More early stage venture firms is a good things. Copying good things, like open legal docs, is a good thing. The only thing I've heard I didn't like was setting deadlines to exclude YC, and I haven't heard definitive specifics on that.
I've met a couple of techstars companies in the last year and haven't heard any negatives yet - are you being intentionally vague to cover up for a friend or can you get more specific with your complaints?
The biggest complaint is that they interview and accept companies before YC and like YC, require an immediate decision. So if you get accepted into Techstars you have to tell them yes or no before your YC interivew.
The date for the TechStars program is set by the summer session for the local universities. The rental market revolves around this, and our program is set up to make it easy to find a sublet/ not conflict with the University scheduling etc (and not to block candidates from applying or attending any other program).
Also, we don't require an immediate decision. We encourage our teams to check in with their friends and families to make sure it is a great fit.
I've had experience of beign rejected by both, and have got better feelings with TechStar :) Well, the ideas were different too, so it triggered different reactions.
But overall, techstars do good job offering more opportunities for the startups.
