I was a cofounder in the second batch of AngelPad (www.crittercism.com) Here's why I would recommend AngelPad:
- Coworking space: received a lot of great feedback and help from the other cofounders. We also became pretty good friends with all of the other teams.
- Founder experience: a lot of the other founders had a lot of work experience. One founder was the first product manager at youtube, first employee at slide.
- Industry connections: a lot of the mentors are still in industry (VPs at LinkedIn, Facebook, etc). The google mafia is VERY WELL connected. Basically, you can pretty much get access to anyone you need to be successful, from top VCs to the CEO of twitter.
- Mentors: we had five mentors that were impressively available (Thomas Korte met with every team every monday for 30 minutes and you met with another mentor usually at least once a week). I exchanged emails at 2am with one of the mentors throughout the program! All of the mentors are amazing and people you really look forward to working with.
I was part of the winter batch 2011 at AngelPad and just have to smile a little when I read comments on TC about how much money you get for how much of the company (5% for 25k, or 6% for 20k...).
Out of personal experience I can say that the money is like the least important thing in this program. What you are really buying yourself with the 6% of your company are 4 fundamental things:
- Data Points in the Market
- Social Proof
- Network For Fund Raising and Exposure
- Great, Super Driven, Smart Friends (other founders)
Data Points in the Market:
With data points I mean advice. As a founder of your company you are staring at your problem for too long. You forget to think outside the box. Feedback and advice from an experienced PM/Hacker/Founder help you avoid mistakes. But be aware, each advice no matter who it comes from is just ONE data point in the market. You need to collect many of them and then decide for yourself and for your company what is best. AngelPad with its 5 mentors, helps you get direct/fast access to these data points on a weekly basis.
Social Proof:
Being part of AngelPad and getting through the application process (4% roughly get accepted) is social proof. Potential future employees or investors see this as validation that you are smart because someone already did the homework/reference checks for them.
Network For Fund Raising and Exposure:
The amount of intros they can make to investors is amazing. We got 20 meetings lined up with top angels and VCs in no time.
Great, Super Driven, Smart Friends (other founders):
Last but not least, all the other founders are super helpful, friendly and in a nutshell just an awesome environment to be in. They are all super driven and smart. Value this relationship. Stay in touch with them. Make an effort to connect. These are the people are your first users, the first ones who recommend you and the first ones who make an effort to comment/help you with your product.
I learned and and grew more in the intensive 2 months @ AngelPad than in any 2 months of my life post college. The only other time was I learned as much when I traveled through countries.
The mentors can make intros to many of the top VCs and angels when you're fundraising. Their advice all make sense at the end. One of my favorites was speakers every week.
In addition to the mentorship, I liked the sense of community @ AngelPad. Startup life is unique - others can't relate to it as much. AP was its own support network (like a gender-neutral frat).
Ironic to promote this on HN but you do need options in life. :) Don't trust what you read. Talk to folks who went to the various incubators and find out what works best for you. AngelPad worked really well for us due to the more hands-on mentoring model, laser focus by ex-Google PMs (the AP mentors) on the stuff that matters and the intensity of DemoDay prep. Stay away from AngelPad if you want a cushy startup life :)
I'm curious to how AngelPad companies do post incubation and what the resumes of the founders look like: (1) Does AngelPad typically look for Google/FB experience or are they okay with founders without that type of experience, (2) How many AngelPad companies have gone on to raise money (how much does AngelPad help with that) or grow significantly?
This was one of the best experiences of my life, you won't regret applying. Had the wonderful opportunity of getting to know the other founders whilst working side by side and going through preparing for DDay, DDay and fundraising together. The mentors are amazing and their advice has been invaluable.
No, I definitely wouldn't say angelPad is less hacker-oriented. It just means their 'market niche' is more about experienced individuals, with some work experience at startups, etc. Of course, our class (I was in W11) had both experienced people who were on the scale of Product Manager at Youtube to just great coders. AngelPad is like an older, wiser YC that seemed to seek to build companies with slightly bigger ideas than YC, focused on more hands-on mentorship.
I was a founder in the 2nd batch and I second everything mentioned so far. What most impressed me were the mentors. They are incredible in terms of experience, networking and make themselves available 24/7.
- Coworking space: received a lot of great feedback and help from the other cofounders. We also became pretty good friends with all of the other teams.
- Founder experience: a lot of the other founders had a lot of work experience. One founder was the first product manager at youtube, first employee at slide.
- Industry connections: a lot of the mentors are still in industry (VPs at LinkedIn, Facebook, etc). The google mafia is VERY WELL connected. Basically, you can pretty much get access to anyone you need to be successful, from top VCs to the CEO of twitter.
- Mentors: we had five mentors that were impressively available (Thomas Korte met with every team every monday for 30 minutes and you met with another mentor usually at least once a week). I exchanged emails at 2am with one of the mentors throughout the program! All of the mentors are amazing and people you really look forward to working with.