Bethnal Green Ventures: a UK accelerator programme for stuff that matters
bethnalgreenventures.com
bethnalgreenventures.com
Bethnal Green Ventures is co-ordinated by Paul Miller. Paul has spent the last seven years learning how to start new organisations that use technology to solve social and environmental problems, primarily through School of Everything and Social Innovation Camp. Before that he worked at the think tank Demos and the sustainability charity Forum for the Future.
So basically he's a quango man, who's added a few tech names as 'advisors'.
Nothing will come out the other end. But it will keep a few Shoreditch hipsters gainfully employed.
Many more Team Advisors to come... just ran out of time in updating the site I'm afraid.
Do any of the alumni have a web-presence? Perhaps you could either link to their websites; or you could host small "about" pages for them?
You're going to get people thinking that this is just another quango product - something created to use a budget from some government organisation - so how could you address those concerns? How can you show that you're different?
I guess I understand the concern that I'm just a quango/think tank guy but most of the useful stuff I've learned was as co-founder and CEO of School of Everything (www.schoolofeverything.com). We built a product, were finalists in the first round of Seedcamp, raised seed investment from angels including Esther Dyson and have a whole load of happy customers. We never became Google but the site does ok. I'm the first to admit I made lots of mistakes along the way which I hope I can help our teams avoid making again.
Would definitely welcome advice on how to show we're different.
So if you consider advice and mentoring a major part of the investment into the startups you fund in exchange for a lower cash valuation, you'll have to be very convincing that it really will add that much value.
6% if you're YCombinator is one thing, there's track record, location, address book, mentors, who you get to pitch to, etc... and you can easily come to the conclusion that you've had value-for-equity.
But I read BGV's site carefully as I would consider my startup to be exactly what they are looking for, and I meet all of their requirements (we're even London based), but... I couldn't find on their site the value to my startup, and how the 6% translated into anything of substance to me.
If it's not the people (experienced, with contacts, track record, etc), then I'm looking at the money, and the money isn't enough to justify the equity given the weakness of the rest of the offering.
It feels like someone has tried to emulate YC without understand what the value of YC is.
I'm pretty sure I understand the value of YC - I know quite a few people who've been through the programme and I've visited the space and met with Harj who taught me a lot.
We're different though and I think different startups are looking for different things. If you have time, I'd certainly be up for meeting to see if there is a fit. My email is on the site.
"Once a year, we work with a group of very early stage companies and provide them with up to £15,000 of investment and a three month programme of support"
"If we’re going to tackle climate change, we need new products and services that will help people reduce their energy use by a factor of 10 not just by a few per cent."
I can't see £15,000 getting you anywhere with something of that scale, even if you're a seriously smart cookie basic operating costs still apply. . . especially considering London rent etc.
The value of Y Combinator is a combination of its brand, connections and the huge experience of the partners there. Compare the experience of the various YC partners[1] with those of any other incubator, and it's quickly apparent there's no competition. UK incubators seemed to be staffed by accountants, bankers and lawyers who emphasise teaching applications how to "write a business plan" rather than "make something people want"
1 - pg - Viaweb, pb - friendfeed & gmail, Garry - Posterous & Palantir, Geoff - RocketMail & Lala, Sam Altman - Loopt, Harj - Auctomatic. Etc.
Multiple VCs and Angels can exist in the same segment because funding at that stage is polygamous. You get funding from multiple angels or VCs so a number can compete. The ecosystem may not support many but it can support more than one.
If an incubator can only make its money from the top companies though and there is another incubator that already has the top companies in a particular market then do the economics actually work?
YC, Seedcamp, TechStars etc all arguably cover overlapping but different markets but I wonder whether the economics literally stop you dead from doing another incubator in SF or in London.
It strikes me that the only entrance is either to go above or below the incubator or go to a completely different market.
It's not as if there's a finite pool of disruptable markets or a limit on innovation (or at least one that we're anywhere close to).
The limit seems to essentially be on the talent side and PG has commented before that the best startups they've funded were often the last ones they decided to fund in a round which suggests that's plenty of talent that YC isn't getting.
They ask for solutions to some very complex problems yet give very little funds to do so. For that amount the most a startup can do is come up with the principles for a potentially workable solution for the problem, but not an actual execution to see if it's effective at all in a real-world basis. Let alone there are plenty of such theoretical solutions to the problems they name, there just isn't enough money to implement them.
The value for teams will definitely come from our network which we're still adding to the site to show who's involved. I think maybe we're underselling ourselves by being a bit British about the whole thing. Any advice gratefully received.
Can I apply as an individual?
You can try but it’s very unlikely that we’ll fund you. We’ve found that a startup is much more likely to succeed when it’s started by a small team rather than just by one individual.
Is a big load of bollocks then?
You're passing yourself off as experienced when you're anything but.
Sorry if that's harsh, but what are you providing for your 6% beyond "your network"?
A google search for one returns some information, but it's 404 on the bethnalgreenventures website.
Perhaps some cultural notes about Bethnal Green - an area in the east end of London - would be useful?
I was born there, but left something like 40 years ago.
Bethnal Green is an interesting place. It's got a pretty strong heritage as a place where social reformers have created new things - the Open University for example. It also has some very good pubs.
To be absolutely fair, it often seems that in the UK you'd be better off disguising your startup idea as a work of performance art and making an application to the Arts Council for a grant.
For an added bonus, you wouldn't have to give any of it back at the end, and if you can show that you did anything that was in the slightest bit similar to your original proposal and didn't just drink the money, then they are mightily impressed and offer you more free cash.
[edit] Just thought of the "Dada Tech Startup Incubator";
We dress startup founders in octopus costumes and teach them about semiotic forms and stuff, in order to get given money from the kind of well-heeled philanthropists who spend more on things like opera than they are willing to lend to small businesses.
We charge a compelling rate of 4% equity and a broken window full of the lost dreams of a hungry sparrow.
Step this way McDaid, and we shall immediately start installing the green rubber flamingos.