I help organize a Startup Weekend. Its relationship with techstars is very tenuous, and startup weekend existed a long time before techstars took on sponsorship of it.

I think it’s good for meeting other people who are interested in entrepreneurship in your community, and shaking loose a lot of the first-time startup mistakes… like protecting your idea too closely, spending too much time on the product and not enough on the customer/sales / getting out of the building.