5 ms·

Not to be the pessimist out of this batch of comments, but the accelerator sounds less promising than I would have expected from AngelHack. I have to imagine t

Not to be the pessimist out of this batch of comments, but the accelerator sounds less promising than I would have expected from AngelHack. I have to imagine they have enough money to at least provide housing and living expenses for the teams they choose so the teams can be in one centralized location. The mentorship will probably have less value when the teams cannot meet in person and there is of course the lost networking aspect as well. Although they do provide a chance for the startups to pitch in the final two weeks in SF, it seems that this accelerator, even if not formed with this intention, will be more of a feeder to the bigger and more established ones like YC, TechStars, 500 Startups, etc.

ggopman 14y ago
Hi aashay, you are completely correct, we are designed to be a feeder system into other accelerators! We're not trying to re-invent the wheel here, only help great teams prepare for getting into them. We should have branded this more as a pre-accelerator to be honest (any PR people out there looking for a job?) For 12 weeks of mentorship, 2 weeks in SF, all our connections, help getting into "legit" programs, tickets to Disrupt, and potentially a booth at Disrupt, we take 2%. That makes us sustainable, which is all we're trying to do. We pay for everything out of our own pocket. AngelHack is a bootstrapped company that has scrappily built out our communities around the world without the help of organizations like Kauffman, that could give us the funding to allow us to pay for everyone to stay longer. No doubt, there is a better way things can be done. But with our current resources, our goals are to do what we can to provide the most value to the community in a sustainable way.
- aashaykumar92 14y ago
  Sounds good, thanks for the clarification! And yep, only suggestion is to brand your accelerator as a 'warmup'...this way, it will appeal to college students such as myself; we don't necessarily have to leave school but we can still work on it and have a better idea of what we want to do at the end of the 14 weeks. Thanks again, though, and all the best!

ggopman 14y ago

Hi aashay, you are completely correct, we are designed to be a feeder system into other accelerators! We're not trying to re-invent the wheel here, only help great teams prepare for getting into them. We should have branded this more as a pre-accelerator to be honest (any PR people out there looking for a job?) For 12 weeks of mentorship, 2 weeks in SF, all our connections, help getting into "legit" programs, tickets to Disrupt, and potentially a booth at Disrupt, we take 2%. That makes us sustainable, which is all we're trying to do. We pay for everything out of our own pocket. AngelHack is a bootstrapped company that has scrappily built out our communities around the world without the help of organizations like Kauffman, that could give us the funding to allow us to pay for everyone to stay longer. No doubt, there is a better way things can be done. But with our current resources, our goals are to do what we can to provide the most value to the community in a sustainable way.

aashaykumar92 14y ago
Sounds good, thanks for the clarification! And yep, only suggestion is to brand your accelerator as a 'warmup'...this way, it will appeal to college students such as myself; we don't necessarily have to leave school but we can still work on it and have a better idea of what we want to do at the end of the 14 weeks. Thanks again, though, and all the best!