Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Incubators are a Ghetto

stochasticresonance.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 40 posts

Re: Incubators are a Ghetto

#31

Post by beambot »

littleidea wrote: post #22
nirvana wrote: post #16

There is an emphasis on hacker news and in the startup scene on VC funding. But I think this is a mistake. The mission of a startup is not to get VC funding. The mission of a startup is to get product-market fit. Angel funding or some other solution is necessary to sustain you until you get that product-market fit. But until you do, I think you're going be in a worse position for getting VC funding. You might not be…

Sounds like a great opportunity. Rock out. If the incubator is specifically trying to develop lifestyle business in Chile, win and win. With the possible reservation that if you truly get to product-market fit and it's a lifestyle business, then maybe you should consider a bigger market, as it is almost always as much work to solve a small problem as it would be to solve a bigger one. Good luck, and I'd love to hear…

As far as I can tell, "lifestyle businesses" were not implied in the parent's comment... just "bootstrapping." There is plenty of room in between "lifestyle business" and "swing for the fences" -- your comment seems to imply that those are the only options.

Re: Incubators are a Ghetto

#32

Post by littleidea »

beambot wrote: post #31
littleidea wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a great opportunity. Rock out. If the incubator is specifically trying to develop lifestyle business in Chile, win and win. With the possible reservation that if you truly get to product-market fit and it's a lifestyle business, then maybe you should consider a bigger market, as it is almost always as much work to solve a small problem as it would be to solve a bigger one. Good luck, and I'd love to hear…

As far as I can tell, "lifestyle businesses" were not implied in the parent's comment... just "bootstrapping." There is plenty of room in between "lifestyle business" and "swing for the fences" -- your comment seems to imply that those are the only options.

The author edited the post since my response. I used the word lifestyle because that was the word he used.

There are a lot of options. Infinite options. There is also a big difference in potential risk and outcomes of those options. There is nothing wrong with approaches to creating lifestyle businesses. In many cases, this can be optimal.

Re: Incubators are a Ghetto

#33

Post by michaelochurch »

Here comes one of the most depressing posts I've ever written.

It seems that startup incubators are doomed to follow the same distribution as business and law schools or non-STEM PhD programs: unless you get into a top one (and by "top", I mean top 3 or 4) you should just go home. The connections that will turn your time and effort into something are not uniformly distributed, but clustered around a small (single-digit) number of hubs. The non-hub alternatives exist to take your money (or, for incubators, equity) and are unlikely to return on the investment.

This distribution isn't inevitable, but it's common. For counterexamples: from an economic perspective, there are two classes of post-graduate educational programs where it actually makes sense to go to a middling (i.e. respectable but not top-5) program. 1. Medical school, because the AMA puts a cap on the number of students the schools can take, limiting the number of doctors and keeping the pay high, so that those skills are in demand regardless of geography and connections. 2. PhD programs in STEM disciplines, where students gain marketable skills and therefore, even though the academic job market has been a cesspool for over 30 years, their graduates can get decent private-sector jobs.

Option 1 is not a credible model for incubators, so that leaves the second: some sort of objective and salable value-add. Unfortunately, this is hard to achieve in 3 months in the context of a no-name incubator. The only way to learn business is to do it (opportunity) and that requires serious capital and powerful connections, not a short runway and "mentoring" from someone of dubious credentials.

People learn best when they are in moderate power. Actually, that's the only time when most people learn. Being at the pinnacle or having infinite resources just spoils them, and no one tells the truth to monarchs or billionaires; but being at the base of the pyramid discourages and enervates them. What the connections and cachet conferred by YC acceptance perform is an elevation into this region of moderate power and high opportunity.

I don't think there's room for more than 5 general-focus Y combinators in the US. It would be nice if there were, but the truth is that opportunity and connections are not that abundant... or at least not in that way.

Re: Incubators are a Ghetto

#34

Post by lucisferre »

peregrine wrote: post #25

I have an experience with one of those "Bad Incubators" the analysis is spot on. - We all met weekly for presentations, half the advisors knew what was going on the other half did not. Right before demo day the other half of the advisors were shocked that we had pivoted and planned on selling our OLD idea. Those same people then pitched our OLD idea to the few investors as a possible pivot, which was a huge WTF. - Th…

Any chance you'd name the culprit?

Re: Incubators are a Ghetto

#35

Post by bbaker »

yesimahuman wrote: post #24

One thing I've heard about other incubators is that they demand a large amount of your attention, in a way that is more like working for them rather than as your own boss. This is interesting because it would seem to challenge the entrepreneurs' drive for independence, which could be harmful to their success. Contrast this with YC which gives you more independence and simply offers "office hours" and weekly meals, wh…

Yes. This is a great point. I've been involved in a startup and advisory capacity with a handful. The good ones are clearly working for their startups. They gain success through their startups. In the bad ones, it feels like the reverse - the startups are working for the accelerator. The difference was clear to me.

A secondary question is whether those interactions bring value. It's okay to be busy with engagements if those engagements are truly helping.

Re: Incubators are a Ghetto

#36

Post by dpe82 »

peregrine wrote: post #25

I have an experience with one of those "Bad Incubators" the analysis is spot on. - We all met weekly for presentations, half the advisors knew what was going on the other half did not. Right before demo day the other half of the advisors were shocked that we had pivoted and planned on selling our OLD idea. Those same people then pitched our OLD idea to the few investors as a possible pivot, which was a huge WTF. - Th…

Sounds a lot like 94 Labs... if I'm right, I feel bad for you guys. I was at the "demo day" this fall. So terrible.

Re: Incubators are a Ghetto

#37

Post by lsc »

michaelochurch wrote: post #33

Here comes one of the most depressing posts I've ever written. It seems that startup incubators are doomed to follow the same distribution as business and law schools or non-STEM PhD programs: unless you get into a top one (and by "top", I mean top 3 or 4) you should just go home. The connections that will turn your time and effort into something are not uniformly distributed, but clustered around a small (single-dig…

do people with masters or PhD STEM degrees make much more than people that only have bachelors in similar fields? I thought that the gain was fairly small. Even in the same area, I know a literal rocket scientist working as a rocket scientist with a masters degrees from MIT who makes less than your average programmer/sysadmin.

As far as I can tell, once you make programmer, having a bachelors vs. a masters doesn't seem to make much difference. (Once you have the job, lacking even the bachelors doesn't seem to make much difference; but those of us who have the job with out the degree are relatively rare, which to me points at the degree helping you to get the job, even if it doesn't change your pay all that much once you have it.)

Re: Incubators are a Ghetto

#38

Post by cdeonier »

lsc wrote: post #37
michaelochurch wrote: post #33

Here comes one of the most depressing posts I've ever written. It seems that startup incubators are doomed to follow the same distribution as business and law schools or non-STEM PhD programs: unless you get into a top one (and by "top", I mean top 3 or 4) you should just go home. The connections that will turn your time and effort into something are not uniformly distributed, but clustered around a small (single-dig…

do people with masters or PhD STEM degrees make much more than people that only have bachelors in similar fields? I thought that the gain was fairly small. Even in the same area, I know a literal rocket scientist working as a rocket scientist with a masters degrees from MIT who makes less than your average programmer/sysadmin. As far as I can tell, once you make programmer, having a bachelors vs. a masters doesn't se…

I think the degrees have an impact at large companies-- at the large company I worked at, developers with bachelors started at 10k less than developers with masters.

Re: Incubators are a Ghetto

#39

Post by lsc »

cdeonier wrote: post #38
lsc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do people with masters or PhD STEM degrees make much more than people that only have bachelors in similar fields? I thought that the gain was fairly small. Even in the same area, I know a literal rocket scientist working as a rocket scientist with a masters degrees from MIT who makes less than your average programmer/sysadmin. As far as I can tell, once you make programmer, having a bachelors vs. a masters doesn't se…

I think the degrees have an impact at large companies-- at the large company I worked at, developers with bachelors started at 10k less than developers with masters.

The fair comparison would be a developer with a bachelors and two years good work experience and a developer with a Masters. Depending on your area (and thus the size of the salary involved) $10K might be a mediocre raise for your first two years; heck, if you are making $100K, that means you haven't even been making 5% a year.

I don't know if it's normal, but in my career, raises came much harder and faster (at least percentage wise) earlier rather than later.

Re: Incubators are a Ghetto

#40

Post by herval »

karmajunkie wrote: post #7
dlevine wrote: post #6

I'm not sure which incubators you are talking about. This post seems like more of a rant than a productive analysis. I have seen some indications that there are too many seed-stage companies right now, but I'm not sure if any one incubator can be blamed for this.

The entrepreneurial world is small. Its not the kind of thing where you (should) name names. That said, he raises some good issues that I think most of us have definitely seen.

Why shouldn't you name names?
Post reply on HN