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Booted out of Bootup Labs

livejamie.com

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Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#141

Post by realitycheques »

9oliYQjP wrote: post #97
cperciva wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I just say that the fact that either party here is duking this out in a public forum is just..... unprofessional? Perhaps a bit unprofessional, but I'm personally glad it happens. The startup/VC world is all about reputation, and anything which moves the world from "talk to your friends at other startups and find out if they know anything about X" to "google for X and find out what people are saying about it" is…

Quite honestly YC is the only one of these kinds of ventures that I trust. And even in the case of YC, if I were to advise a budding pair of young entrepreneurs, I'd tell them to move back in with their parents for a year, get a low skill but high paying job to give them sustenance money (e.g., bartend or barista), and focus on implementing their idea. There are nice YC value adds like being introduced to influential…

The differences is that the YC founders are successful entrepreneurs who made money for their investors before YC and since.

Google the history of Spinway, bankruptcy, then sold, Peerflix-a VC fire sale, Bryght-private sale for loss then shut down.

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#142

Post by realitycheques »

9oliYQjP wrote: post #92
rdl wrote: post #35

How hard is it to set up a Vancouver startup independently, if you have 2-3 US citizens who want to relocate? Assume you have $100-200k of your own funding. Gaming the tax credits seems like it takes a bit of effort, but lowers the effective tax rate substantially below even Nevada.

Starting a company in Canada among 2 or 3 people is easy. I should know because I did it when I was a teenager. It cost me $15 for some incorporation templates, $150 for a name search report showing potentially similar company names to the one I wanted to start, and $350 or so in government fees. This got me a company incorporated provincially. You can do it federally too but it's a bit more complex. If you have as m…

So totally true. "Just do it" is the key. Hanging around the "clubhouse" for parties and beer is just not the point and clearly is not working...

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#143

Post by fnid2 »

mikeyur wrote: post #8
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.

Vancouver is not sorry. There are plenty in Vancouver who predicted something like this would happen as a result of doing business with Bootup Labs.

If anything, Vancouver has benefited from this because it is now more likely that Bootup Labs will be booted out of Vancouver. Bootup labs has been hurting the startup community in Vancouver for quite some time and it will help the environment there if this kind of sour leadership is forced out of town.

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#145

Post by henryprecheur »

hello_moto wrote: post #131
bigboote wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax credits are one of the reasons I didn't start my business in Canada. (I'm Canadian and I know the workings of some Canadian tech companies, but my current projects are all in Silicon Valley.) The way it works is that you get 50% of your R&D expenses back from the gov't, in cash, several months later. To claim it, you have to write reports explaining the R&D value of each project. Besides the obvious bureaucratic…

What constitutes R&D expenses if I may ask? I used to work at a startup that makes no money at all. They asked me to sign some sort of "fake" stock options as part of the SR&ED requirements. Of course the numbers were meaningless (pennies or whatnot). So I'm very interested on how this works.

I think this includes your salary/compensation. That's probably why they asked you to sign those stock options, so they could say "Hey look, we paid this guy $X for R&D. That's a tax credit of $Y."

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#146

Post by potatolicious »

apphacker wrote: post #33
mikeyur wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What I learned from this blog post is that I need to visit Vancouver someday.

I grew up there, and please do, because after living in a bunch of other cities nothing quite measures up.

You have no idea how depressing it is to live a stone's throw away in Seattle - it's like wallowing in a pit of mud right outside the gates to Eden. No offense to Seattleites, but your city blows in comparison.

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#147

Post by fnid2 »

dannyrobinson wrote: post #59
cperciva wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manager of Bootup, I can assure you that we haven't been personally paid anything. My apologies. I had understood that you were drawing a salary from Bootup Labs based on a conversation I had with Boris a few months ago, but I can't remember exactly what he said, and it's quite possible that I misinterpreted him. Even if you're not personally getting paid anything, I think $50k is a rather generous fee given tha…

Other accelerators get the same fee as well. There are expenses to operate the accelerator plus an investment in the startup, which is exchanged for % in the startup. Often 5%-6%. If you add this up, effectively, the companies are getting $60k of real money spent on them for 6% of the company. That's a $1M post money value. (note: YC is probably an exception to this math since it has no physical space) But, that's ho…

So essentially what you are doing then is taking money from investors who give you money to put into startups, giving two thirds to the startup and taking one third for yourself.

At this rate, what do you care if the startup succeeds or fails? You get $50k no matter what.

I can't fathom how you think this is a good deal for anyone but you. This kind of behavior is why vancouver will be better without you.

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#148

Post by fnid2 »

dannyr wrote: post #62

From http://blog.bootuplabs.com/2010/04/14/wertz-joins-board-firs... "We supplied a great deal of support and value to the 7 companies over the first 2 months of our 2010 cohort, and we received nothing in return for the 4 companies that were cut" It seems like they are implying that the 4 companies somehow owe them something.

The more of these kinds of comments I read, the more I feel sick. The first time I met one of the founders of Bootup Labs, this was when I was fairly new to Vancouver, I got a deep upsetting feeling in my stomach. I felt the same kind of energy from others involved in meetups they put together. They used to hang around workspace as well.

Someone introduced me to a bootup labs person and within just a few sentences I knew these characters were to be avoided. It is difficult for me to rationalize these feelings in ways that can help stop the bad future I see that makes me have these feelings. I don't want to share the feelings, because they are just feelings. I try to only share opinions I can rationalize, because I don't want to be wrong about a negative feeling if the person is actually good and I'm wrong in my assessment.

It's like when I interacted with them, I saw how the compounding negativity of their influence was going to affect the startup community in Vancouver. My feeling made me want to stay far, far away from anyone involved in bootup labs or involved with them or their "groups". I want a good group to be seen as the leader in Vancouver, but it's almost like the stage has been set there and it was designed by bootup labs.

I don't know where the impressions like these come from. I don't know why I have them or how exactly I knew bootup labs was going to turn out badly.

In Texas, there is a saying, "All hat and no cattle." I don't know if there is a similar expression in BC or not, but it's like I can tell that what they were saying was intended to "sell" those who simply didn't know enough to steer clear of them. The bootup labs people are great at sales and giving the impression of power, certainty, and success -- but I never saw any of it.

I want to help people steer clear of individuals like this, but people who say negative stuff about others are often themselves looked down upon. Moms say, "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all." Well, sometimes, keeping your mouth shut can itself have negative repercussions.

As someone who is still struggling with how to properly behave in social situations, how am I to react when I am confronted by a situation like this?

Re: Booted out of Bootup Labs

#149

Post by djb_hackernews »

livejamie wrote: post #63
bandhunt wrote: post #19

That really sucks! But dude, why give up on the idea? you're selling the domain and moving on? Incubators aren't necessary.. keep plugging away and launch anyway.

Hey Brad, I'm just in survival mode at the moment, living on my parent's couch at the moment with negative money in my bank account. I need to sell some things to try to get back on my feet again - that's why I'm seeing if I can sell these domains.

That doesn't make sense. Did you just spend two months working on the startup full time? You should have made some headway. Put it on the back burner or something. I mean to sell the domains for $500? Is that all 2-3 months of 2 man full time work is worth?
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