I just finished a fantastic dinner with Brad Feld here in San Francisco during his quick trip into the city and I think I am finally inspired to write a post I have been meaning to write for a long time about applying to TechStars. Many of the other TechStars alum have offered great advice about the program including Ignighter, Travelfli, and Filtrbox. If you are still wondering if you should apply, read these posts because they all share their perspective on what it can do for your business. I won’t go in depth about whether or not you should apply, because it’s simple. Do it. It was the best thing we ever did for our business and absolutely changed the trajectory of our company for the better. Since now is the time to apply to TechStars for 2009, I wanted to weigh in and share Foodzie’s story for applying and why I think it worked.

We decided as a team that applying to TechStars was the best thing we could possibly do to increase the likelihood of success for our business. But to be completely honest, we thought it was a long shot for us to actually get selected as one of the 10 to make into the program. We were just little ol’ Foodzie from North Carolina and our business was simply applying technology that existed to a niche where it was needed. Didn’t seem so TechStars worthy. We weren’t inventing anything brand new and we knew we were up against some badass engineers who were.

We were the underdogs.

So what did we do? We did everything we could possibly think of over the course of the application process to prove how much we wanted it (including bribing people with chocolate).

We did our homework and read every blog post we could get our hands on from David, Brad and TechStars alumni about the TechStars program. Then we used that data and put a lot of time into our application to ensure we had thoughtfully answered every question. We even met with TechStars alum in person to learn from their experience.

We marketed ourselves by going to TechStars For a Day, wearing green t-shirts, giving out chocolate, and attended the local tech events.

We followed up by sending thank yous, busted our tails on building our product and stayed engaged with David the entire time so there could be an open dialogue with him around our business and our team.

These are the things that worked for Foodzie. Do them if it makes sense for your business, or do different things, or do more. Most importantly, think of yourself as the underdog and approach applying to TechStars with a fire and intensity that you want it more than anyone else. Figure out what you can do with your business to show David and the rest of the TechStars directors that you want it. Having that fire, having a good team, being able to execute, and really really wanting it aren’t just attributes David looks for in companies because he thinks they’ll be good for the TechStars program. He looks for those things because that’s what you need to succeed as a startup, as a business.

Foodzie has had an unbelievable year (mostly because of TechStars) and so much has happened for us that we never imagined would, but we are still an underdog. And frankly, every startup is. When you’re a small team competing against some big established companies, you’ve got to fight hard to get noticed. Applying to TechStars was a true test for us – did we really want it and how hard were we willing to fight to be the best. It’s a good question to ask yourself during this application process, but from what I’ve learned it’s even bigger than TechStars and sets the foundation for the way you approach running your business.