as I get through this.

Early application deadline for TechStars NYC is tonight at 11:59:59 ET.  I’ve complied an awesome list of reasons why you should apply TODAY and not wait until the final deadline.

TechStars for a Day Opportunity!
Applying by tonight makes you eligible for a TechStars for a Day invite.  TS4AD is a 3 hour min-camp, featuring a handful of awesome speakers, alumni, and mentors.  It lets you get a small glimpse of what TechStars is really like, hopefully you’ll walk away with great feedback on what you’re doing, new ideas on how to think about things, and maybe even a contact or two.  This year’s TS4AD features some amazing people including Ben Lerer, Joel Spolsky, Patrick Keane, David Cohen, Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, Jay Levy, David Tisch, Ben Siscovick, me, and more.  It’s a power-packed few hours, designed to add value to your startup and let us get to know you better.

I need time to get to know you
The earlier you apply, the more time I can spend on your application, watching your videos, perusing your website, playing with the demo, etc.  25% of our applications come in the last day – and if you do the math, there’s no way humanly possible I can get through them all with any sort of quality.  I end up skimming and skipping – and that’s just not how you want me interacting with your application.

You need time to prove what you’re capable of
If you’re paying attention, you know that an awesome team is our #1 criteria.  One of the critical aspects of the team is selecting a team that knows how to execute like mad.  Execute Execute Execute!  If you apply early, you can prove to us how quickly you can execute.  I remember working with the founders at Orbotix, before they had even conceptualized Sphero.  Every day, they’d show me a new device they built to show off their talents.  So go thee and execute – get your alpha launched, get users, improve your design – show me that you can build this thing you say you can build.  Pro:tip – A little used feature of the application is the ‘update’ capability.  Simply by sending an email to appupdates at notes.accelerato.rs from the email that was used to create the application, you can update it with any progress you’ve made.  I go in frequently and look for which applications have been updated with great stuff.

So stop reading this blog post and get your damn application in already!  http://apply.techstars.com