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Thanks for your support. I've actually worked to get this off the ground - unpaid - for the last two years but it's a ten year play for us. Many more Team Advi

Thanks for your support. I've actually worked to get this off the ground - unpaid - for the last two years but it's a ten year play for us. Many more Team Advisors to come... just ran out of time in updating the site I'm afraid.

DanBC 15y ago
I wish you the best of luck if it's a real programme and not just grant & subsidy milking. That sounds really offensive, but it's not meant to be. Do any of the alumni have a web-presence? Perhaps you could either link to their websites; or you could host small "about" pages for them? You're going to get people thinking that this is just another quango product - something created to use a budget from some government organisation - so how could you address those concerns? How can you show that you're different?
- rellimluap 15y ago
  I've popped links into our alumni page but with the caveat that the first test run was very different. I guess I understand the concern that I'm just a quango/think tank guy but most of the useful stuff I've learned was as co-founder and CEO of School of Everything (www.schoolofeverything.com). We built a product, were finalists in the first round of Seedcamp, raised seed investment from angels including Esther Dyson and have a whole load of happy customers. We never became Google but the site does ok. I'm the first to admit I made lots of mistakes along the way which I hope I can help our teams avoid making again. Would definitely welcome advice on how to show we're different.
  - pmjordan 15y ago
    Putting the info about your startup experience from the above comment on your part of the 'people' page would help. The reason people trusted YC early on was because everyone knew pg, rtm and tlb did Viaweb together, so they'd been through the whole of the startup process themselves. So if you consider advice and mentoring a major part of the investment into the startups you fund in exchange for a lower cash valuation, you'll have to be very convincing that it really will add that much value.
  - willvarfar 15y ago
    (just hoping you'll take a look at my very-new website which, I hope, will be a great way of getting programmers to help your efforts: http://giving.github.com http://giving.github.com )

DanBC 15y ago

I wish you the best of luck if it's a real programme and not just grant & subsidy milking. That sounds really offensive, but it's not meant to be. Do any of the alumni have a web-presence? Perhaps you could either link to their websites; or you could host small "about" pages for them? You're going to get people thinking that this is just another quango product - something created to use a budget from some government organisation - so how could you address those concerns? How can you show that you're different?

rellimluap 15y ago
I've popped links into our alumni page but with the caveat that the first test run was very different. I guess I understand the concern that I'm just a quango/think tank guy but most of the useful stuff I've learned was as co-founder and CEO of School of Everything (www.schoolofeverything.com). We built a product, were finalists in the first round of Seedcamp, raised seed investment from angels including Esther Dyson and have a whole load of happy customers. We never became Google but the site does ok. I'm the first to admit I made lots of mistakes along the way which I hope I can help our teams avoid making again. Would definitely welcome advice on how to show we're different.
- pmjordan 15y ago
  Putting the info about your startup experience from the above comment on your part of the 'people' page would help. The reason people trusted YC early on was because everyone knew pg, rtm and tlb did Viaweb together, so they'd been through the whole of the startup process themselves. So if you consider advice and mentoring a major part of the investment into the startups you fund in exchange for a lower cash valuation, you'll have to be very convincing that it really will add that much value.
- willvarfar 15y ago
  (just hoping you'll take a look at my very-new website which, I hope, will be a great way of getting programmers to help your efforts: http://giving.github.com http://giving.github.com )