Shotput Ventures 2010 summer application | Hacker News Reader

Shotput Ventures 2010 summer application

shotputventures.com

14 pointssanjayparekh15 comments

This seems like a particularly unappealing deal. In exchange for 5-10% of your company, you get no office space and barely enough money to survive a hot Atlanta summer ($6K per participant). According to the FAQ, you're supposed to make the money stretch for six months.

That better be some triple-distilled, A++++ quality mentoring.

If I had to try my own hand at mentoring, I would say: don't be a sucker.

(you can mail me a 2% 'thank you' stake in your startup at your convenience)

[edit: fixed wrong percentage in original comment]

Where do you get 10-20%?

From http://www.shotputventures.com/faq

"How much funding do you provide? We provide $6,000 per founder, min two, max three founders. So, $12,000 - $18,000 per team in exchange for 5% - 10% of equity on entrepreneur friendly terms."

From a pure capital to equity ration standpoint, that seems to be on par with other similar programs.

We'll have some details on office space soon - that little bit is changing for the better.

This a genuine question, I am interested.

Why should people go with you instead of YC? How are you better than YC? Why have you decided to offer less money than YC?

its about the same, when you consider standard of living costs.

Really, I guess I am worried that this might be a MBA cargo cult :). How could I get some more information?

Are there any past companies I could talk to?

Past companies we've invested in are on the web site. They're around if you are in Atlanta and a bunch of them are also on Twitter.

It's hard to say how we're different without direct experience of going through the YC program. That said, all the partners of Shotput are successful entrepreneurs who have or are running Internet/tech businesses. There's a wide breadth of experience with the partners from the highly technical to the highly sales/marketing based.

That said - best way to get to know us (if you don't already) is to come to our office hours (one today and one on 3/24). Details on the site.

Thanks Sanjay. Please don't take personal offense at the comment about MBAs. I worked as a 'creative' in a medical marketing firm through university. So I made descent money from the creation of cargo cults, making something that looks right but doesn't work, makes me :(.

Just out of interest, how many companies did you start with? How many are earning revenue after 12 months?

I'd be in interested contacting them about their experiences.

Thanks

Apparently I can't thread this reply deeper so I replied to the parent message instead.

No offense taken - I rail against MBAs myself when they lack experience.

We funded 8 startups last year. They're all still around but I can't speak (well, I could but I won't) to revenue, etc. I'll leave that to them to discuss or not as appropriate.

Oh yeah, most of us don't have MBAs, BTW. I'm an exception. But I got mine AFTER doing my startup so I don't view myself as being pre-programmed for ridiculousness. :-)

My indignant mind doubled the figure - I fixed it in the comment. Thank you.

$1,000 a month per person? Really?

No, not really. I'm so surprised at how little people read postings before jumping to an analysis. It's $6k per founder for a 3 month summer program. That works out to $2k per founder per month.

But they say they expect you to last 6 months.So it is 1000 per month! I think that's what r238 meant.

True but that's a recommendation, not a requirement. Honestly most of the teams from last year had a bit of runway after the three month summer program. Granted our funding was different last year but founders need to be focused on capital conservation which is, I think, the point of the statement.

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