Editor's note: More and more, entrepreneurs are finding financial and intellectual help for their startups through accelerator or incubator programs. Portfolio.com will be breaking down these programs to help startup founders pick the right program.

What: TechStars, a program that offers seed funding, a place to work, mentors, and access to $100,000 in a convertible debt note from a syndicate of venture capital firms.

Where: Programs are in Boulder, Colorado, Boston, New York and Seattle. A specialized program focused on cloud computing takes place in Boulder.

When: Applications are open now for the cloud program, deadline November 2, with the program beginning January 9. Boston winter session, deadline November 20, with the program beginning January 24. New York spring session, deadline January 23, with the program beginning March 12. Boulder summer session, deadline March 16, with the program beginning May 14, 2012. Seattle fall session, deadline and schedule to be announced.

Who: Technology startups. Thousands apply but only about 10 are selected for each program. The application process is simple, just fill out an online form. But the selection process isn't easy. You don't need previous funding or even a business plan, but you have to have done at least some work on getting your company up and running, and TechStars advises that you have a strong team in place to carry your firm forward.

Why: To receive seed funding, mentorship, opportunity to pitch your company, connections, and access to $100,000 in debt convertible to equity from a syndicate of venture capital firms.

How: Apply online here.

TechStars cofounder and CEO David Cohen told Portfolio.com that when he and fellow founders Brad Feld, Jared Polis, and David Brown started their accelerator for startups, they weren’t exactly looking to make it a national phenomenon.

“We started originally in Boulder as a way to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem there,” he said. “Really, we always thought of it as an experiment. We just started getting tremendous demand all over to expand it.”

But the program Cohen and his cofounders kicked off in 2006 has caught on nationally and TechStars has drawn funding from a network of 75 venture capital firms. It's expanded to include programs in Boston, New York, and Seattle, as well as in its hometown in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

And, Cohen said, the TechStars model has been picked up around the world by other accelerators and incubators, and the accelerator is being featured on Bloomberg Television.

“Philosophically, we’re very much kind of the original mentor type program,” Cohen said.

Those mentors, which include such luminaries as Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures and FourSquare founder Dennis Crowley, have proven to be the secret to TechStars' companies' ability to draw investors—and why other incubators and accelerators have copied its model.

“It’s the mentorship in massive doses that really is the difference,” said John Richards, founder of BoomStartup, a Utah accelerator that very consciously modeled its program on TechStars and is a member of the TechStars Network, a group of independently owned regional incubators and accelerators that have taken on the TechStars method for churning out startups.

The "secret sauce" seems to work for the companies that have gone through TechStars.