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I'm excited to hear the conversation around this. I would like to take a step back and point out that almost every major city in the states has a business incu

I'm excited to hear the conversation around this. I would like to take a step back and point out that almost every major city in the states has a business incubator. We don't hear about them because not much is produced that we all use. Locally, they can produce some great projects. Just wanted to say this because the model of small investment, even if it is office space and time, is happening all around the world. YC just did it better than any of them (and deserves a ton of credit). :) I always go back to the first bubble and study the incubators. Such a sad ending to many of them (and why most 'accelerators' stay far away from the word 'incubator.' That would be a fascinating read. The take away from that (so I think) would be 'let's focus on building smart and sustainable accelerators' over 'which one is the best?' Loved reading your thesis, well done!

jedc 17y ago
Thanks. :) The only thing I found when I looked into incubators is that the business model and thus the incentives for both the startup and the incubator side appear to be much different than in a seed accelerator. That, and the word "incubator" means different things to different people. My worry is that in some cases incubators can start to become dependent on having companies in their space, and thus there's a lack of encouragement (or active dis-encouragement) to "graduate" from the incubator. That is a significantly different model than a seed accelerator where they are effectively kicked out at a certain date, so both sides have significant incentives to develop a product quickly. While I haven't studied incubators as in-depth as seed accelerators, the different incentive structure is what I would worry about. Accelerators seem to match incentives better between founders and the program. I agree that there is still a lot of scope for building more accelerators. They just need to be focused on the specific resources available to the program, and not another YC-clone general-web-application accelerator. Any new accelerator program should aim to be the absolute best in the niche they choose.

jedc 17y ago

Thanks. :) The only thing I found when I looked into incubators is that the business model and thus the incentives for both the startup and the incubator side appear to be much different than in a seed accelerator. That, and the word "incubator" means different things to different people. My worry is that in some cases incubators can start to become dependent on having companies in their space, and thus there's a lack of encouragement (or active dis-encouragement) to "graduate" from the incubator. That is a significantly different model than a seed accelerator where they are effectively kicked out at a certain date, so both sides have significant incentives to develop a product quickly. While I haven't studied incubators as in-depth as seed accelerators, the different incentive structure is what I would worry about. Accelerators seem to match incentives better between founders and the program. I agree that there is still a lot of scope for building more accelerators. They just need to be focused on the specific resources available to the program, and not another YC-clone general-web-application accelerator. Any new accelerator program should aim to be the absolute best in the niche they choose.