11 ms·

Capital Factory - Austin-based YC Style Incubator

41 points by jonmc12 18y ago

quellhorst 18y ago
Nice. Austin is a really nice place to run a company too. Good weather, not too expensive, educated population.
lliiffee 18y ago
This is obviously trivial, but why have a "* - required" thing on the application form when every element is required?
- owkaye 18y ago
  The fields are not all required, but the web page itself is certainly bad -- it's black with gray text that has so little contract to the background that I have to "Select All" just to be able to read it. They may be capable of doing great things but I am so turned off by their failure to provide a comfortably readable web page that I question whether or not they can handle the bigger issues.
  - joshuabaer 18y ago
    Thanks for the feedback Owkaye - the current website is just a Typepad blog that we threw up for the launch, but we have a designer doing a custom template for us that should be up there soon. We'll focus on making the text more readable.
- joshuabaer 18y ago
  It's a Google form that pipes into a spreadsheet. We can't really control the display of the * but its important that they are all marked as required so it won't let you submit the form with a field that's missing.
okeumeni 18y ago
Kudos! I love Austin. The more these YC style company exist the better chances are good startup will get exposure. Who knows the ones PG missed can actually become tomorrow’s big idea.
wavesplash 18y ago
May be a great group and a terrific location, but what an awful name.
- Allocator2008 18y ago
  Actually this could be a take off from "Nightmare Factory", a haunted house here in Austin that was around for a few years (Not here anymore - House of Torment and the Horror Haunted House are the two big ones now.) When I saw the name, "Capital Factory", I immediately thought of "Nightmare Factory" anyway, but maybe that's just me! :-)
- natrius 18y ago
  I like the name. It's in Austin, so lots of stuff around there is called Capital something or other. This takes that trend and makes it punny.
- ksvs 18y ago
  It's better than most of the YC clones' names.
pxlpshr 18y ago
I love Austin as a town and people have that southern hospitality charm. The university and talent pool is great too. However, Austin suffers from the big fish, small pond syndrome. Things are changing slowly but surely, hopefully Capital Factory does well and empowers young entrepreneurs. Josh Baer's OtherInbox is a kick ass product too. But idk, ycom is difficult to reproduce if your intentions are fiscal bound. In other big cities, finding mentors is a dime a dozen. In Austin, it's a lot more difficult to find that type of leadership which is why so many talented people leave and gravitate toward the coasts I think. The new Mayor seems to be a lot more progressive, he's got a twitter account even. yay! http://twitter.com/bmccracken http://twitter.com/bmccracken I'd also say that with the economic squeeze taken into account, TX is still relatively shielded. It's a great place to be doing business, and a relaxed low cost lifestyle. I've been seeing a lot of out-of-town plates lately, but we don't spit on you. ;)
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- pxlpshr 18y ago
  Sorry, I should say that he's not the new mayor... yet :)
- old-gregg 18y ago
  Agreed 100%. I've been here for 9 years and while I love this place, I'm considering to move. "Small pond" indeed: 3 out of 4 recruiters who called me within last half year were all looking for RoR coders for Baer's startup (1st mentor in their list), the other Rails shop in town being FiveRuns. This applies pretty much to everything software: the city's tech scene is divided between about 4 well-known "gangs" of execs and entrepreneurs with essentially the same people running the show.
- aminuit 18y ago
  It's true about there being a ton of talent in Austin. The problem is that most of it works for the really big hitters like Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, AMD, Dell, etc. Most of the entrepreneurial focus seems to be centered around well-paid consulting work. When Google opened their soon to be closed downtown office, they had a mixer and invited alot the Austin tech community. I went expecting to find a serious startup crowd, but it was largely the same big names you see everywhere in Austin. It was rather disappointing. I hope that Capital Factory is successful if for no other reason than to give some of us the opportunity to escape our corporate jobs and do something really interesting for a change.
khangtoh 18y ago
yea, Austin has quite a tech scene going, affordable city to live in and it's actually quite nice city to live in too. Don't forget Texas BBQ all year round!
Russpd 18y ago
This is cool, are there any other programs like this out there except Y Combinator and Capital Factory? I would have thought that the success of Y Combinator would launch a lot of copycats
- incomethax 18y ago
  There are a couple, Techstars [http://www.techstars.com http://www.techstars.com] in Seattle is one that comes to mind. Another is iVentures10 in Chicago [http://www.iventures10.com http://www.iventures10.com] However, YC still has the brand and the experience with this format.
  - okeumeni 18y ago
    What do you mean by "YC still has the brand"?
    - ardell 18y ago
      One of the big advantages of YC is the notoriety associated with being a YC company. Easier introductions to press, investors, and partners. Notice how much coverage YC companies got on TechCrunch this last round? There's a reason, it's because YC does a great job pre-selecting good companies to showcase to press/investors and they've built up a good reputation on that.
      - okeumeni 18y ago
        Do you think YC get good coverage from TechCrunch because YC companies are better than anyone else?
        ardell 18y ago
        I'd wager that YC companies are statistically more fund-able or exit-able than other similar stage startups out there. They've been through a round of screening, chosen and mentored by successful entrepreneurs who do it for a living--it's certainly a leg up.
sachinag 18y ago
This is much better than third-rate wannabe programs like iVentures10 and whatnot - all the free services are explicit and from top-tier firms. This is a serious option for people considering YC and TechStars. I'd venture to say that this is superior to LaunchBox, as well.
zhyder 18y ago
It seems like a well-designed program, but why are they targeting only 3 selections? Seems like a lot of work for just 3.
- joshuabaer 18y ago
  We're just doing 3 companies this year because it's the first year and we want to start simple and make sure each company gets lots of attention. We'd like to see it grow to 10 companies in future years.

41 points by jonmc12 18y ago

quellhorst 18y ago

Nice. Austin is a really nice place to run a company too. Good weather, not too expensive, educated population.

lliiffee 18y ago

This is obviously trivial, but why have a "* - required" thing on the application form when every element is required?

owkaye 18y ago
The fields are not all required, but the web page itself is certainly bad -- it's black with gray text that has so little contract to the background that I have to "Select All" just to be able to read it. They may be capable of doing great things but I am so turned off by their failure to provide a comfortably readable web page that I question whether or not they can handle the bigger issues.
- joshuabaer 18y ago
  Thanks for the feedback Owkaye - the current website is just a Typepad blog that we threw up for the launch, but we have a designer doing a custom template for us that should be up there soon. We'll focus on making the text more readable.
joshuabaer 18y ago
It's a Google form that pipes into a spreadsheet. We can't really control the display of the * but its important that they are all marked as required so it won't let you submit the form with a field that's missing.

okeumeni 18y ago

Kudos! I love Austin. The more these YC style company exist the better chances are good startup will get exposure. Who knows the ones PG missed can actually become tomorrow’s big idea.

wavesplash 18y ago

May be a great group and a terrific location, but what an awful name.

Allocator2008 18y ago
Actually this could be a take off from "Nightmare Factory", a haunted house here in Austin that was around for a few years (Not here anymore - House of Torment and the Horror Haunted House are the two big ones now.) When I saw the name, "Capital Factory", I immediately thought of "Nightmare Factory" anyway, but maybe that's just me! :-)
natrius 18y ago
I like the name. It's in Austin, so lots of stuff around there is called Capital something or other. This takes that trend and makes it punny.
ksvs 18y ago
It's better than most of the YC clones' names.

pxlpshr 18y ago

I love Austin as a town and people have that southern hospitality charm. The university and talent pool is great too. However, Austin suffers from the big fish, small pond syndrome. Things are changing slowly but surely, hopefully Capital Factory does well and empowers young entrepreneurs. Josh Baer's OtherInbox is a kick ass product too. But idk, ycom is difficult to reproduce if your intentions are fiscal bound. In other big cities, finding mentors is a dime a dozen. In Austin, it's a lot more difficult to find that type of leadership which is why so many talented people leave and gravitate toward the coasts I think. The new Mayor seems to be a lot more progressive, he's got a twitter account even. yay! http://twitter.com/bmccracken http://twitter.com/bmccracken I'd also say that with the economic squeeze taken into account, TX is still relatively shielded. It's a great place to be doing business, and a relaxed low cost lifestyle. I've been seeing a lot of out-of-town plates lately, but we don't spit on you. ;)

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
pxlpshr 18y ago
Sorry, I should say that he's not the new mayor... yet :)
old-gregg 18y ago
Agreed 100%. I've been here for 9 years and while I love this place, I'm considering to move. "Small pond" indeed: 3 out of 4 recruiters who called me within last half year were all looking for RoR coders for Baer's startup (1st mentor in their list), the other Rails shop in town being FiveRuns. This applies pretty much to everything software: the city's tech scene is divided between about 4 well-known "gangs" of execs and entrepreneurs with essentially the same people running the show.
aminuit 18y ago
It's true about there being a ton of talent in Austin. The problem is that most of it works for the really big hitters like Intel, Motorola, Qualcomm, AMD, Dell, etc. Most of the entrepreneurial focus seems to be centered around well-paid consulting work. When Google opened their soon to be closed downtown office, they had a mixer and invited alot the Austin tech community. I went expecting to find a serious startup crowd, but it was largely the same big names you see everywhere in Austin. It was rather disappointing. I hope that Capital Factory is successful if for no other reason than to give some of us the opportunity to escape our corporate jobs and do something really interesting for a change.

khangtoh 18y ago

yea, Austin has quite a tech scene going, affordable city to live in and it's actually quite nice city to live in too. Don't forget Texas BBQ all year round!

Russpd 18y ago

This is cool, are there any other programs like this out there except Y Combinator and Capital Factory? I would have thought that the success of Y Combinator would launch a lot of copycats

incomethax 18y ago
There are a couple, Techstars [http://www.techstars.com http://www.techstars.com] in Seattle is one that comes to mind. Another is iVentures10 in Chicago [http://www.iventures10.com http://www.iventures10.com] However, YC still has the brand and the experience with this format.
- okeumeni 18y ago
  What do you mean by "YC still has the brand"?
  - ardell 18y ago
    One of the big advantages of YC is the notoriety associated with being a YC company. Easier introductions to press, investors, and partners. Notice how much coverage YC companies got on TechCrunch this last round? There's a reason, it's because YC does a great job pre-selecting good companies to showcase to press/investors and they've built up a good reputation on that.
    - okeumeni 18y ago
      Do you think YC get good coverage from TechCrunch because YC companies are better than anyone else?
      - ardell 18y ago
        I'd wager that YC companies are statistically more fund-able or exit-able than other similar stage startups out there. They've been through a round of screening, chosen and mentored by successful entrepreneurs who do it for a living--it's certainly a leg up.

sachinag 18y ago

This is much better than third-rate wannabe programs like iVentures10 and whatnot - all the free services are explicit and from top-tier firms. This is a serious option for people considering YC and TechStars. I'd venture to say that this is superior to LaunchBox, as well.

zhyder 18y ago

It seems like a well-designed program, but why are they targeting only 3 selections? Seems like a lot of work for just 3.

joshuabaer 18y ago
We're just doing 3 companies this year because it's the first year and we want to start simple and make sure each company gets lots of attention. We'd like to see it grow to 10 companies in future years.