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Booted out of Bootup Labs

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Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#2

Post by cperciva »

When I saw this title, my immediate thought was "hmm, I wonder if this is about Bootup Labs?"

I've met the people behind Bootup Labs, and I like them. They're smart. They're enthusiastic about what they're doing. But I was never really convinced that they were able to make things work financially. I've seen enough startups that I can usually tell when a startup is running on fumes and spending all their energy on trying to raise more funding... and that's the vibe I've been getting from Bootup Labs for a while. Not really a good vibe to have coming from a group with the raison d'etre of providing funding.

On behalf of Canadians in general and Vancouverites especially: We're really sorry about this. Nobody should have to go through what happened to you. We hope you'll come back some day under better circumstances.

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#3

Post by keltecp11 »

Why this has not been bumped up more I have no idea... Fuck man... that is fucking horrible. When I first got into DreamIt Ventures, all of my attorneys and family and friends said the same thing... are you sure? What is the paperwork like?

The Paperwork was 2 PAGES! I was in law school at the time, I was looking at paper work of contracts that were a minimum of 26 pages!!! And 2 get 2 pages?! Unreal... and quite scary. We took a gamble... we signed the documents.

Left MORE questions thn answers... by far. Fortunately, my god, I never realized how lucky we were.

I'll keep my eye out for something that will pay.

Do you have any contracts from them? I'd like to see. Post them on DocStoc.

I do not know Canadian Law, but I know someone who might. Not that I could represent... but I'm curious to see if you might have some legal action!

Embarrassed or not - that is bull shit.

-P

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#6

Post by cperciva »

puredemo wrote: post #5

What a horror story. What sort of program offers $100k to that many groups and doesn't follow through? "Whoops, we were $500k short." That goes beyond just being embarrassing.

What sort of program offers $100k to that many groups and doesn't follow through?

Not to be facetious, but: A program which doesn't have as much money as they're offering people.

The founders of Bootup Labs put some of their own money in, but they're raising money (or trying, at least) from VCs for the rest. They're paying themselves [EDIT: or not -- see reply from dannyrobinson below] from the $50k/startup management fee, not just from expected future profits.

Are there any other startup accelerators which do things this way? I'm not aware of any.

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#8

Post by mikeyur »

cperciva wrote: post #2

When I saw this title, my immediate thought was "hmm, I wonder if this is about Bootup Labs?" I've met the people behind Bootup Labs, and I like them. They're smart. They're enthusiastic about what they're doing. But I was never really convinced that they were able to make things work financially. I've seen enough startups that I can usually tell when a startup is running on fumes and spending all their energy on try…

I second this, Vancouver is really sorry and we hope you will come back and visit.

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#9

Post by lyime »

One would thing that it would be standard practice that they give you a term sheet on acceptance. As soon as you sign the term sheet, money should be transfered. At the end of the day they are investing in your company, and term sheets are typical. This is how YC works.

Sorry to hear about your experience.

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