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A horrifying startup accelerator story

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Re: A horrifying startup accelerator story

#91

Post by beachstartup »

Domenic_S wrote: post #45
accelanon wrote: post #39

My experience was not nearly this bad, but still horrifying for me, my co-founder, and our families. We had been talking off and on with an accelerator for about a month. We had pitched them, had a few calls, but lived on the other side of the country. They wanted to meet in person which was really not feasible for us. We worked at full-time jobs while hacking away on the side and scraping together whatever money we…

Thanks for writing this up. > They agree to pay for flights so long as we pay for our own hotels and car rental. This seems crazy to me. In my head, if a few hundred bucks for flights & lodging is too much to ask, how much dough could they really have to invest? Is this standard? > It's a convertible note with pretty standard terms, fully signed by all the partners. We sign and send it back. [...] He explains that th…

> until cash is in the bank I don't change my life.

if you're in sales, this is EXTREMELY important, doubly so if you sell for a startup. the deal isn't real until the money shows up.

customers will take advantage of your kindness, lie to you, manipulate you, appeal to your vanity, and they can smell desperation from a mile away. "give an inch and they'll take a mile" - these folksy old timey sayings don't come from nowhere.

there are all sorts of shitty people out there that will play napoleon for a day just because they feel they have power over you. it's sickening.

do not start work until you get the money. do not ship product until you get the money. do not pay your suppliers until you get the money. do not pay your sales people commission until you get the money - money didn't show up? well that wasn't a sale, now was it?

if they don't want to pay at LEAST a deposit, they're not serious. END OF STORY.

very simple in concept - very difficult in practice because there are some people who are just plain naive out there. one of the most important skills you learn as a startup is how to say no.

Re: A horrifying startup accelerator story

#92

Post by throwaway_la »

accelanon wrote: post #49
comrade_ogilvy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we were talking about a young aspiring writer-director moving to Hollywood and similar shenanigans happened, we would not be surprised would we? Based on the OP and your story, I guess tech start ups have truly "arrived".

Funny enough, this all happened in Los Angeles. :)

I'm actually going to be talking to some Los Angeles accelerators in October/November. Your story is concerning. Can you reach out over email? My email is in my profile. I don't need any of your personal details, but the accelerator name would really help me out.

Re: A horrifying startup accelerator story

#93

Post by sanderjd »

brandnewlow wrote: post #78
arn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this viewpoint very confusing, assuming you see YC as a good experience... unless you are trying to tactfully say that YC was a bad experience and I'm just being dense. "never once has anything good happened from paying for access" ... "We did YCombinator" YC is the prototypical model for this.

My point was to say that while we've done things to get access, like YC, which was wonderful and a massive exception to this rule, just about every other time we've explored an access opportunity, it's been a big miss.

Sorry to harp on the pedantic point, but your parent's point still stands: you said you never once paid for access, when in fact you seem to have exactly once paid for access, which is different. The point that paying for access makes sense only if it is through YCombinator may be a good one but it's a significantly weaker one than you were originally making. Instead of an unequivocal "no", you're saying "no, but...", which is more complicated.

Re: A horrifying startup accelerator story

#94

Post by angelhacksucks »

This is a throwaway account because I want to publicly expose AngelHack (or HACKcelerator): After we "won" a local hackaton -that had an entry fee- they didn't help us with the housing, zero, no cash for any of the 20 "winner" teams and only gave $1000 (per team, not person) for fly expenses (hint: not enough) then suggested us to stay in one of the worst hostels in San Francisco (European Hostel).

Later on I also found out that they are already searching volunteers around the world to help them out organizing the 2014 competition... in my opinion all this is pretty shady but we the teams are holding up just in case the demo day brings something good (a.k.a. investors and new contacts).

Re: A horrifying startup accelerator story

#96

Post by brianbreslin »

mathattack wrote: post #89
brandnewlow wrote: post #9

This story is really frustrating and sad to hear, but I have to say, in the three years I've been working on my startup, never once has anything good happened from paying for access to any type of person (investors or customers), using any currency (equity or cash). We did YCombinator, which could be described as an "access" play, but apart from that, every time someone has offered us access to something in return fo…

Paying someone for access never ends well. Do you think the people whose access is being sold are happy with the arrangement? By definition you're entering into a sleazy area. This is why apartment brokers selling access to apartments are sleazy.

I heard stories locally here in Miami of a "consultant" who apparently had charged people to introduce them to several local key figures (in this case I was one of these people he charged people to meet). The irony (aside from anyone ever paying to talk to me), was that they were always just cold emails as I had never met the guy charging for intros in person!

Re: A horrifying startup accelerator story

#97

Post by zabramow »

Was just having the discussion of whether or not to accelerate your company with one of the leaders of Bizdom accelerator in Cleveland.

http://www.replyall.me/zach-talks/to-accelerate-or-not-to-ac...

One issue I haven't brought up yet (but will) is whether a young company wants that kind of "access" or whether having to crawl before you walk makes companies iterate and get it right and get the "access" the old fashioned way. Sometimes think accelerators give companies access a little too quickly for the company's own good.

Re: A horrifying startup accelerator story

#98

Post by brandnewlow »

sanderjd wrote: post #93
brandnewlow wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was to say that while we've done things to get access, like YC, which was wonderful and a massive exception to this rule, just about every other time we've explored an access opportunity, it's been a big miss.

Sorry to harp on the pedantic point, but your parent's point still stands: you said you never once paid for access, when in fact you seem to have exactly once paid for access, which is different. The point that paying for access makes sense only if it is through YCombinator may be a good one but it's a significantly weaker one than you were originally making. Instead of an unequivocal "no", you're saying "no, but..."…

Unfortunately life is complicated and does not fit into sound bites as well as we'd like.

I like my comment as it is because you get the second graph and realize even great sounding rules of thumb don't apply to everything perfectly.

You are right though, my point is made considerably murkier by the fact that "paying for access" for YC was a good experience. I could counter by saying we got a whole lot more from YC than that, but I think other folks get what I was trying to say.

Re: A horrifying startup accelerator story

#99

Post by aziari »

jedc wrote: post #74

I'd just like to say that the reason I created Seed-DB ( http://www.seed-db.com ) is because the world of seed accelerators should be more transparent. I've currently got a list of 170+ accelerators around the world, and the list makes it pretty clear which ones get results and which don't. (Or don't care enough about publicizing results). If you have any feedback for me as to what would be useful to you when choosin…

Very cool. Have you thought about adding a feature for people to review their accelerators?

Re: A horrifying startup accelerator story

#100

Post by jeremybencken »

OnyeaboAduba wrote: post #58
accelanon wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny enough, this all happened in Los Angeles. :)

I understand urge for anonymity in these stories but I think it would be really helpful If the names of these accelerators where disclosed so people don’t fall into the same situations. I know "clues" are provided in both scenarios but there are literally dozens of accelerators out there (four alone in La area that I know of) some of which a couple of my friends have applied too. Avoiding these type landmines should…

TheFunded does this for vc... they could easily include accelerators.

anonymous rating & reviews are a good way to go, even if the reviews have to be vague to avoid a backlash

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