Comment by thekevan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thekevan | Hacker News Reader

Read the fine print. Not only are there the below requirements but there is also debate on whether or not the agency running the program has the ability (due to poorly worded rules) to kick a business out of it for no reason at all.

A Start up...

Start ups must locate on college campuses. (Renting unused office space or vacant land.)

MUST BE NEW to New York State, recently graduated from a state-recognized incubator, be returning to the state, or be an existing business that's starting a new operation.

ORGANIZED as a corporation, partnership, limited liability company or sole proprietorship.

IN COMPLIANCE with worker protection and environmental regulations

ALIGNED with the interests of the hosting university.

BE ABLE to create jobs in the first year.

BE A STARTUP business or in biotechnology, information technology, remanufacturing, advanced materials, processing, engineering, electronic technology products or other high-tech industries.

CANNOT BE AN accountant, business services company, law firm, medical office, hotel, financial services firm, personal care business, Realtor, restaurant, retailer, utility or wholesaler.

Agree. It sounds wonderful on the outside, but once you start reading all the details it gets a little hairy. For example, they do not define what exactly a "business services company" is and is not. Using a broad definition, that could eliminate some tech startups right out the gate. Another example of the broad definition is "financial services firm". Does that immediately eliminate BitCoin or payment processing startups? The list goes on.

I like the idea and more states/cities should follow the lead, but in order to be effective the people implementing these programs need to be clear on what is and is not an acceptable business. The other part of the NY program I was hesitant about was that you are committed to partnering with a university. Doesn't leave room if your business plan pivots and falls out of line with the "interests of the hosting university".

It's a startup incubator for startups that have lawyers on staff.

Strange. I wonder if it's politics. There's a great idea for pushing tech, but then the anti-banking lobby kicks in, as does everyone else that's anti-business.

Unclear if this got watered down while Bloomberg was in town, or if it's part of Deblassio's class warfare.

This was started during Bloomberg's term. The same provisions were there.

This is a New York State program, Bloomberg was mayor of New York City.

Was it this watered down when the program began? If so, I start to wonder, "Why bother?"

I get the objections... You don't want to incent people who are already here. It still seems like a lot of hoops.

This is the first year (roughly) of the program. They (NY State) announced it last year. Many of us in NYC looked at it and were like: "ok, well, no use to us". The thing with NY State programs is that they're almost entirely geared to helping politicians north of I-84. While the NYC region has the bulk of the population, it doesn't control the legislature (so when people complain about NYC's taxes, keep in mind that the state controls the tax structure, NYC has minimal control over revenue).

NYC's programs for startup businesses (digital and otherwise) have been more oriented to eliminating red tape, some real estate help. Lately there's an extremely underhyped effort to get fiber to offices, but the requirements are such that you'd need to be well along in your business to take advantage of it.

This is typical of government-run or funded programs. The problem is that the word "startup" doesn't have a universally agreed upon definition and different people have radically different understanding of what a "startup" is.

When a governemnt official talks about "startups" (which they typically spell "start-ups" with an hyphen), they almost always mean "recently-created small business". And they generally think that the primary focus of a "start-up" is to generate a profit by selling a product or a service and to hire employees as soon as they can. I.e. when they say "start-up", what they really mean is: "traditional small business".

When people in the tech startup world talk about "startups", they generally mean something very different. PG's definition of a startup [1] is probably what best matches what most people in the startup world mean by "startup". And that's radically different from a traditional small business.

It's not to say that tech startups are better or worse than traditional small businesses. They're simply different, they work in very different ways, have very different life cycles, needs and purposes and need very different kinds of support.

Unfortunately, few government people understand the difference between a small businesses and a tech startups. In fact, very few people in general even know there is a difference. Tech startups are a very weird kind of business that most people, even in the business world, don't really get. Which always leads to this confusion.

Governments launch these support programs aimed at "start-ups", which are in fact aimed at traditional small businesses. Tech startup people get confused by the use of the word "start-up" and assume that these programs are aimed at tech startups.

Tech startup people then complain about the non-sensical requirements of these programs, poor advice given to entrepreneurs and completely inadequate support provided. Which was to be expected since, despite their name, these programs aren't aimed at tech startups at all.

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html

Yea the college campus/alignment requirement is tough, but the "be able to create jobs in the first year" excludes many tech startups. Many won't need a non-founder employee for several years.

I read this as targeted as university spinoffs, in which case it would align better. If you're at the stage where you don't yet need a non-founder employee, you just... don't spin off yet. You can stay in academia, staffed by academic staff, and it's not an issue. But when you reach the stage where you want to grow outside academia, then you spin off a company, and hire non-academic staff, presumably through this structure.

> Start ups must locate on college campuses. (Renting unused office space or vacant land.)

Only startups locate on college campus? Not home-based startup? Could a bunch of startup just rent a table or even a mailbox qualify "space rental"? What about a startup gets a day for one desk?

I also not sure why it has to be on campus. I go to City College and some professors are still waiting for a room. The college has spent a few years splitting half of the floor into multiple small offices and classrooms. I don't know about Columbia or NYU though. Also consider friction between the host university and the startup. School campus network usually has some restrictions as to what is allowed and what is not, who is freely to enter the campus and who is not. It can be tough to work with university officials.

I think it should extend to any startup willing to make the economy better, anywhere in NY. Looks like the governor wants to clone Stanford's startup culture.

No college in NYC has any space available for anything. Try to get a room to hold a meetup--it's tough. By process of elimination, this is aimed at startups in the college-run incubators/startup spaces. As such, this doesn't sound like something done to benefit citizens, more like something done to benefit universities.

It looks like it is designed to look like a major initiative, but with thr specific constraints written to only admit a few hand-picker winners who are friends of the sponsors. Like many government contracts that pretend to be open for bidding.

One exception may be the new Cornell NYC Tech campus on Roosevelt Island, once it's ready. It explicitly mixes academic space and corporate office space. More details in this NY Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/nyregion/cornell-nyc-tech-...

Serious question. So what startups would NOT qualify? AirBnB (Hospitality)? SnapTerms (law firm)? Bench.co (accountants)? Opternative (medical office/online eye exams)? Redfin (real estate brokers)? Amazon (retailer)?

"business services company" also seems to exclude just about any SAAS-startup.

The fine print only applies to contracts. Requests like this, job applications - basically all cattle calls - people will call them like they see them. They're painting a picture of what they want as well as they can.

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