Springboard. A new incubator (in Cambridge, UK), takes no equity. | Hacker News Reader

Springboard. A new incubator (in Cambridge, UK), takes no equity.

springboard.red-gate.com

74 pointsbabul28 comments

They provide (amongst other things)...

  - mentoring (10 weeks in incubator, then ongoing)
  - speakers e.g. Ryan Carson, Joel Spolsky
  - office space
  - accomodation
  - money (expenses & living allowance while in incubator)
  - free breakfast and lunch every day
  - sessions on product management and sales

...and take no equity (atleast initially?), tie you down at the end, or even require you have a company.

Seems the motivation is work with "smart, exciting people" and build relationships with those trying to build "companies where the customers are other businesses rather than consumers".

They describe this as an "accidental incubator"...

  "Over the course of the last 10 months we’ve managed
   to create an accidental incubator.

  After meeting start-ups at various events, we found
  ourselves playing host to about a dozen people across 
  five companies here at our offices. They all seem to 
  like it, and we like them, which inspired us to put 
  together Springboard."

Also, building on a MS stack will probably increase your chances of acceptance if you are applying (as Red Gate, the host company, builds tools for MS software), but I know first hand some of the companies already involved build using other tools e.g. RoR/Scala/Erlang.

I've recently dealt with Red Gate's support team for a minor issue I was having (I couldn't find my serial number), and I honestly can't remember the last time I've had such a good experience with any support anywhere. They even followed up with an email a few days later.

They seem like a really stand-up bunch of people (and I really like SQL Compare as well).

I'll second that. I purchased one of Red Gate's flagship products (ANTS Profiler) about a year ago to use on one of my last projects for school (a .NET-based numerical library), and I remember thinking that they were the first company that had ever made me think, "Their customer service is so good, I'll definitely buy something from them again."

The products they make are some of the best I've used. Their profiler saved me a few projects ago.

This seems like a good idea and a great deal if you're have an idea for a startup.

Though this has made me wonder about the value of working with an incubator that does take equity. In the case of Springboard, you don't have to give up any part of your company, but I think that there's substantial value if the incubator does have equity, as they have skin in the game from a financial standpoint.

That all depends on how much skin. Most incubators I've heard of take small stakes in a lot of companies. The start-up just becomes one more fish and it rapidly becomes a numbers game for the incubator. I might be wrong though.

Is this sponsored by the local government? Are they hoping for it to be sustainable?

I mean, this can (and likely will) be really beneficial for those who get in... but what/where's the endgame?

I doubt there's any endgame. For the price of some unused office space they get smart people to bounce ideas off, free introductions to anyone the founders know who can help their business, and a bunch of publicity. It's the same reason why already established people often like to cowork.

Hmm... I understand the coworking benefits, and the opportunity to either sell Red Gate products or invest in a later stage that babul mentioned, but this is still a huge investment.

Living expenses for 10 weeks and meals for however many people, plus high-profile speakers? This is going to be expensive, even with the benefits you two mentioned.

Just a note: I'm not "suspicious" of Red Gate's motives (I believe them when they say that this is catch-free and that they made this program to help others); I'm curious as to who is funding this and why.

I think this is a great move, and I know and can happily vouch for the people behind it. Neil has been a big fan of Y-Combinator and that is clearly part of the inspiration.

As for their motives, I see part of it is about 'real-world karma', and part of it is that it's really not a huge cost to them with a range of benefits.

Providing (presumably spare) office space and canteen meals (albeit in their nice company restaurant) to a small team for 10 weeks isn't going to be a huge cost to a company that employs 160 people.

If the startups they have fail, but they have smart people, then it's potentially cheap recruitment for them (it costs about US$10k on average to recruit an average software developer in Cambridge via agencies). If the companies succeed, at least to the point of getting a promising product, then presumably it provides a range of commercial opportunities.

I think this is a great move, and something I hope other companies might follow. Red Gate are in the fortunate position of being profitable and not having external shareholders to worry about, which has perhaps made this easier for them to do. But if they can demonstrate the model can work, then it will make it easier for others to copy.

This could only happen since Neil and Simon are co-founder/CEOs. I can't imagine any external shareholders would have approved it (if they had them).

No. Maybe.

Speculating, but apart from the benevolence aspect, probably to establish close links with companies that will use Red Gate products, and ideally (re)sell them to other client companies (hence desire on business-orientated rather that consumer-orientated startups), as well as to ideally make an investment or take equity in any companies that go through the process at a later stage.

But why not ask them directly?...

  Neil Davidson
  neil.davidson@red-gate.com
  twitter: @neildavidson
  (http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/)

  Amir Chaudhry
  amir.chaudhry@red-gate.com
  twitter: @amirmc

Red Gate is funding this. No local government / anybody else involved in any way. It's pretty expensive, but we figure it'll pay itself back. Somehow.

For example, we've already got a handful of startups at Red Gate (go-test.it, broadersheet.com and mixcloud) and there are all sorts of unintented, positive benefits. A couple of them have done some contracting work for use, they've introduced us to friends / relatives who've ended up working for us, and so on. And that's just the short-term stuff. Who knows what will happen long term.

Neil

I don't know their reasoning for this awesome offer, but I do know that the company's founders are regularly invited as speakers because the company is an exemplar for recruiting and retaining good people. This seems like another innovative way for them to do this - not so much from the founders that participate as from the goodwill and publicity this effort generates.

All paid for by Red Gate. We're hoping we'll find great start-ups we can work with in the future (and also help them get there).

How do they make money?

Why was this downvoted? It's a natural question IMO.

Probably by making and selling add-on tools for Microsoft products: http://www.red-gate.com/

My guess is that they have some office space and cash to spare (it's probably not all that expensive to run such a program). Plus, they're going to get a lot of positive PR as a result.

Not really about PR. We want to find start-ups and teams we can build long-term relationships with.

Don't necessarily need to. The founders run a very profitable and successful business. This is a way of getting smart people in the door with products adjacent to their existing one.

Early access to interesting products and great teams is likely more than enough value to them in return.

Disclaimer- I know the people who started this and they've got nothing but the best intentions. (They're also a quiet but highly successful company.)

Too bad i don't have a passport at the moment..

If you are in the US, you can get a passport in a hurry at one of the national passport offices if you need to leave the country within 14 days; if you can't make it to the office in person, you can ask for expedited service to speed up the processing for your passport application though (at an additional cost).

It would be really awesome if they (or someone else) did something similar in London. Cambridge is not very far from here (60 miles or so) but still, there are a lot of developers and would-be entrepreneurs in London and I believe the program could be even more successful here.

Cambridge isn't far from London - so you should just come here. :)

Cambridge is only 45 minutes from London by train, and London does already have Seedcamp.

If you're early stage, Cambridge makes a lot of sense. Low living expenses, and a TON of angel money is around. A good number of the angels have the resources to do VC-level rounds. (VC's like Amadeus also have offices in Cambridge.)

I'm not sure any VC in Cambridge is suitable for startups gearing towards Seedcamp. I'm not sure if Springboard is geared towards these style companies, or more ramen profitable & scale without external help style companies. I suspect the latter.

I think there is massive benefit in having all the key VCs in one area, Cambridge can't compete - but Cambridge does have tons of angels. YMMV

I was mainly trying to point out the strength (and resources) of the angels in Cambridge.

I agree that Cambridge VCs tend not to be interested in the less hard-tech investments that are usually found in Seedcamp and similar programs.

glad to see more options coming about. As to the no equity part, thats cool that they can do that. I think the YC model, if it fits your startup, has an equity basis that I would call a "token". I'm sure there are angels throughout the world that could offer investment for no or low equity as YC and others are doing it.

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