7 ms·

Y Combinator Clone in Vienna, Austria launches

18 points by enki 19y ago

rms 19y ago
Cool. They stole the application too, but I guess they can because doing so didn't hurt Techstars at all. They stole it so badly that I wonder if it's a joke. "If one wanted to buy you three months in (March 2007), what's the lowest offer you'd take?" I wonder how long it will be before we see a clone in India/East Asia.
- jward 19y ago
  Techstars stole the app. These guys stole the entire site.
- wordsthatendinq 19y ago
  I think it's kind of funny that everyone uses the same app. One of these days someone will start a Princeton Review-like startup that submits the answers to all organizations with one click. btw, I don't know if it's just me but I don't know why people are so worked up over these copycats. When the second university in the world was founded, maybe people accused them of copying the first university, but in the long run it's been good for mankind. Of course, if all the orgs want to talk amongst each other and pay royalties to YC, that might also be interesting.
  - Goladus 19y ago
    People steal the Y Combinator app is because it's so good. You can't just google and plug in the "right" answers. Interpreting the responses is the skill that matters.
- sudhirc 19y ago
  Well rms I am from India. Mentality right now is against startups. Working for big companies is considered very smart and only options out here. But things are changing out here too. One of my friend quit his job to join a startup. I do not have the right credentials otherwise i would have setup a YC clone here too.
enki 19y ago
not a joke - tried to contact pg a few weeks ago already - emailed them again - but running out of time - if we don't get applications now, we can't launch. if pg says anything in that direction, we'll immediately take it down, and ask people to resubmit new forms because we can't use them. the questions pg asks are great, it just didn't feel sensical to try to reformulate them. our differenciation is in how we implement it locally, not how we ask questions - the questions just are the same everywhere in the world. our local hacker club is what we think might make this work - we have a few hundred people sharing knowledge and ideas here. we hope to build up entrepreneurial knowledge and spirit around the metalab, and store it within the collective memory of the people here.
- whacked_new 19y ago
  I believe YC's program is quite revolutionary, both in terms of supporting innovative businesses and also as an educational opportunity; I agree that right now, they are probably the best model to follow, but copying the application verbatim doesn't reflect well on your organization. For example, do you have any other ideas you thought of applying with? One may be something we've been waiting for. I'd be very surprised if at the first time of execution, you are already so confident about your judgment of the internet startup landscape. It's reasonable to assume that YC really has things in mind. In this case, you are only waiting for things to come into your mind. If the YC method is good, people will learn from it, and it will flourish. But seeing how yeurope does it right now, I will be wary.
  - enki 19y ago
    i know that this is a big problem, and does not reflect well on us. we've had some failed startup attempts 4 years ago, e.g. in the area of social sorting. we certainly can't provide the level of depth and experience pg has, but we've been trying our best to learn for a long time now. we're talking to lots of people in austria and throughout europe, and are trying to get more people to support and make this work. we have been working on getting things going fulltime for 4 years now, but the situation is a lot harder in europe. once there are some successful startups around, we hope to convince them to join the board. we just don't have any people to look up to here, and got to bootstrap somehow. we've been pretty busy in preparing the ground for this, both with our hacklab, but also with contacts to all kinds of people who might help out with this, private, corporate and political. we even founded an interest group for startup founders (IG Startup), to lobby with politics, and are actively discussing their ICT funding strategies with the respective politicians and decision makers. our hacklab launched one year ago, after 2 years of trying to finance it, and has a few hundred users already. the problem is the financing option for yeurope has just arisen half a week ago, and if we don't launch now - we might never do it.
gibsonf1 19y ago
Maybe YC should be getting some percentage?
- enki 19y ago
  i wouldn't mind giving them percentage, or for that matter, even all of it - we don't care about making money with it - i have my own startup running already. what we want is to attract talent to austria, and make it possible for locals to make the leap.
  - NonEUCitizen 19y ago
    re: attracting talent to austria, can you get work permits for non-EU citizens?
    - enki 19y ago
      we have support by politicians - if the submission is good enough, this might work - can't guarantee anything
  - fmu 19y ago
    the question is: do i want someone to hold a large chunk of my equity who does not care about making money? me thinks not. secondly, you state having your own startup. if this is not a shitty startup it will absorb all of your free time. what makes you think your lack of time, apparent lack of connections, and lack of interest in financial gain would be a good deal for an entrepreneur?
enki 19y ago
brett 19y ago
So that I have this straight: You've tried to copy YC's approach and website as closely as possible down to featuring one of their startup's product in the middle of your page and naming your yourself so as to suggest that you're somehow affiliated and you are holding out hope that they're going to be happy (or even just not upset) with this?
3KWA 19y ago
Many people in Europe have been looking at what YCombinator is doing and how they are doing things. There is no less creative and hacking talent in Europe than in the States but certainly a lack of entrepreneurial spirit and the infrastructures and environment favorable to the emergence of top notch startups. Nevertheless it is well worth trying! I tried to contact PG a few months ago on the subject of getting YCombinator to participate one way or another in such a scheme in Europe with no success. The YEurope rip-off does not reflect well indeed on such endeavors but you can be sure that other will emerge and hopefully turn some ventures into successes.
ivan 19y ago
At least something 50 kilometers away :) Alles gute Paul.
SwellJoe 19y ago
What's wrong with this sentence: "YCombinator Clone in Vienna, Austria launches!" Hint: It's not in the first, second, third or sixth word. You're missing at least 50% of the value of Y Combinator by being outside of a startup center, probably more. Can a successful startup happen outside of the Valley? Sure...but you're definitely hurting the chances of success by a significant degree.
- Tichy 19y ago
  Certainly the value of YCombinator is bringing interesting people together. I don't think the Valley is the only place in the world with interesting people, though. YEurope doesn't look too promising, though - the cloning approach leaves a negative impression. If they are so cutting edge, surely they would have been able to come up with their own scheme. Also, they don't say how they will come up with interesting speakers.
  - enki 19y ago
    take a look at http://metalab.at/wiki/Folder:V5a-en http://metalab.at/wiki/Folder:V5a-en - we've spent years building up a thriving community. we had planned to launch in 2008 with the money from our first successful startups, but half a week ago the opportunity has arisen to start in 2007. we could have spent more time pretending to look different like techstars has done, but what good would that do? we rather launch now and face the critics. we are openly copying the concept of ycombinator, akin to copying the concept of an university. we are neither trying to hide that fact nor arguing against it. time will tell if our approach works. but a verbatim copy of the implementation in europe certainly wouldn't work, and how such an implementation could look, this is what we have concentrated our thought and deeds on.
    - Tichy 19y ago
      I agree that in general it is better to do anything than nothing. Maybe you should just make it a little bit clearer on the web page why you copied YCombinator, and what background experiences you have, to evoke more trust. Your metalab looks interesting (wish there was something like it where I live), and I think Vienna is a great city (much better than the Valley, I suspect). I wish you success with the venture!
BitGeek 19y ago
Man, I'm amazed at the bitching here... Someone's trying to help foster startups in europe! The horror! There's no way it can be decent, right? Jesus..... Its not like the idea of doing early stage funding is that new, nor is the idea of havign an application form new. Ok, so the questions may not be original-- but that's flattery, its not like the YC form is a trade secret! Getting startups together for a fixed period in a fixed place is relatively new, and seems to be a YC idea. Ok, so what does it mean when others emulate this? IT means they think its a good idea! How does this hurt YC? YC is evangelizing a different approach to early stage funding. Now others are emulating the idea-- there is no way in hell that this can be a bad thing! This is called success! Do y'all who were rejected by YC hate the fact that there are now other options? Or do you think that these people are going to steal all the "good" startups from YC diminishing their pool?
- pg 19y ago
  Possibly people were offended more by the plagiarism than the desire to fund startups in Europe. It is a bit much calling the thing Y Europe, for example. Seed funding doesn't require your name begin with Y.
  - Sam_Odio 19y ago
    It also implies a collaboration with YC, which doesn't exist. Regardless, I think it will be hard to fully replicate the YC model, because it's unlikely these firms will generate the following YC has. This following equates to attention, press, prestige and connections for all the new YC companies. Without all that, all you have is an angel investor. And there's nothing new about that. Really, when it comes down to it, this is just an enormous validation for what's happening here. After all, "imitation is the best form of flattery."
    - jey 19y ago
      "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." Really, these guys aren't claiming to be YCombinator II. They're just validating the model and wanting to do something similar in Europe. They clearly state on their page "This site is inspired by, but not affiliated with YCombinator." The YCombinators should be flattered, and everyone who participates in YC can give themselves a pat on the back for being funded by the original YC-style firm. [Hm, that has a nice ring: "YC funding" vs "VC funding". I wonder if that was intentional.] Edit: Oh, now I see that they only added the disclaimer after a post in this thread called them out on it...
markovich 19y ago
Hello Paul, Your idea is interesting, but frankly, I don't get it. Your resume and your website do not hint at your having the money to sponsor the groups. You do not tell us how giving up a percentage of our companies is going to benefit us. The money is small - I could work on the side and make that money every month. What is not clear is this: 1. Do you have the money for this? If so, from where? If a piece of software needed additional funding after 6 months, would you be able to do this (like pg put 50.000 in justin.tv) 2. Do you have the marketing reach? Will affiliating myself with you give me greater marketing strength? 3. Do you have access to legal information and advice? Can you offer this to your startups? 4. Do you have any connections to Venture Capital? Do you _know_ about venture capital, such as to give good or bad advice?
plusbryan 19y ago
Did anyone notice they're ALSO using heysan's (a yc company) widget for their homepage? That seems pretty classy to me.
Harj 19y ago
The problem with this is that I can't see the people involved. Who are the investors? What are their backgrounds? Why are they going to increase my chances of success? Replicating the YC seed funding model is fair game. What I find irritating (and btw I'm very keen to see more European start ups funded so I'm not outright attacking you for the sake of it) is that people replicate the easy parts without putting the effort into the hard parts of YC. Easy parts = Getting money and an application form Hard parts = Getting high profile speakers every week to talk with founders, putting together an investor day with the most high profile investors in the world, providing real mentorship, creating a supportive community.
- create_account 19y ago
  Connections with high profile investors? That's why Kiko had to use eBay? Ha!
  - pg 19y ago
    We did actually introduce Kiko to angels who invested in them. And Kiko didn't sell because they were out of money, but because their users were draining away.
    - create_account 19y ago
      But why weren't you able to introduce them to prospective buyers once they'd decided to sell? Isn't that where a well-connected investment firm adds value?
      - pg 19y ago
        The usual acquirers buy whole companies, including the programmers (which are actually the main thing they want). They don't buy just software in asset sales. So the fact that Justin and Emmett didn't want to keep working on the calendar meant that a normal acquisition was out of the question.
      - Harj 19y ago
furd 19y ago
The bad news is that you have to move to Poland during the summer session.
- usablecontent 19y ago
  The good news is that, last time I checked the map Vienna was in Austria...
  - pg 19y ago
    He's joking. He's saying that Poland is to Vienna as Massachusetts is to Silicon Valley.
nige 19y ago
great news! as founder of First Tuesday in Vienna in 1999 I was involved in a lot of start up connections. the angel boerse here i2 might be useful, other contacts are a "similar" space from Frequentis for related companies to have incubator space, it was running in the 4th bez. and then there is Julie Meyer running Ariadne with the desire to build a new europe ...http://www.ariadnecapital.com/team_julie.htm http://www.ariadnecapital.com/team_julie.htm and others like http://www.discoverybeach.co.uk/ http://www.discoverybeach.co.uk/ best regards, nigel
- nige 19y ago
  whats the biggest problem in austria for startups as you see it?
nige 19y ago
great news! as founder of First Tuesday in Vienna in 1999 I was involved in a lot of start up connections. the angel boerse here i2 might be useful, other contacts are a "similar" space from Frequentis for related companies to have incubator space, it was running in the 4th bez. and then there is Julie Meyer running Ariadne with the desire to build a new europe ...http://www.ariadnecapital.com/team_julie.htm http://www.ariadnecapital.com/team_julie.htm and others like http://www.discoverybeach.co.uk/ http://www.discoverybeach.co.uk/ best regards, nigel
- nige 19y ago
  whats the biggest problem for startups in austria as you see it?
  - fmu 19y ago
    socialism, risk aversion, retarded labor laws, few adequate computer programmers, tiny private equity market, most startup investors are not well-connected outside their immediate environment thus add little value
schmidp 19y ago
I think it's a great Idea! I've been at Metalab quite a few times now and it's a great place with great people. Last friday they hosted the first "Startup Freitag" (Startup Friday) to bring people interested in startups together. As Paul hasn't talked about YEurope on friday, I guess some opportunities emerged from that first get togehter. I'm eagerly awaiting the next one the 5th of May. I left the last one after a great chat at about 3am (if I remember correctly). While I do understand why people don't like the YEurope copycat from YCombinator, I think the reasons why they did it is obvious: attention and getting the message out fast. Most people interested in startups know about YCombinator and most of them will asume YEurope is doing something similar. (time might also have played a factor) I personally know Paul and if you have a look at Metalab and on what he (and the others) achieved there, I think it's a good point to have some trust in YEurope. Many will agree that one of the great values of YCombinator are connections and bringing the right people together. That's exactly what the Metalab is trying to do and has done really well so far. (I first wrote that comment on TechCrunch and then copied it over here)

18 points by enki 19y ago

rms 19y ago

Cool. They stole the application too, but I guess they can because doing so didn't hurt Techstars at all. They stole it so badly that I wonder if it's a joke. "If one wanted to buy you three months in (March 2007), what's the lowest offer you'd take?" I wonder how long it will be before we see a clone in India/East Asia.

jward 19y ago
Techstars stole the app. These guys stole the entire site.
wordsthatendinq 19y ago
I think it's kind of funny that everyone uses the same app. One of these days someone will start a Princeton Review-like startup that submits the answers to all organizations with one click. btw, I don't know if it's just me but I don't know why people are so worked up over these copycats. When the second university in the world was founded, maybe people accused them of copying the first university, but in the long run it's been good for mankind. Of course, if all the orgs want to talk amongst each other and pay royalties to YC, that might also be interesting.
- Goladus 19y ago
  People steal the Y Combinator app is because it's so good. You can't just google and plug in the "right" answers. Interpreting the responses is the skill that matters.
sudhirc 19y ago
Well rms I am from India. Mentality right now is against startups. Working for big companies is considered very smart and only options out here. But things are changing out here too. One of my friend quit his job to join a startup. I do not have the right credentials otherwise i would have setup a YC clone here too.

enki 19y ago

not a joke - tried to contact pg a few weeks ago already - emailed them again - but running out of time - if we don't get applications now, we can't launch. if pg says anything in that direction, we'll immediately take it down, and ask people to resubmit new forms because we can't use them. the questions pg asks are great, it just didn't feel sensical to try to reformulate them. our differenciation is in how we implement it locally, not how we ask questions - the questions just are the same everywhere in the world. our local hacker club is what we think might make this work - we have a few hundred people sharing knowledge and ideas here. we hope to build up entrepreneurial knowledge and spirit around the metalab, and store it within the collective memory of the people here.

whacked_new 19y ago
I believe YC's program is quite revolutionary, both in terms of supporting innovative businesses and also as an educational opportunity; I agree that right now, they are probably the best model to follow, but copying the application verbatim doesn't reflect well on your organization. For example, do you have any other ideas you thought of applying with? One may be something we've been waiting for. I'd be very surprised if at the first time of execution, you are already so confident about your judgment of the internet startup landscape. It's reasonable to assume that YC really has things in mind. In this case, you are only waiting for things to come into your mind. If the YC method is good, people will learn from it, and it will flourish. But seeing how yeurope does it right now, I will be wary.
- enki 19y ago
  i know that this is a big problem, and does not reflect well on us. we've had some failed startup attempts 4 years ago, e.g. in the area of social sorting. we certainly can't provide the level of depth and experience pg has, but we've been trying our best to learn for a long time now. we're talking to lots of people in austria and throughout europe, and are trying to get more people to support and make this work. we have been working on getting things going fulltime for 4 years now, but the situation is a lot harder in europe. once there are some successful startups around, we hope to convince them to join the board. we just don't have any people to look up to here, and got to bootstrap somehow. we've been pretty busy in preparing the ground for this, both with our hacklab, but also with contacts to all kinds of people who might help out with this, private, corporate and political. we even founded an interest group for startup founders (IG Startup), to lobby with politics, and are actively discussing their ICT funding strategies with the respective politicians and decision makers. our hacklab launched one year ago, after 2 years of trying to finance it, and has a few hundred users already. the problem is the financing option for yeurope has just arisen half a week ago, and if we don't launch now - we might never do it.

gibsonf1 19y ago

Maybe YC should be getting some percentage?

enki 19y ago
i wouldn't mind giving them percentage, or for that matter, even all of it - we don't care about making money with it - i have my own startup running already. what we want is to attract talent to austria, and make it possible for locals to make the leap.
- NonEUCitizen 19y ago
  re: attracting talent to austria, can you get work permits for non-EU citizens?
  - enki 19y ago
    we have support by politicians - if the submission is good enough, this might work - can't guarantee anything
- fmu 19y ago
  the question is: do i want someone to hold a large chunk of my equity who does not care about making money? me thinks not. secondly, you state having your own startup. if this is not a shitty startup it will absorb all of your free time. what makes you think your lack of time, apparent lack of connections, and lack of interest in financial gain would be a good deal for an entrepreneur?

enki 19y ago

brett 19y ago

So that I have this straight: You've tried to copy YC's approach and website as closely as possible down to featuring one of their startup's product in the middle of your page and naming your yourself so as to suggest that you're somehow affiliated and you are holding out hope that they're going to be happy (or even just not upset) with this?

3KWA 19y ago

Many people in Europe have been looking at what YCombinator is doing and how they are doing things. There is no less creative and hacking talent in Europe than in the States but certainly a lack of entrepreneurial spirit and the infrastructures and environment favorable to the emergence of top notch startups. Nevertheless it is well worth trying! I tried to contact PG a few months ago on the subject of getting YCombinator to participate one way or another in such a scheme in Europe with no success. The YEurope rip-off does not reflect well indeed on such endeavors but you can be sure that other will emerge and hopefully turn some ventures into successes.

ivan 19y ago

At least something 50 kilometers away :) Alles gute Paul.

SwellJoe 19y ago

What's wrong with this sentence: "YCombinator Clone in Vienna, Austria launches!" Hint: It's not in the first, second, third or sixth word. You're missing at least 50% of the value of Y Combinator by being outside of a startup center, probably more. Can a successful startup happen outside of the Valley? Sure...but you're definitely hurting the chances of success by a significant degree.

Tichy 19y ago
Certainly the value of YCombinator is bringing interesting people together. I don't think the Valley is the only place in the world with interesting people, though. YEurope doesn't look too promising, though - the cloning approach leaves a negative impression. If they are so cutting edge, surely they would have been able to come up with their own scheme. Also, they don't say how they will come up with interesting speakers.
- enki 19y ago
  take a look at http://metalab.at/wiki/Folder:V5a-en http://metalab.at/wiki/Folder:V5a-en - we've spent years building up a thriving community. we had planned to launch in 2008 with the money from our first successful startups, but half a week ago the opportunity has arisen to start in 2007. we could have spent more time pretending to look different like techstars has done, but what good would that do? we rather launch now and face the critics. we are openly copying the concept of ycombinator, akin to copying the concept of an university. we are neither trying to hide that fact nor arguing against it. time will tell if our approach works. but a verbatim copy of the implementation in europe certainly wouldn't work, and how such an implementation could look, this is what we have concentrated our thought and deeds on.
  - Tichy 19y ago
    I agree that in general it is better to do anything than nothing. Maybe you should just make it a little bit clearer on the web page why you copied YCombinator, and what background experiences you have, to evoke more trust. Your metalab looks interesting (wish there was something like it where I live), and I think Vienna is a great city (much better than the Valley, I suspect). I wish you success with the venture!

BitGeek 19y ago

Man, I'm amazed at the bitching here... Someone's trying to help foster startups in europe! The horror! There's no way it can be decent, right? Jesus..... Its not like the idea of doing early stage funding is that new, nor is the idea of havign an application form new. Ok, so the questions may not be original-- but that's flattery, its not like the YC form is a trade secret! Getting startups together for a fixed period in a fixed place is relatively new, and seems to be a YC idea. Ok, so what does it mean when others emulate this? IT means they think its a good idea! How does this hurt YC? YC is evangelizing a different approach to early stage funding. Now others are emulating the idea-- there is no way in hell that this can be a bad thing! This is called success! Do y'all who were rejected by YC hate the fact that there are now other options? Or do you think that these people are going to steal all the "good" startups from YC diminishing their pool?

pg 19y ago
Possibly people were offended more by the plagiarism than the desire to fund startups in Europe. It is a bit much calling the thing Y Europe, for example. Seed funding doesn't require your name begin with Y.
- Sam_Odio 19y ago
  It also implies a collaboration with YC, which doesn't exist. Regardless, I think it will be hard to fully replicate the YC model, because it's unlikely these firms will generate the following YC has. This following equates to attention, press, prestige and connections for all the new YC companies. Without all that, all you have is an angel investor. And there's nothing new about that. Really, when it comes down to it, this is just an enormous validation for what's happening here. After all, "imitation is the best form of flattery."
  - jey 19y ago
    "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." Really, these guys aren't claiming to be YCombinator II. They're just validating the model and wanting to do something similar in Europe. They clearly state on their page "This site is inspired by, but not affiliated with YCombinator." The YCombinators should be flattered, and everyone who participates in YC can give themselves a pat on the back for being funded by the original YC-style firm. [Hm, that has a nice ring: "YC funding" vs "VC funding". I wonder if that was intentional.] Edit: Oh, now I see that they only added the disclaimer after a post in this thread called them out on it...

markovich 19y ago

Hello Paul, Your idea is interesting, but frankly, I don't get it. Your resume and your website do not hint at your having the money to sponsor the groups. You do not tell us how giving up a percentage of our companies is going to benefit us. The money is small - I could work on the side and make that money every month. What is not clear is this: 1. Do you have the money for this? If so, from where? If a piece of software needed additional funding after 6 months, would you be able to do this (like pg put 50.000 in justin.tv) 2. Do you have the marketing reach? Will affiliating myself with you give me greater marketing strength? 3. Do you have access to legal information and advice? Can you offer this to your startups? 4. Do you have any connections to Venture Capital? Do you _know_ about venture capital, such as to give good or bad advice?

plusbryan 19y ago

Did anyone notice they're ALSO using heysan's (a yc company) widget for their homepage? That seems pretty classy to me.

Harj 19y ago

The problem with this is that I can't see the people involved. Who are the investors? What are their backgrounds? Why are they going to increase my chances of success? Replicating the YC seed funding model is fair game. What I find irritating (and btw I'm very keen to see more European start ups funded so I'm not outright attacking you for the sake of it) is that people replicate the easy parts without putting the effort into the hard parts of YC. Easy parts = Getting money and an application form Hard parts = Getting high profile speakers every week to talk with founders, putting together an investor day with the most high profile investors in the world, providing real mentorship, creating a supportive community.

create_account 19y ago
Connections with high profile investors? That's why Kiko had to use eBay? Ha!
- pg 19y ago
  We did actually introduce Kiko to angels who invested in them. And Kiko didn't sell because they were out of money, but because their users were draining away.
  - create_account 19y ago
    But why weren't you able to introduce them to prospective buyers once they'd decided to sell? Isn't that where a well-connected investment firm adds value?
    - pg 19y ago
      The usual acquirers buy whole companies, including the programmers (which are actually the main thing they want). They don't buy just software in asset sales. So the fact that Justin and Emmett didn't want to keep working on the calendar meant that a normal acquisition was out of the question.
    - Harj 19y ago

furd 19y ago

The bad news is that you have to move to Poland during the summer session.

usablecontent 19y ago
The good news is that, last time I checked the map Vienna was in Austria...
- pg 19y ago
  He's joking. He's saying that Poland is to Vienna as Massachusetts is to Silicon Valley.

nige 19y ago

great news! as founder of First Tuesday in Vienna in 1999 I was involved in a lot of start up connections. the angel boerse here i2 might be useful, other contacts are a "similar" space from Frequentis for related companies to have incubator space, it was running in the 4th bez. and then there is Julie Meyer running Ariadne with the desire to build a new europe ...http://www.ariadnecapital.com/team_julie.htm http://www.ariadnecapital.com/team_julie.htm and others like http://www.discoverybeach.co.uk/ http://www.discoverybeach.co.uk/ best regards, nigel

nige 19y ago
whats the biggest problem in austria for startups as you see it?

nige 19y ago

nige 19y ago
whats the biggest problem for startups in austria as you see it?
- fmu 19y ago
  socialism, risk aversion, retarded labor laws, few adequate computer programmers, tiny private equity market, most startup investors are not well-connected outside their immediate environment thus add little value

schmidp 19y ago

I think it's a great Idea! I've been at Metalab quite a few times now and it's a great place with great people. Last friday they hosted the first "Startup Freitag" (Startup Friday) to bring people interested in startups together. As Paul hasn't talked about YEurope on friday, I guess some opportunities emerged from that first get togehter. I'm eagerly awaiting the next one the 5th of May. I left the last one after a great chat at about 3am (if I remember correctly). While I do understand why people don't like the YEurope copycat from YCombinator, I think the reasons why they did it is obvious: attention and getting the message out fast. Most people interested in startups know about YCombinator and most of them will asume YEurope is doing something similar. (time might also have played a factor) I personally know Paul and if you have a look at Metalab and on what he (and the others) achieved there, I think it's a good point to have some trust in YEurope. Many will agree that one of the great values of YCombinator are connections and bringing the right people together. That's exactly what the Metalab is trying to do and has done really well so far. (I first wrote that comment on TechCrunch and then copied it over here)