Thoughts from a startup on getting accepted into new incubator from TheFunded | Hacker News Reader

Thoughts from a startup on getting accepted into new incubator from TheFunded

blog.jedwhite.com

13 pointsjedwhite22 comments

I'm not sure "incubator" is the best word to describe TheFunded Founder Institute. Founders aren't even expected to work full-time.

Instead of providing funding, founders actually have to pay $450, which makes having "TheFunded" in the title pretty ironic.

Hmmmm... ok, fuck it. Y-Combinator is better.

The Institute charges a course fee of $450 to help cover operating, catering, broadcasting, materials, and location costs. This amounts to $27 per session, by the way.

In terms of investment, the Institute does not buy equity at a discounted or at below market rates. Instead, it works with professional investors to secure the best possible rates and terms for the Founders, and then the Institute has the option to invest alongside the others if it makes sense for everyone.

As the Founder of the Institute, it genuinely sucks to have to say 'no' to smart people with a a passion to build great companies. This is already an apparent flaw in the model. After the inaugural Semester is finished, I will dedicate a couple months to the study of scaling.

The vision of the institute is simple: help great Founders build great companies by learning lessons from their experienced peers, by getting amazing deals from world-class vendors, and by closing financing from top-rated investors.

The Institute has had to do everything differently because nobody has backed the Founder in a long, long time. All of that is about to change. ;-)

- Adeo

Let there be a covenant among us that we will ruthlessly down-mod anyone that comes in here and plays the 'YC is better' broken record.

Hadn't heard of this, very happy to see more incubators :)

Oh, that's going to happen :)

YC has at least one awesome team I know in it this round.

I feel similar like these guys. Today I got the news that I am accepted to the program and can’t express how thrilled I am. I think the program has a lot to offer.

Wow. congrats. unfortunately I'm one of the hundreds that were rejected :)

But the best part for me is I get to meet Adeo in person, and I know I shouldn't be judgemental but he's impressed me as a darn good person that is passionate about helping out start ups as well.

I hope everything goes well with your venture, and please do share your experience with us

Adeo is a genuinely great guy. I don't care if it sounds like sucking up. I met him at an event in Boston that he got me a free ticket to, and I was flat out broke after getting there on a shoestring and he bought me a beer and introduced me around. I think he knows how tough it can be trying to get something started, and he really believes in what he says.

Thanks, and sorry about that Darwin. Ping me offline if I can help in any way. Just give me until after the first session to get some more time on my hands... ;-)

It's certainly an interesting model. Maybe even brilliant.

The institute doesn't actually have to invest any money at all to get to watch and know these startups and founders. And if any of them start taking off, they will be in the perfect position to invest.

Will less risk across more companies yield greater returns than the YC model?

I think it is a radically different model. Part of its founder friendly focus is precisely that it doesn't make people give up other work and move somewhere full-time. The use of warrants rather than (fairly or unfairly) articulating valuation by providing tiny seed funding as part of a stock deal avoids the question of pre-seed valuation, and it encourages the best eventual valuation possible. It has some very interesting ideas.

Should have spoken more about the application/interview process. As it stands right now, it seems more like a suckup post.

I'm going to do a follow up post with more information about that, and also why I think the program is different and why I think the founder centric stuff is important. Have you used http://www.thefunded.com - it's as blunt as HN in its reviews of funds and programs.

I'm going to second that. After reading the post all that I came away with is, "Some startup got in. They're excited. They think incubators are neat."

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but this seems more like a proclaiment of excitement than something substantive.

Edit: Adding constructive criticism: This should say what they're doing, what they like about the program, what the process was like and perhaps contrast it with some of the other stuff that's out there.

This startup http://scribetribe.us got accepted last night. Anyone else have any thoughts on TheFunded's Founder Institute compared to the other incubators and accelerators out there?

Congrats, Jed! Glad to hear it... Can't wait to hear how things go.

Thanks Dan. Very excited about it.

Great work Jed, hope it all goes well. It'll be interesting to see how it compares to YC and others.

Awesome news :) I'm thrilled you got in - you and @medimum deserve it! ;)

Hey Laurel it's pretty cool. They've got some great mentors and the program looks awesome.

What were the tests like?

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