Excelerate - YC-like program in Chicago, Summer '10

Mentors are great, but cash is king. Unless they can credibly get real angels to write first checks, it'll end up limping along, the same as LaunchBox Digital and DreamIt Ventures. Sam Yagan and Troy Henikoff are the real deal and both gave me great advice when I was doing my startup in Chicago, but at the end of the day, I judge accelerators and mentors by their ability to get startups credible angel flow. YC and TS are the only programs that have solved this problem.

That said, summer in Chicago is the closest thing to heaven on God's green earth and $20K is $20K. Nothing stopping you from leaving Chitown after the program's over.

I'm really, really excited to see something like this kicking off in Chicago. I'm going to throw an app at it and would be stoked to get in, but I'll play all important for a second: I'd like to see more about what the mentor phase looks like, who the experts are, etc. You know, just a little more information. But again, it's great to see the VC community pull together and offer some reasons to keep groups in the midwest.

You listening, Groupon? ;)

I wouldn't call the site unpolished. But it is sparse. Chicago's startup scene is growing perceptibly in the past few years. Groupon is a huge hit, there are numerous interesting startups surrounding our options exchange, and some pretty interesting stuff going on in real estate/mortgages. It's a nice change from the first part of this decade, when it was 37 Signals and then... nobody.

Unpolished site, but the backers are credible.

Looks like they've got a strong group of mentors. Also David Cohen from TechStars is there. Seems like a real opportunity for startups.