Update on Portland Ten (Founder defends her approach) | Hacker News Reader

Update on Portland Ten (Founder defends her approach)

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12 pointstoffer10 comments

I am their target audience. I appreciate the candor shown in Carolynn's responses. And, I would likely benefit from the program. I have even considered interviewing.

But I just can't get over the fact that they're having a contest and making you pay for the prize.

Yes, and it seems to be an issue with many of the programs in Oregon, charges for presenting to 'investors'; references to 'winning' funding, etc.

It's one thing to charge attendance to a networking event; but to charge companies for presenting to potential investors seems amateurish to me.

And everyone involved in the process needs to remember that funding is not the end, it is merely a means towards the end. You don't 'win' funding, you receive it; and you have to pay it back.

> But I just can't get over the fact that they're having a contest and making you pay for the prize.

Education often takes this form. If you're accepted into a competitive university, you still have to pay for the 'prize' of going there.

Whether it's worth the cost is a separate question.

Josh, thanks for your comment. That's a good comment that the interview process has a contest-feel, and I'm not sure that will be the approach we take in the future.

More than anything, we want to find candidates who are a good fit for the challenge of working toward the $1M goal, have a project that has the potential to be viable in the market, and who are a good match between the other founders we are working with and Portland Ten staff/advisors.

Thanks again for your input--

Carolynn

Well, the contest approach(controversy?) seems to have garnered a healthy amount of interest(scrutiny?) for the project. All of your clarifications and justifications have been on point, but I'm still uneasy about the underlying premise.

One thing is certain: whether or not I decide to get involved I will definitely be following along. -Josh

Why does she keep saying stuff like that it's a "a hybrid approach that incorporates investment/incubation theory" when it doesn't invest at all?

I've been thinking about this one for awhile now. Here's the quote I think we're talking about:

>That said, Portland Ten is a unique model which combines incubation/investment theory, along with the extreme bootstrapping methods and GTD approach I’ve been developing via Hundred Dollar Business.

While I'm not entirely sure what Carolynn means by incubation/investment theory, I do understand that she is not implying direct investment. I do not see any contradiction, but can understand why you'd be confused.

That said, I would be interested to learn what she means by taking an investment theory approach..

jackowayed, joshuarr-- thanks for the question.

what i mean by "investment theory" is that there are specific requirements angels/VCs have when evaluating startups for fundability, that are indicators of the entrepreneur's ability to execute a high-growth concept.

we are extracting those characteristics/indicators and building that into the learning model for Portland Ten-- so that the entrepreneurs who work with us understand those concepts & are trained to think on that level, in regards to identifying and exploiting a scalable market opportunity.

essentially, rather than using the skills/information i've learned as related to high tech funding to work on the investment side of the table by taking a job as an analyst or working with a fund, i'd rather work with startups who are too premature to get attention from investors, or who may ultimately not be interested in taking funding, to pre-engineer the way they think about running a company so that it operates on a high-growth level, but doesn't require fitting into the venture capital model.

hope that helps. feel free to ask more questions or ping me directly via www.pdxten.com.

-carolynn

Just a note - gray text with black links is very confusing to read.

People in glass houses... (We ARE at HN, where #ccc is king.)

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