Techstars Seattle has a new leader: Marius Ciocirlan.
The serial entrepreneur and advisor will head up the longstanding Seattle-based accelerator, replacing Isaac Kato, who stepped down this year.
Ciocirlan co-founded ShareGrid, a marketplace for filmmakers and photographers to rent and sell their equipment. The Seattle startup was acquired by Backstage last year.
He was also a product designer for Groupon, Kromatic Entertainment, and Samsung.
Ciocirlan said he likes mentoring other entrepreneurs, helping them learn from his own experience.
“I’ve really enjoyed being an advisor and the Techstars managing director role gives me the opportunity to continue to help even more entrepreneurs,” he told GeekWire.
Techstars expanded to Seattle in 2010, and since then more than 130 companies have gone through the program. They have collectively gone on to raise more than $2.5 billion in private capital. The 2011 class alone produced three unicorns.
The 14th class of Techstars Seattle will kick off Oct. 31.
Techstars also runs a new Filecoin Techstars Accelerator out of Seattle. The program aims to help companies using the IPFS/Filecoin blockchain-based storage network.
Ciocirlan said Seattle’s tech ecosystem has a lot going for it, but needs to “take more bold bets on supporting early risky and radical ideas.”
And his advice to budding entrepreneurs?
“Test and iterate,” he said. “Finding product market fit can be challenging, too many entrepreneurs get quickly discouraged when the first few solutions don’t pan out. I encourage entrepreneurs to view the failed attempts as one step closer to solving the puzzle. Ship fast, talk to customers often and keep iterating.”
