

Freeing Europe's top tech talent to build pioneering companies - bizerda
http://hackfwd.com/

======
jgrahamc
In what sense is this 'freeing' the talent? We're not exactly in shackles here
in London.

Also, the name HackFwd is a bit surprising since none of the people involved
are hackers in my mind.

Update. The HackFwd people disagreed with me about my assessment of the people
not being hackers. I asked them who they'd highlight as a hacker and they
pointed to <http://hackfwd.com/people#prof.-franz-guenthner>

Second update. The more I think about it the more I think this whole 'freeing'
thing is arrogant. Who the hell are these guys to set us free? Why begin by
implying that we are not free?

~~~
ahoyhere
It's been my experience that the people who are involved in, and want to be
prominent in[1], venture/entrepreneurship/funding in Europe are cargo culters,
and their idea of tact is not the same as in the UK/US - they also don't do a
good job carrying off lovable arrogance, like Americans and Brits have much
practice doing.

Case in point: ZenDesk. Their "here's our new price, this is transparent cuz
we didn't charge you without telling you" bit and then their non-apology
apology, and CEO's tweets complaining about their upset customers, etc.

That behavior, and this behavior, are cut from the same cloth.

I wish the above weren't my experience, seeing as I'm an American transplant
in Austria, naturally. I'm invested in it NOT being that way. And yet, there
it is.

[1] There are plenty of people in the venture/entrepreneurship/funding game in
Europe who aren't like this, I imagine, but the prominence-seeking seems to be
the indicator for being unlikably, and unjustifiably, arrogant.

EDIT: replaced start with number to solve formatting issue

~~~
jgrahamc
I particularly enjoyed this video <http://vimeo.com/12149977> in which we are
told that Twitter is useful for keeping up to date on new technologies.

~~~
Alleyfield
Oh wow.

The cliche with a little snippet of code asking the audience to raise hands ("
_look at us we're such nerds!_ ")... Tasteful.

They spoke a lot but said nothing.

Somehow it's funny to see how the audience might be a little more informed
than the presenters... Especially the question at around 23:00 to me seems
like a big "fuck you" to the presenters. The sigh at 23.22 sends chills
through my spine as the presenter knows that he hasn't got any clue of how to
answer to that nerd-question - but he won't be able to admit that because then
he wouldn't be such a nerd he thinks he is.

I love it.

~~~
evilhackerdude
You caught me. It was this special day of the year I decided not to wear my
suit and stop doing excel sheets for a second.

Here are some slides I created in a prior attempt to impersonate someone who's
mental abilities are clearly above mine:

[http://www.slideshare.net/evilhackerdude/building-great-
stuf...](http://www.slideshare.net/evilhackerdude/building-great-stuff-using-
web-technologies)

If you'd like to talk to the person I'm trying to impersonate, here's his
Twitter:

<http://twitter.com/evilhackerdude>

I'd love to talk to you!

------
wheels
There's a lot of nay-saying going on here, so I'm going to throw out some
cautious optimism:

This is somewhat non-obvious, but their copy is written against a background
of other early stage investment stuff in continental europe. This sounds
almost bizarre to Silicon Valley attuned ears, but funding hackers early stage
doing original ideas is _not_ common in Germany. It's encouraging to see
people putting their money where their mouth is in hopes of changing that.

They do have a couple of folks that they've roped in, notably the Xing
founder, who lend it some credibility.

27% is pretty steep, but hopefully that'll downshift some over time. The
amounts that they're willing to invest for up to three person teams fall in
the range of a decent early angel round, and it'd be nice to see the numbers
fall closer to the expected dilution for such.

The biggest problem that I see is that it plays somewhat into the problematic
mindset that's common in european would-be entrepreneurs: fear of risk. There
are a lot of programs attempting to do that badly at the moment, grants from
the state and whatnot, but they rarely produce good results.

~~~
BitStopper
Basically the people listed at HackFWD are the same type of people responsible
"for grants from the state and whatnot" - so should anyone expect different
results?

~~~
wheels
I have no idea what would make you say that. Their board includes the founder
of Xing (German LinkedIn competitor that IPOed, #225 in global Alexa rankings
and #15 in Germany) and StarOffice (which exited to Sun and became OpenOffice)
and the other two are also founders that look like they have some credible
experience. Those aren't exactly bureaucrats.

~~~
BitStopper
I'm not saying that they are bureaucrats, I was talking about the mindset. I
know some guys from 'High Tech Gründerfond' (German state fond) and I really
see no difference between them and HackFWD, only that they read something
about YCombinator in 'Brand Eins' or on Techcrunch and now are trying to make
a hyperbolic copycat of it...

Thanks for the lesson about Lars, not that I didn't knew it already ;)

~~~
wheels
That's not fair at all. If you look at the profile of the folks leading High
Tech Gründerfonds one wouldn't assume that they are experienced in building
companies (their backgrounds are in banking and consulting) and they also have
a quota from the state to make a certain number of investments per year that
they try to reach.

HackFwd _doesn't_ look particularly similar to Y-Combinator and it's
disingenuous to say that successful entrepreneurs (and active angel investors)
are finding out about YC though Brand Eins. When I look at this I see it as a
nice idea, with a competent team, with a couple of problems that look like
they'll need adjustment along the way. I certainly wish them the best.

So, now, in like spirit, I'll write off your comments as the typical German
nay-saying. ;-)

~~~
BitStopper
"I'll write off your comments as the typical German nay-saying."

Weels I can live with that. I usually keep my mouth shut about such things -
it was just a little bit too funny to see it and as 'davidw' already said
"...the more the merrier, and things will sort themselves out." :)

------
ohashi
It doesn't seem honest about the options and outcomes in their chart. I
immediately dislike that about this concept, instead of wanting to really help
they make it seem like they are the only ones capable of launching startups. I
understand the marketing aspect of it, but other organizations don't mock you
for trying other routes and talking to some of the people, they are more than
willing to help you regardless of whether you take their program/money or
someone elses.

------
Alleyfield
The site is just way too "IN YOUR FACE" for my liking.

Because it's so "IN YOUR FACE" and "made for nerds" I almost get a feeling
that the whole thing is a huge insult to every serious hacker out there.

...Especially the flow chart seems so fucking insulting to me. Yaddayaddayaa,
yes, every geek likes starwars & light sabers, yes we've read the hitchhiker's
guide to the galaxy, yes, we've seen the back to the future trilogy etc.

In my opinion, funding entrepreneurship shouldn't be about making jokes on
stereotypes. We're talking about peoples livelihoods here - not about star
wars kids.

 _I like the idea but not the execution.

...And the art is in the execution._

~~~
jgrahamc
I don't like it when non-technical people talk about geeks. It doesn't feel
right. The reason this community works is because PG is a geek (or hacker or
whatever word you want to use) so he immediately has credibility.

This Lars guy (and the others) are not. They have made money etc. (which makes
me jealous), but they are not geeks. And they should not talk to us like that.

It's like when your parents attempt to use slang that doesn't come from their
generation to appear trendy. They fail, and fail hard.

~~~
webjunkie
But at least they acknowledge that it's the geeks who build the cool things.
That's some new thinking here in Europe.

------
Jun8
Proving the old cliche once again that "Europeans just don't get it". Compare
and contrast with YCombinator, or if you think that's unfair because Y is so
well-known, to the other tens of incubation/early acceleration programs in the
US. I don't want to be too negative, but can't they at least get their HTML
design more appetizing?

~~~
c3o
By "HTML design" do you mean the graphic design? In my eyes the site has an
edgy, artsy, designer-y feel to it, are you put off by that? I found it more
fun and exciting than YCombinator's or Seedcamp's sites or those of any VC
I've ever seen (except maybe Sequoia). Of course an established
investor/incubator/funding program doesn't need to rely on site design to
communicate their awesomeness, but it seems like an obvious place to start
differentiating and I don't agree that HackFwd's is "unappetizing" in any way.

~~~
Jun8
Yes, I found the visual design to be interfering with the message (the
animated logo is a poor choice, for example). You're right, it is edgy and
artsy in a startup-y way. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that incubators should
leave the edge to the startups they fund.

------
dmitri1981
Presentation critisism aside, their application process is not exactly
accessible:

 _You can't apply directly to join HackFwd, you have to know one of these
people and convince them of your idea._

from <http://hackfwd.com/people>

------
jgrahamc
Actually the best description comes from the TechCrunch article
([http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/06/08/xing-founder-lars-
hinric...](http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/06/08/xing-founder-lars-hinrichs-
launches-hackfwd-a-product-oriented-incubator/)):

"Like a Klingon starship de-cloaking in the middle of Europe, Lars Hinrichs is
putting his efforts onto a new startup investment vehicle dubbed HackFwd."

So they're the enemy then?

~~~
dalore
Pity it was the Romulans with cloak technology and not Klingons.

~~~
jgrahamc
Agreed, but perhaps the article is referring to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
in which Kirk decloaks the Klingon ship on Earth in the Bay Area (above SF
IIRC).

------
manvsmachine
They want 27 percent? Really?

~~~
jgrahamc
Yes, 27% for one year of funding for one person.

~~~
evilhackerdude
From what I saw for up to three people:
[http://hackfwd.s3.amazonaws.com/system/documents/4bd998/97ae...](http://hackfwd.s3.amazonaws.com/system/documents/4bd998/97aeae296382000002/geek_agreement_v1.1_v2.pdf)

------
phreeza
30% for a year of "roughly my current salary". Oh so you want it for free?
Sure, why not.

~~~
Tycho
I wonder what sort of equity Y Combinator would take if they ran a similar
operation in Europe. Maybe 30% is more to do with business conditions than
with HackFwd's own preference.

~~~
mbarr
I don't know any specifics, but on Y Combinator's page they say:

"We make small investments (rarely more than $20,000) in return for small
stakes in the companies we fund (usually 2-10%)."

Which I assume means $20,000 = 10% (max of both ranges). So a 30% stake, at
this stage, is worth $60,000, which is less than the salary of an average
experienced programmer, so is it such a bad deal?

~~~
manvsmachine
Yes, it is. It seems logical that 3x the funding isn't going to produce 3x the
outcome, especially at this stage.

