
TechStars Network Wants One Startup Application To Rule Them All - andre3k1
http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/15/techstars-startup-application/
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patio11
This is the perfect kind of wonderful idea which $200k of government money
guarantees will be 60% report writing, 35% architectural astronomy, and 5% an
application which will replicate the behavior of a script that could have been
done in 3 hours.

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jimdrake
Not a very well researched response. Kauffman is not a government agency, so
this has nothing to do with the government.

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aneesh
In March 2009, I wrote:

 _PG made an interesting analogy to the college admissions process. How long
until we see an "Common App" for seed firms, and a common decision timeline?_

(<http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=528071>)

The answer was two years, apparently.

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mkramlich
> The development of the universal application is being by a Kauffman
> Foundation grant of $200,000

If it's not too late to bid I'd gladly create a common startup application for
a mere... (pinkie in mouth)... $100,000. I know, I know, I'll have to invent
some sort of form technology, and some way to submit data to a web server of
some kind. Perhaps invent some sort of database. This stuff is costly, folks.
R&D. Could take years too. And there's no guarantee we'll succeed. But the
challenge, it excites me. That and $100k.

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jeremymims
A common application works well to make the process of applying easier, but my
memory was the best schools used to add a supplemental question or two
(although it's been a decade since I applied to college). Lower-ranked schools
wouldn't add additional questions because they benefit from the increase in
application flow by removing the friction of applying.

YC doesn't have to do anything really. What will likely happen is that the
common app each year will just be the questions YC asks or a subset of the
questions YC asks (effectively giving YC the benefit of a supplemental set of
questions).

One other point. Unlike college admissions where you typically have to pay an
application fee (and with incubators, a time cost associated with filling out
disparate applications), it doesn't appear that there's any penalty for
submitting your common application to every "incubator". There are probably
some unintended consequences of every incubator seeing every application.

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ryanglasgow
The Y-Combinator app is very unique you can easily see what PG and his team
are looking for.

I doubt TechStars or any other incubator is looking for the same traits, or
understand people the same way.

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johnrob
I don't understand why the other incubators don't just copy the YC
application. Maybe it's not perfect, but it's good enough. Better than losing
good candidates because they didn't want to fill out yet another form.

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JohnnyBrown
Ah, the cycle of revolution and co-option. It will be interesting to watch the
original innovators of these incubator programs be replaced by cautious
management types, and their institutions become the establishment that gets
innovated around.

Make no mistake, YC, techstars and the rest have created massive amounts of
value and turning into a clumsy industry giant is a great problem to have.
This is just how it goes.

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arjunnarayan
MIT doesn't take the common app, and I don't suspect YC will either. When
you're at the top, you can afford to do that sort of thing... TechStars would
do itself a world of good if it simply accepted a verbatim copy of the YC
application; and so would every other seed funder. Creating a different
standard would only cement them all as in the hunt for position number 2.

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Dn_Ab
Off topic: On first reading I interpreted Application as in Program (computer)
and was left wondering in confusion for a couple seconds how, why anyone would
want such a thing. This sort of language ambiguity is Watson has to deal with
and what makes it so impressive.

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guptaneil
This is going to cause the same dilemma as the Common App for universities. An
easy way for a program to filter applicants is the fact that they took the
time to complete the long application process. On the other hand, as a startup
founder, I'd rather spend my time actually working on the product than doing
paperwork for 20 different startup programs.

Given that a common app definitely increases the amount of work for the VCs or
accelerator programs, but reduces the work for founders, I hope that we'll see
the more founder-friendly programs collaborate to make this happen.

I'm eager to see what YC's stance on this will be.

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pclark
I feel like different applications for different programmes really shows off
the personality - or DNA of each programme.

