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There are hundreds of accelerators with more appearing all of the time (plus significant management turnover in many of the programs). Evaluating them all would
by paul 11y ago
There are hundreds of accelerators with more appearing all of the time (plus significant management turnover in many of the programs). Evaluating them all would be a full-time job for several people. I'd rather put that effort into finding more ways to help more startups.
- danieltillett 11y agoI would hope the fact that a problem is hard is not a reason to not do it :) More seriously, it depends on how serious the bad accelerator problem is and you guys are one of the few that have the data on this. If it is a minor problem then I agree there are better ways to help, but if it is a major problem then it needs to be addressed.
- tptacek 11y agoWouldn't it be super weird for the leading accelerator to start formally rating its competitors? There's a difference between having good data and being in a position to help people by publishing it.
- danieltillett 11y agoIt certainly would be weird given SV has never worked like this, but it would be incredibly powerful in effecting change. Actually just an acknowledgement of the level of the problem with no names attached would be highly useful to the community. Very few people have access to this data and YC is one. The fact that Sam wrote about this makes me suspect that it is a major problem.
- jholman 11y agoWouldn't it be super weird for the leading experts in <professional field> to start formally rating their competitors, i.e. other more-junior professionals in that field? Y'know, the way it's done by all professions worthy of the name? No, it would not be weird at all, and more importantly, it'd be good for consumers of that industry.
- tptacek 11y agoWhat's an example of a profession where the leading firm publishes ratings of all its competitors?
- jholman 11y agoI cannot think of an example exactly like that. But in many professions, senior members are the ones who certify junior members. Law, medicine, all the reputable parts of finance. I mean, to make my actual argument, instead of just alluding to it, it seems to me that: 1) it's good for consumers of an industry to have ratings of the providers in that industry 2) I can think of three sources for such ratings: crowd-sourced ex-customer ratings, ratings by a purported expert-at-rating, ratings by peers. I think these each have their merits. 3) If ratings-by-peers is indeed useful, then in a given industry, it has to start somewhere.
- tedmiston 11y agoI think you can't just give an accelerator the binary label of good/bad. Sometimes different alumni have very different experiences. Sometimes an accelerator's niche is very relevant to one company's problem but not another's. As Sam's advice said -- it's more useful to qualitatively talk to someone you know (and also trust, or at least consider credible) to evaluate their opinions on the accelerator. There are too many unique factors. Obviously, this is hard for a new-ish (pre-) accelerator, so one heuristic I've used instead is to review the experience of the accelerators' founders and mentor network. It's a start.