Episode
From a Bus at 2 AM to a Techstars Stage
- Podcast
- Tik and Chris
- Published
- Jun 18, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3905
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Summary
Co-host Pratik Desai pulls back the curtain on something he's never talked about publicly — how he went from scribbling a business plan on a bus to Machu Picchu at 2 AM to landing his first contract before he even left Peru. This episode digs into the early chaos of bootstrapping a tech consulting company: figuring out insurance, benefits, quarterly taxes, and all the unglamorous back-office realities that nobody writes down in their business plan. From there, Pratik walks us through what it actually looks like to get into Techstars — the sub-1% acceptance rate, the intense interview process, and what the program's managing directors are really evaluating when they sit across from you. He shares what day-to-day life in the accelerator looked like, how he balanced active consulting clients with building a product, and what it felt like to be the first founder on stage at demo day in front of a packed house at Google's NYC pier. And then — the exit. Pratik gets candid about how the landscape shifted, why they made the call they made, and what he'd tell anyone considering applying to an accelerator today. If you're a consultant thinking about making the jump to founder, or just curious what the startup-to-exit journey actually looks like from the inside, this is the episode.