Calling all student founders: $20K, office, and mentorship from Highland Capital | Hacker News Reader

Calling all student founders: $20K, office, and mentorship from Highland Capital

summer.hcp.com

38 pointsyodac24 comments

The alumni page reads as such: Harvard, Harvard, MIT, Harvard, Harvard, CalTech. So, question, is there any point in applying to something like this if you didn't go to Harvard, MIT, or another similarly high-profile school? Is the alumni makeup simply the result of who applies, or is it who is chosen (perhaps some kind of signaling used by the gatekeepers), or something else?

One of my biggest complaints against the tech industry is its rampant credentialism. Limiting capital to just the top few schools in the country is plain terrible business strategy because there is absolutely no evidence that going to a top 10 school vs a top 50 school leads to greater enterpreneurial success. I mean, who cares about Steve Jobs (Reed) and Michael Dell (UT Austin), right? We should fund Mark Pincus (Harvard) instead.

Or Gates (Harvard), Sergey/Brin (Stanford), Wozniak (Berkeley), Zuckerberg (Harvard), ...

Why do you propose top 50 as a cutoff, why not give the same funding to someone in a school barely making the top 500? If not, isn't that just credentialism?

Credentialism also leans on alumni preference--if someone in your family is a big donor at Harvard and got you in in spite of lousy scores, they might also make your company succeed through favorable loans, connections, etc., in spite of your lousy contribution, etc.

Agreed. I go to a pretty low/mid tier school and it seems like my options are limited if I'm interested in this subset of the industry.

Because they are hypocrites. They talk about making tech accessible for everyone and how anyone can be an entrepreneur, etc.. yet they will only support people from tier institutions. You have to work much harder to get the attention if you aren't from top tier institutions. Not that I blame them but they should stop pretending they are about the greater good and all that happy jazz.

> In an effort to use a standard and straightforward structure, we provide this capital via an uncapped convertible instrument modeled after the Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE) financing documents. In addition, Highland will have the option to invest up to $250k in the first $1M you raise in excess of the aforementioned $20k note.

1) The word "note" only appears one time on the page, so what does "aforementioned" mean? Is this a debt instrument?

2) The "Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE)" appears to be unavailable, or atleast is not linked anywhere in the document linked by HN (summer.hcp.com).

The SAFE refers to a YC standard financing document loosely modeled after convertible debt: https://www.ycombinator.com/documents/

HC doesn't claim to use any of those documents, only one "modeled" after them.

The fact that they don't link to, or even describe (except in the most obtuse terms), the documents they refer to should be a huge red flag to anyone considering this offer.

Also, how can something that has no less than five versions [including a "primer"] of 6+ pages of dense wording which refer to federal laws from the 1930's be described as "simple"?

Wonder why the most successful YC founders are there and not at YC?

Is there something like this for people who aren't students but are still in that age group(18-24)?

Ageism is easier to pull off when you pretend it's something else.

I suspect they'd be fine with someone 18-24 who isn't a student being in the program - after all, they almost certainly expect you to drop out and focus on your startup fulltime if it gets traction.

If you're not comfortable with lying on the application, just enroll in online classes somewhere - voila, you're now a student! (Of course you still need to be an otherwise impressive candidate.)

On a related note, I'm toying with a new investment thesis: "old" entrepreneurs (above, say, 35) strike me as an interesting arbitrage opportunity. They seem wildly undervalued by silicon valley. Anyone want to start a syndicate with me to explore this idea?

They seem wildly undervalued by silicon valley

Many "older" entrepreneurs are simply building businesses and quietly earning success. Let's be real -- $20K is significantly lower than unsecured credit lines many established adults have. This is pitched to students for the same reason that a paper route is pitched to elementary school kids: because it's so meager of a benefit that, from a relative perspective, it only appeals to them.

As in

http://cbinsights.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0c60818e...

"73% of tech exits were not VC-backed".

So, maybe that 73% consists of the quiet ones being successful.

If you want a mentor to guide you to start a US Main Street business, say, auto body repair, grass mowing, landscaping, a pizza shop, etc., then there is no shortage of good sources.

But where did the founders of Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. find comparable mentors, that is, people who had already done something quite similar and could provide good advice? Yes, there was advice, but nothing nearly so accurate as what could get for, say, a pizza shop.

Net, if are building one of the companies VCs really need, then there isn't any mentoring that is very close to the need. So, net, for building a $1+ billion or, now, $10+ billion company in information technology, largely just f'get about mentoring.

Where in the article do you see 73% were not VC-backed? It doesn't have that number anywhere.

Apparently they changed the content of the link.

I got the link from e-mail of

Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 00:16:42 +0000

from CBInsights.

In that e-mail is

"73% of tech exits were not VC-backed

If you grabbed our 2014 Tech Exits Report

http://cbinsights.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=0c60818e...

, this stat might have jumped out at you."

The 73% figure did show in the link when I made my post -- checked to be sure.

Apparently now to get their 73% figure, have to use the page at the link to request their report.

It doesn't have that stat, but you can calculate it from the numbers given: 2886 total exits and 640 (589 + 51) VC backed exits.

You're assuming the value in Highland's program is the money (which I agree is small.) I assume the value is the access and mentorship.

ycombinator.com, I've heard they are pretty good

Whats the secret code?

I think it's, "we provide this capital via an uncapped convertible instrument" [which we won't link to or provide you with until some time in the future].

but but but... $20,000! Wow! ... http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2354

In their index.html this is referred to as "referral-code".

My guess would be, that this is something they hand out personally (on a business card or something like that).

Spent some time with the Highland guys recently. I like them a lot.

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