Shotput Ventures Open Up Apps | Hacker News Reader

Shotput Ventures Open Up Apps

shotputventures.com

28 pointssanjayparekh27 comments

Okay, so we're 2 hours before our 3/6/09 opening of applications date. So sue us. We're hyper-excited to launch this thing and hyper-excited to see a bunch of companies get to work this summer in Atlanta. Want to be one of them? Go apply!

My gut impression is that this is a good program for recent graduates near Atlanta, but I think that enrollment in this program is good in the same way that attending a regional community college is good. It's real, but it's obviously a compromise.

Also, "hyper-excited" tone and over-selling of basic web functionality (e.g. strategic web content management == WCM?) makes me suspicious. Starting a start up ---especially with little experience almost no capital--- seems extremely stressful and demands an extreme focus on reality. This cheerleading marketing may work well for corporate sales, but I fear that it will be a toxic distraction to start ups interested in <$20,000 capital in Atlanta.

I predict a high throughput of web media and software consulting companies from this fund...

That may be but I'd ask you to look at the founders of the fund. It isn't like they've accomplished just a little. Well, maybe I've accomplished just a little. The other eight guys, pretty impressive.

I think you exaggerated your metaphor because of the negative association community college has to classist people. If Y Combinator is Stanford, Shotput is the University of Georgia.

To inject some UGA bashing into this discussion at the cost of sounding even more classist, at the very least Shotput is Georgia Tech. UGA is considered pejorative around here ;)

More the merrier!

I wish there were more YC-like outfits in Silicon Valley itself, since YC won't accept us.

Why would YC not accept?

I'm sure they had good reasons. But we're marching on.

There's an element of randomness to the process. Don't give up, I hope you are applying again this time.

Props on the wufoo form.

should probably have some required fields. i hit submit on a completely empty form and it went through.

that's an intelligence test. you failed. :-)

Wufoo is awesome, but for some reason this form renders incorrectly in Chrome :-(

can try going directly to the form using this: http://bit.ly/nxn87

Lemme know if that works any better.

Yes, that works correctly.

This is going to be a great program! I just wish I didn't have a fulltime job so I could do it! I plan to hover nearby and try to glom on to the luminaries and bask in reflected glory!

But it isn't Y Combinator...

No, but its the same thing! Y Combinator went viral, yo.

No, it's not "the same thing". It's not equal-by-value, and it's certainly not equal-by-reference, which is what the title implied, at least to me: I saw it and thought "YC in Atlanta? But I thought they just decided to stick to the Bay Area!"

sanjayparekh, I think you should be a good sport and change this to something less misleading. It's great that you're launching a YC-inspired fund. The more the merrier as far as founders are concerned. Why not announce it accurately?

Not sure what you mean, where did he say it was Y Combinator? Did the title already change?

Yeah, they changed it. I won't quote the original here since it was probably just overenthusiasm and these guys have every right to be excited.

yeah, you guys are right - I probably should have said "YC inspired" instead of "YC in Atlanta". my bad.

I'm sure it was well-intentioned. Separate question - why didn't you say "YC inspired", or something like that? Everybody who isn't dumb knows where the model came from (and you don't want dumb applicants). So why not just be open about the fact and celebrate it? It would increase my respect for you, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. And if you've changed the model, why not say so explicitly and talk about why? It would at a minimum make for an interesting blog post.

This has puzzled me for a long time about the other YC clones, the ones who insist on pretending that they sprang up sui generis and take all these pains to act original. Who do they think they're fooling? How can they not see the incongruence of insulting founders' intelligence this way? All they're achieving by acting so prissy about it is drawing attention to how inferior a copy they really are, and what a culture gap there is between them and the founders they're addressing.

So I guess there is a two part answer. I should have said that in the title of this post but the wording I used was confusing and removed by the powers that be - as it should be. I didn't change it to say "inspired by" because it's a moot point.

We also didn't say it on the site because we didn't want people to think we were approved or licensed in some way to be YC in Atlanta. We aren't and we didn't ask for approval. In fact PG made a comment on a previous post that he hadn't heard of us and couldn't keep up with the clones.

That said, we are taking the YC forms (thanks for open sourcing those!) and using those as a base for us. There are likely some minor changes for Georgia law but for this initial round we are innovating close to zero. We want to try it first and see what happens. If we want to innovate after that, we will.

That said, I wouldn't say just "inspired by" I'd say "heavily inspired by".

Well, it's absolutely NOT the same "thing"! I don't know pg in person, or any of his partners at YC, and I never talked to them in person... but here is what I know:

1- YC is hosted at the Silicon Valley, which is considered a huge advantage itself.

2- YC is a well known brand name in the seed funding, and if your startup goes to investor under YC's brand name, then they will listen to you, just because you are funded by YC, and they trust it.

3- If you are funded by YC, then everyone in the Silicon Valley will know about your startup so fast!

4- Because of YC, all the editors on the web, like TechCrunch will write articles about your startup. Like what happened with DivvyShot and others.

5- You would be so lucky to be funded by YC, simply because they are experts! Paul and his partner has a vision... it's not only about the money and investment! And their vision and ideas are probably playing a critical role in their startups life!

Shotput is good.

Go shotput!

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