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As someone who just finished an incubator program (http://piepdx.com) and thoroughly enjoyed it, I tend to agree. As AngelList explodes and traditional venture capital contracts (or the bubble bursts entirely), I would love to see more "incubator" programs that take very little or no equity and essentially function more as filtered coworking spaces. I think we're already seeing that with places like Dogpatch and General Assembly in NYC.

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Cool to hear about your positive incubator experience. I'm a little confused though. The main vibe of the blog post was generally critical of the value of most incubators and you said you "tend to agree." Not that these opinions are technically mutually exclusive, but i did go "wait. what?" and reread your comment over a few times.

Can you go a bit more into your incubator experiences (positive) and the parts of the post you agree with (negative?)?

(Not asking you to rant/heap praise/ do anything you're not comfortable with.)

We got good value, but I don't think the average startup would be best served by an incubator approach. The amount of cash is too little, the mentors are generally accessible in our industry, and you can get the camaraderie of being around other startups via a coworking space. For us, our program being sponsorsed by the largest indy ad agency in the world (W+K), as well as Google, Target, and Coke, was a huge factor in why it's been good for us. But I don't think most incubators have that kind of approach. And in particular, as more and more generic startup incubators spring up, the value of being part of one probably drops.

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