SproutBox Incubator Provides Services Instead of Cash

This is an interesting approach. Not sure why the title says "like YC" other than as link bait. The only similarities are that they are both helping to start startups.

In any case, this is an interesting approach. They are essentially hired guns who take 20-40% of your company in exchange for "200-250K" of services to help you build it and enough money for living not to be a distraction. Can't be that expensive in Bloomington, IN. Maybe this is the answer to the age old "I'm an MBA and have this great idea, but I my coding skills start at logging into my laptop and end at adding cells in Excel" problem.

While not appealing to me, this could churn out some pretty interesting companies as they are very focused on revenue ... something that many others just aren't. I'm eager to see what they can do.

Disclaimer: I'm based in Bloomington, IN and met the sproutbox founders a few times.

In the first dotcom crash, I worked for an incubator that had a similar approach: providing talents and services to 'idea people' while running our own project. It was a complete failure and closed in less than a year. Our own project failed to bring any revenue, and the other projects we started lacked any sort of commitment from the 'idea people'. We also had a short runway and an oversized team which prevented us from adapting to changing circumstances.

There are a couple things that makes me much more optimistic about Sproutbox chances. First, their team is much more talented that ours ever was. They could (and did) just build their own apps and be very successful.

Secondly, they focus on revenue-generating businesses. They may not start the next twitter or youtube, but that makes them much more likely to be around long enough to get your idea off to a good start.

I've met a couple of the SproutBox founders at Indianapolis' Startup Weekend last year. I can't speak to their business savvy, but they were nice, and enthusiastic about their business. In my opinion, they would be a lot of fun with which to work. Indiana University is in Bloomington. IU has a top 20 business school (undergrad and grad, according to BusinessWeek: http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/). SproutBox intend to take advantage of (in a good way) the dreamers in the business program and the low cost of living. Indianapolis is only 1 - 1.5 hours to the north.

Incidentally, another top 20 business program resides in northern Indiana at Notre Dame.

Also worth mentioning, before taking any applications, SproutBox developed a couple apps for themselves (http://sproutbox.com/sprouts).