Misti Cain is the Managing Director of Techstars San Diego powered by SDSU. She began mentoring with Techstars in 2018. In 2019, she was voted All-Star Mentor, then received the 2022 #GiveFirst award. Misti was also an EIR, Investment Manager, and Venture Partner for Techstars before assuming the role of MD in San Diego. As a previous founder, Misti helped startups and enterprise companies with their exit, merger, and acquisition organizational development plans. She’s helped raise over $30million and assisted with two startup exits. Her passions are helping to reduce the startup failure rate and providing engaging ways to educate founders on how to build a successful company.

01. What are you looking for in startups for Techstars San Diego powered by SDSU?

I’m looking for startups working on a 10x startup idea - something that’s changing laws, policies, or majorly shifting the status quo. In terms of the founders themselves, I’m looking for gritty founders. To me, this means: they can articulate insights in a way that makes you feel like they can see the future, a demonstrable mix of strategic planning and gut-level capacity to pursue the right goals at the right time, and they continually find quick and clever ways to overcome challenges or obstacles.  

02. What are some of the biggest learnings from your career and entrepreneurial journey that you bring to being a Techstars MD?

A high EQ, a strong desire to provide value, and tenacity will get you farther than you think. I’ve seen highly intelligent and capable people fail to excel. Secondly, curiosity can solve a multitude of problems. If something isn’t operating the way it should - your team, product, fundraising efforts, etc. - start with questions. Sometimes, the more experienced or convinced we are in our own beliefs the harder it is to accept we need additional answers or mentorship.

03. Describe a situation with a startup founder or team where you felt like you made a difference. 

There are obvious wins where I’ve made an intro that resulted in a term sheet or a signed contract; or provided a framework that resulted in a business breakthrough. Differences were certainly made. But I’d have to say the “difference-making” moments for me are when founders go through breakups, deaths, health scares, self-doubt, or debilitating overwhelm and they reach back out to say they don’t believe they would have gotten through it without my encouragement, unwavering support, or late night/early morning/weekend strategy sessions. It feels awesome to be there for the people who are literally changing the world.

04. If you could have coffee with any entrepreneur who would it be and why?

Perhaps a little unconventional, but I’d want to have coffee (or, in my case, tea since I don’t like coffee) with:

• Me (ten years from now): When I re-read old diaries and journals and see how far I’ve come, how much I’ve grown, and how what used to be so hard or scary is now manageable or forgettable, it's almost like reading someone else’s story. Ooof, the way I wish I could go back and give advice and encouragement to younger me to help her avoid unnecessary worry and poor choices. 

• The first $1b solo founder (in the very near future): I love meeting, learning from, or learning about founders who do the thing that most said couldn’t be done. I call these the “just watch me” founders. I know the 1B1P startup is in the works right now, I’m giddy with anticipation of who’s behind it and what new world they’re creating.

On a more traditional note…

• Fabrice Grinda (today): I find the most interesting people love learning for both the joy of learning but also as a way to improve. Fabrice’s rags to riches to rags and back to riches founder story is one for the ages. As is his shift to the investing side where he invested in over 1,000 companies with over 300 exits and was crowned the #1 Angel Investor in the world. I’d like to dig into his building process from ideation to operations and his inner thoughts when sourcing and performing due diligence. 

05. If you had to pick two qualities that make a startup successful, what would they be?

In February of 2025 I gave a TEDx talk entitled “The Two Reasons All Startups Fail”.  At the risk of cannibalizing said talk, my two reasons were: Focusing on solutions instead of problems. And lack of speed. 

It’s my belief that if you analyzed any failed startup you could trace that failure back to one of these two reasons. When I see a startup cling to their product and take months to do what should be done in days, it’s a negative tell-tale sign. Conversely, when I see startups iterating quickly in order to solve urgent and pervasive problems or desires (whether in their business or their market), I see a team that is poised to win.

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