Last week, TechStars invited ten companies to come to New York for a new program called TechStars Wildcard. The feedback for these ten companies was that the selection team really liked the founders, but didn't like the idea they were working on. The program was very informal: a meeting at the TechStars NYC office for all the founders to meet each other, then a week to re-apply. The expectation was that ideas would change, and new teams would possibly form. (For some numbers, we were told over 1000 companies applied, about 25 were selected as finalists, and the ten of us were selected as Wildcards.)

Heyo was one of the companies invited. The decision to even attend was tough. I've been working on Heyo from San Francisco for the last few weeks, and it would cost a significant amount to fly to NY for a week last-minute. I considered it for a couple days and talked with a couple of my mentors and our current investors. It was a big risk: in addition to the cost, it would be a huge distraction, and by definition, accepting it meant we would be willing to start fresh with a new idea. It also sounded really exciting, and was unprecedented as far as I know of in the seed-stage incubator world. I bought a one-way SF-NY redeye the night before (I wasn't sure how long I'd be there), packed my suitcase, and flew to New York.

We met at the TS office a block off Union Square in Manhattan. About 30 of us founders sat in a circle, and were joined by a handful of mentors from the TechStars team. After a brief explanation from David Tisch of how the Wildcard program would work, we went around the circle and introduced ourselves. 

It was an amazingly talented group of people. Having founded Heyo straight out of college, I felt I was definitely one of the less impressive people there based on professional accolades. There were folks with backgrounds in private equity, VC, real estate, politics, hedge funds, high-frequency trading and obviously technology. Importantly, and to TechStars credit, pretty much everyone was also either a designer or a developer.

After going around the circle, the structured part of the Wildcard program was over, and we all mingled at the TechStars office for a few hours getting to know each other and talking about new ideas. Interestingly, it seemed that probably more than half of the companies there were building something similar to Heyo: a consumer product that required massive adoption to be successful, but was still in development or didn't have significant traction yet. (A sophisticated tech investor will tell you that companies like this are hard to fund, because there are thousands of companies trying to build the next consumer mobile/web tool to get mass adoption, and if you're only picking one, it's unlikely that you'll be able to pick the right one.)

After a couple hours, they kicked us out of TechStars, and a group of us went out to dinner. The discussions that night, and over the next couple of days were incredible. Imagine this: a dozen people sitting around a table. Nobody has a full-time job: everyone has either founded a company, or is living off savings while working on one. The stakes are incredibly high: a successful applicant gets investment from TechStars, and access to some of the best-known mentors and investors in the tech world. And everybody is willing to take a huge risk on a huge new idea.

Over those couple of days, we talked about a huge number of new ideas, from new approaches to health care and education, to multi-use retail space, to hover-boards. We even discussed the prospect of starting a new company with a dozen founders. The common thread of the conversation was, "What would this industry look like if we built it from the ground up? Would it look significantly different than it does today?"

After a couple of days of meeting with everyone, we started splitting into smaller groups, and working on more specific ideas. I won't go into details on what I worked on just yet, but I ended up teaming up with a couple other guys and spending the next couple of days working on a new idea in real estate. We ran around New York for a few days meeting with everyone who we could get time with, spent a couple days cold-calling potential customers, and by the weekend, had significantly fleshed out what this new company could look like. We re-applied a few minutes before the deadline, then headed out of the city.

The last few days, we've been building a simple minimum viable product to put in front of potential customers. We received word last night that we would not be accepted to the TechStars program. Despite that, we are continuing to work on this concept and may be forming a new company soon.

Thank you to Dave Tisch, Adam Rothenberg, and the other mentors at TechStars for inviting us and advising us over those few days. Thanks also to Jesse and WeWork for letting us work out of your sweet office for a few days. Thanks to Judd, Benjie, Dave, David, Roger, David, Sam, Matt, Nicolas, and Will for making the week awesome.

If you have experience working, building things, or investing in companies in the real estate rental market, please email me, fred at heyo dot com. Also, we're still looking for another technical co-founder, so if you're interested in getting in on the ground floor of something awesome, please get in touch. We think we might be starting in Chicago.