Techstars flagship Boulder program had some news on Monday that may have been troubling to some at first. Luke Beatty, the program’s Managing Director, has stepped down.
Beatty began his career at Techstars as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence before he moved up to his current role as Managing Director. He took on that role as predecessor Nicole Glarros segued to a similar position at Techstars New York program. That was to fill the void from Techstars NY’s Dave Tisch stepping down to start Box Group.
Beatty is being tight lipped about why he is stepping down but did tell the Boulder County Business Report that “I have a once-in-a-lifetime chance (to be announced later), that I just can’t pass up – one that wouldn’t allow me to live up to the TechStars promise if I were to try to juggle.”
“Luke is staying very close to the Boulder program, and Nicole is taking it back over,” TechStars co-founder and chief executive David Cohen said in an email Monday,
Beatty is an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur, one of those guys that preaches the startup and entrepreneur lifestyle. He also takes pride in being annoying and hyperactive. “I will remain annoyingly (hyper) active and will forever be engaged with the 11 companies that were in this summer’s cohort in Boulder.” he said on his blog.
Beatty was the founder of Associated Content which was acquired by Yahoo in the pre-Mayer era. After the acquisition he stayed on at Yahoo as a Vice President before leaving for Techstars.
Glaros will move back to Boulder and take over as Managing Director.
Beatty oversaw the most recent graduating class at Techstars Boulder which included GoodApril, a tax planning startup that was actually acquired before completing the program.
Of course you can find out more at techstars.com