AlphaLab starts their own Office Hours

I had written this for an HNer who had asked some questions about what went on at the meeting, but looks like they deleted their comment. Thought it might be useful for others to see what to expect:

The meeting is pretty informal. I didn't bring anything special with me and haven't applied formally to AlphaLab yet.

You'll meet with 1 AlphaLab employee and they will stick close to the 20 minutes you have with them. I'm pretty familiar with the AlphaLab process, so we skipped those details and instead talked about my idea. They asked about the concept, business models, the market, what some of the competitors are up to, things you would expect. At this stage, they weren't brainstorming too much with me, more listening. Then they asked about my background a bit and asked me where I was in terms of talking with potential customers. Then they opened it up to any other questions.

I asked about when is best to apply, early, later, asap? - turns out they do not look at any of the apps until after the deadline. So it does not hurt you or help you really in any way to apply now or 1 minute before the deadline. This was important for me since right now I'm a solo founder actively looking for a technical co-founder (get in touch with me if you're a developer looking for a new opportunity with interested customers!). I was advised to wait until I did find someone before applying, or if the deadline approaches, include a plan for how I would plan to outsource or find help to build the app.

The other aspect is even more informal networking with the current founders of AlphLab and some of the other hopefuls who hang out before and after their meeting times. This was helpful for some feedback on the pitch, brainstorming, stuff like that. Plus interesting to hear what everyone is working on!

I don't have a good gauge on how the meeting went, but it seemed to go smoothly and I left feeling even more pumped up about the opportunity. Good luck!

In case you don't know what AlphaLab is, this is from their homepage:

AlphaLab provides funding, hands-on business assistance, access to a network of entrepreneurs and expert advisors, and free office space as part of an intensive program in Pittsburgh. AlphaLab helps companies rapidly develop their technology, gain user feedback from early product releases, develop go-to-market strategies, and move toward successful commercial launch.

I also went to the first Office Hours session - very useful, great opportunity to meet with other Pittsburgh entrepreneurs (current, former and aspiring AlphaLab members) and the AlphaLab staff. I was able to get some great feedback and even got a new connection to a potential customer as a result!

I'm currently in this session of Alphalab and I wish this existed when I applied. The people that were around to give advice are some of the most brilliant in the area. After talking with a lot of the applicants it was quite evident of how useful this was for them.

AlphaLab is the incubation program my startup went through here in Pittsburgh, in the interest of full disclosure.

Does any other incubator program do something like this? The only thing like this I'd heard of before is Jason Fried doing it for 37signals.

I went to this. It was awesome.