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Guide to Seed Fund Incubators (Y Combinator Clones)
- imsteve 19y agoThanks for the overview. Is this really a "large" number of imitators? Would it be a stretch to say that many of these are traditional angel investing with a few small twists?
- ashu 19y agoArticle makes a fundamental mistake. From http://ycombinator.com/faq.html http://ycombinator.com/faq.html Is Y Combinator an incubator? No. :)
- gscott 19y agoI know it is hopeless for me to try to get into Y Combinator (single founder, not ivy league, never worked at a big internet company ala google, already rejected). So I filled out the TechStars application and so far I had a least some followup questions asked of me (that is good). I probably won't make the cut but the chance at having the influence and instant publicity is too much to pass up to not try.
- pg 19y agoFrom a cursory glance, it looks as if 4 of the current batch of 21 startups have founders who went to Ivy League colleges. Probably more worked for big Internet cos at some point, but we don't care much about that either. It's true we're reluctant to fund single founders-- there are only 2 in the current batch-- but that's because it really does make it much harder to succeed. So you should try and find someone you know who will work with you, if you can.
- vlad 19y agoThere's a bigger and cooler reason to explain this than the perceived lack of competence pg has in single founders. Something hard to imagine until you think about it is that it will be impossible to find someone to join you when you're already in San Francisco. Apparently, there are a lot of startups, Fortune 500, and Inc 500 companies competing for the same people. At least, that's what I've come to understand. So, he is really doing you (us) a favor.
- ced 19y agoHow many went to MIT/Stanford?
- pg 19y agoI think 1/2 but I could be wrong.
- sharpshoot 19y agoOxford & Imperial College London count as Ivy?
- ivankirigin 19y agoJust to point out... the top 4 CS schools aren't in the Ivy League: Berkeley, CMU, MIT, & Stanford [edit: reason enough to make a new Ivy League? call it the 100 League]
- paul7986 19y agoYes I know what you mean! But,submit anyway and to anywhere... I submitted to Y, but received the no, yet I submitted to other well known events(TC40 & a NY event) and was accepted. Y would be cool for this lone entrepreneur just for the sole fact of being around like minded individuals! To the poster thanks for posting this great resource!
- gscott 19y agoSimiliar situation here, I was in the recent Twiistup event. First time I had applied for anything like that and to get in I feel was a good accomplishment.
- edw519 19y ago"I know it is hopeless for me" "I probably won't make the cut" Stop talking like that right now! That negative little voice in your head will make your failure a self fulfilling prophesy. Don't mean to get all Dr. Phil on you, but if you're serious about starting a business, there is never room for that kind of talk, especially to yourself.
- imsteve 19y agoI will never fail! I don't need priorities! Good luck with that...
- gscott 19y agoI believe you have me wrong here, just on being able to make the application (yc, etc) hurdles. I have 30,000 + users in nearly 15,000 different organizations using the system I have developed. I am also about to release a version that works & acts like ning.com, and versions targeted towards specific verticals (all that run on the same base of code, so there is no code duplication at all).
- webwright 19y agoWe (Winter 08 YC accepted) have 2 founders who are college dropouts (tho one managed to finish his degree after we were accepted), and one founder (me) with a Psychology Degree from a crappy little liberal arts college. I think YC and the others are looking for demonstrably talented people who yearn to build/launch things. Going to an ivy league school or working at a big company don't necessarily demonstrate these qualities. Even if they do (a little), there are plenty of other ways to show that you rock.
- danielha 19y agoThe only blocker I see in what you mentioned is your attitude.
- gscott 19y agoThat is just plain mean, thanks.
- danielha 19y agoSorry, I wasn't trying to mean. I don't hit on the things you listed either. At the time of your application, you won't be able to do much about any of those. You can change your attitude though. By attitude, I didn't and don't mean you're a jerk. I meant more in terms of optimism.
- nextmoveone 19y agoDude, Boostphase is totally bogus. I tried to reach the dude listed in a previous article about it...totally unresponsive.