mark_was_here

I'm glad to hear that you had different experience and that you learned a lot! Wish you lots of success with your startup.

However with this I don't agree: > "There's not really a downside to joining startup school. You can leave at any time, if it's not beneficial to your company."

Downside is: It is a big time sink and I would recommend using that time instead to focus on one only thing that matters -> YOUR IDEA

Thanks for finding time to write this reply, I really appreciate that. I'm glad to hear that process was useful for you and that you learned a lot.

Just to answer your questions, yes I did watched all videos (also every single one from previous years) and I also participated in every single group meeting. That is the part I liked from my first note where I said I met some smart people and had nice chats.

However, all that I could do (and will continue to do) with random startup groups in my city. and/or online I just don't see any value from Y in that entire process. I was hoping they will at least help in some way to jump start my dream but like I mentioned they focus only on top profit promising startups and especially ones that are US based or willing to move to US because of it.

Just a bit of heads up in case you would like to join from Europe and don't have plans to be there "on the ground" - DON"T DO IT.

I did it last year and it was all heavily focused on "lets catch our next billion dollar unicorn" for our investors. People that don't live for idea "lets move to dream country USA" just waste time while participating. Additionally, Y decided several times to "change the rules" just for the sake of it. They basically can not handle amount of people that have a dream to start something and it all ends up to: 1.) put them in groups, 2.) let them report "progress" to us 3.) let them watch videos.

Granted, there some interesting materials but all of them you can ALREADY find online or in startup/scaleup books that we are all reading and recommending.

My 2c, take it how ever you wanted. For me it was waste of time and quite of bit of irritation around Y. However, met some great folks that were also trying to start something in my group.