

TechStars Fills Void Left By Y Combinator With New Incubator In Boston - vaksel
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/16/techstars-fills-void-left-by-y-combinator-with-new-incubator-in-boston/

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tom
I can't figure out why there is such a protective attitude about YC around
here. Sure, the board is a service (experiment) of pg and YC, but seriously
folks, they don't have a mentoring/seed investment patent on this kind of an
operation. Why can't folks be happy there are more opportunities out there?
Are you claiming that only YC startups can benefit from such a program or that
only YC can be beneficial the young company?

~~~
jacquesm
I think YC and any other incubator are operating in the same space, but not
necessarily in competition. That sounds like a contradiction, but the way I
see it that funding startups (and I only have limited experience in this field
so be gentle in your rebukes :) )is more about getting the right mix of
people, ideas and money than it is about just the money.

A vc should - at that stage - bring a lot more to the table than just cash,
and if the chemistry isn't working out well then that can be because of the
team, but it could also very well be the vc that doesn't work well with a
specific party. So, more vc's in a certain region will make it easier to find
the right 'mix' without any competition taking place.

One startup I'm involved in is now in its third year, they have raised about
200K in funding from 8 different parties, mostly angel investors but also one
corporate investor, the team is working out quite well after some initial
shake-out.

I can fully imagine that the past would have looked different if we had not
'clicked' on a personal level with the founders, but if we had not and they
would have found traction with other investors I would not have seen that as
competitor running away with our business, simply a mismatch of characters.

I think most vc presentations that bomb will do so on a personal level rather
than on the ideas presented, in fact I would be surprised if there were not
several teams pitching roughly the same idea to a number of vcs at the same
time (and sometimes even to the same vc...).

The short version of all this, first of all it is about you and the vc getting
on the same page, second there is the quality of the idea and your plans for
executing that idea, third there is the money.

The last two are 'fixable', the first is not.

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pg
We didn't leave a void when we left Boston, because we weren't filling one
when we were there. No one seems to get this, but seed funding is not a
regional business. Startups at that stage can move.

Most of the startups we funded in our Boston cycles didn't come from Boston,
and practically all left Boston afterward. We could have been anywhere.
Anywhere with decent coffee at least.

Honestly, they'd have done better to just fund 20 startups in Boulder rather
than 10 in one place and 10 in another.

~~~
alabut
_"Honestly, they'd have done better to just fund 20 startups in Boulder"_

I've heard they might do that as well.

I'm guessing the difference between techstars and YC is less about going
regional to source applicants than it is about spreading around the mentor
pool, sort of like franchising the "learn from elders" experience rather than
concentrating it. YC's a bet in the other direction, sure, but I'm also
interested to see how this plays out because I just can't imagine the bay area
has a complete lock on all of the previously successful entrepreneurs willing
to advise the next generation of hackers. At the very least, there's a certain
amount of mentors and potential investors that like being away from the echo
chamber and prefer to talk in Boston about Derrida rather than in SF/SV about
virality, or in the case of Techstars and Brad Feld, about Lance Armstrong,
beer and whatever else people like in Boulder.

~~~
pg
The difference isn't in that dimension. The mentor pool in Silicon Valley is
massive; probably several times the rest of the country combined.

~~~
alabut
I see, you're not just talking about network effects of aggregating all of the
startups together, it's about having a common pool of investors as well. I
wonder if angelconf is a first step towards a ycombinator-like structured
approach towards the investing side of the equation?

<http://www.angelconf.com/>

~~~
pg
Not just investors. There is a collection of people associated to varying
degrees with YC who advise the startups. (They're the old-looking people in
the slides on our frontpage.) Sometimes they invest, but they don't only talk
to startups they invest in.

One of the hardest parts of being in Boston for us was that this pool of
advisors was so much smaller there. It was just a handful of people. Whereas
in the Valley there are on the order of 50 different people we might introduce
one or more YC startups to each cycle.

~~~
alabut
Yeah, that's probably the case, I was just entertaining a thought experiment
because I really like the people I've met through techstars and want them to
do well.

The bay area's network effects really do create different kinds of opportunity
rather than just more of the same - it's the reason I moved to the bay area in
the first place three years ago and it's been a great career decision. Living
here means being able to do things like apply to yc, whereas I'd probably
never consider moving to Boulder or Boston if it just came down to 5 digits of
seed investment. I'd rather stay here and force my projects to happen during
nights and weekends instead. Here, you'd be crazy to turn down admission to yc
and access to the advisors involved, no matter what your day job pays.

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rms
Great. The more funding opportunities out there the better it is for all of
us.

~~~
medearis
I think that most people's interest (including mine) in doing YCombinator or
TechStars is not really the funding. It seems that you'd be much better off in
this case just saving the 6 or 8k yourself. Rather, the network and guidance
in getting your idea off the ground seems to be the real value.

~~~
jedc
Exactly. The value of each of these programs is directly related to the
guidance, advice, and networking involved. Having a good selection process is
also a good validation of teams/ideas.

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apstuff
I'm in Chicago. Here the politicians sell the voids.

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vaksel
I don't really believe that this is just a coincidence. If they were planning
a second location they wouldn't have gone to Boston where there was YC. They
would have tried to go some place w/o much competition, like New York.

And if they were indeed planning to take YC on, why Boston and not Silicon
Valley?

~~~
jfarmer
Because YC is supply-constrained. If you believe there are more fundable
opportunities than YC can handle then it makes perfect sense to "compete" in
Boston.

I wouldn't be surprised if it were all just a story, though.

~~~
jfarmer
pg commented above, so that can't be their reason. Maybe they just like
Boston?

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rustartup
What I like about techstars - they don't pretend to be unique. Instead of
going to some bizzare place like NY or whatever (they seem don't like SF) just
to generate buzz they go to Boston, the most logical place for them to go to
to attract more healthy attention. But people still generate buzz :)

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mattmaroon
These people set a new record for me-too-ness every month.

~~~
indiekid
Personally, having been in TechStars (founder of SocialThing), I think the
programs are very different. Both have their merits, one is not necessarily
better than the other, just different.

Why the TS vs. YC animosity? We're (startup founders) all in this game
together. Of course there will be competition and such, but we're all at the
same stage at one time or another, so why not help? Why not be happy that
there are 10 more companies that will get funded than last year?

~~~
mattmaroon
I wouldn't say it's animosity. I just think they're sort of lame copycats. For
fuck's sake man, they stole YC's application word for word. I think that gives
lifetime exemptions to those of us calling them a me-too act.

~~~
rustartup
Finance (funding IS finance, right?) in itself is rather uninventive. Would
you prefer to learn different rules each time you get new CC?

~~~
mattmaroon
Well, there's uninventive, and then there's directly copying every move,
sometimes literally by cutting and pasting. Though I suppose they say good
artists copy, great artists steal. Maybe TechStars are great and just seem
lame to me.

