We asked three Techstars founders about how Techstars Startup Weekend partner GoDaddy Registry helped support the growth of their companies:

• Aditya Joshi, Founder of Greendeck (greendeck.co -- SAP.iO Foundry Accelerator, powered by Techstars 2017)

• Miroslav Kovač, Founder of Coffee Cloud (coffeecloud.co -- Techstars Metro Accelerator 2015)

• Shubham Singh, Founder of Craste (craste.co -- STANLEY + Techstars Accelerator, 2019)

01. Give us the elevator pitch for your company.

Joshi, greendeck.co: Greendeck uses AI to help brands and retailers with price optimization and competitor monitoring, so that they can make better pricing and merchandising decisions.

Kovač, coffeecloud.co: Monitoring the world's barista machines and measuring our love of coffee in the cloud.

Singh, craste.co: We mitigate climate change by using renewable materials such as crop waste. This waste is often burnt post harvest leading to severe air pollution. We convert this waste to value added products for packaging and furniture applications.

02. What problem is your company solving?

Joshi, greendeck.co: One of the biggest problems faced by retail is losing out on sales to competitors who undercut them on pricing. Currently they are spending several hours of effort to figure out price/markdowns of similar products on competing websites, and planning their pricing and discounts accordingly. This is a massive waste of human resource, and very costly to the companies.

Kovač, coffeecloud.co: Coffee Cloud helps cafe's, restaurants and coffee suppliers to understand how their espresso machines are being used, giving them precise information to ensure coffee quality and profitability.

Singh, craste.co: 80 million tonnes of crop waste is burnt in India every year. Farmers do not have affordable and faster options to get rid of the stubble as compared to burning it. We incentivize the farmers by buying this crop waste and convert it into value added products for packaging and furniture applications.

03. What was the thinking behind the naming of your company, and your .CO web address?

Joshi, greendeck.co: The benefits that Greendeck provides to its customers is more sales and more margins. Also, there's the increased productivity which translates into cost savings. All in all, our customers are able to make more money. So 'Greendeck' signifies a deck of money (Green) that we help our customers make! We wanted a TLD that sounds new and cool, but at the same time very professional. ".CO" fit the bill perfectly. It's fresh, snazzy and sounds  professional. It helped us stand out against companies that were using the more technical TLDs like ".IO" and ".AI". This worked great for us because our customers are more business oriented rather than technical, making "CO" more relevant and memorable for our target audience. Also it's got a mature ring to it, which helps bring a professional aura to our brand.

Kovač, coffeecloud.co: The logical choice of the name Coffee Cloud shows that we are dealing with cloud solutions in the professional coffee industry. The ".co" domain perfectly fit for business matters.

04. What advice do you have for other founders, startups and entrepreneurs to ensure a successful Techstars Accelerator program?

Joshi, greendeck.co: The biggest takeaways for us from the Techstars program were the learnings and the network. There's so much to learn from everyone in the Techstars team, and also from the other startups in your cohort. Also, the network that Techstars offer is incredible. They will open the right doors for you!

Kovač, coffeecloud.co: Be persistent in your efforts and don’t let someone’s opinion get you off track.

Singh, craste.co: Doing proper research and selection of mentors as per the need of the startup.

05. How has Techstars Startup Weekend Partner GoDaddy Registry and the access to their tools and resources from Startup Weekend helped support the growth of your company?

Joshi, greendeck.co: We were not part of the Techstars Startup Weekend. But GoDaddy is our first choice when it comes to buying and managing our domains.

Kovač, coffeecloud.co: GoDaddy and Startup Weekend helped in choosing and registering a stable domain that allows us a solid web presence.

Register your FREE domain and website builder from GoDaddy Registry. You get a FREE domain of choice for 1-year + a FREE website builder with easy-to-use tools. Use code SUWBLOG21 on the form at www.startup.co

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