I have to agree. This doesn't look like anything too revolutionary. It looks high-featured but in the wrong areas.
1,647 karma · joined April 3, 2011
I work primarily as a freelancer or contractor and have worked on web projects for companies such as Cerner and Google (currently approaching three years).
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Still I would think that credibility and trust is hampered by lack of information about the people behind it. I don't doubt there is more to the plan/idea than is represented on the site, but unfortunately when it's a flat website of "Coming Soon" you can't really find answers to your questions. I probably would have stated on the front page that more information is coming soon. Like someone else said I had the impression that it was already established and operational and I had only just heard about it. The copy is definitely written in this way. Like most people I clicked through the tabs for more information and was disappointed seven times in a row.
Anyway, </whine>. Good luck with it! I'll keep an eye on it to see the details that come out. :)
The problem is credibility. How are we supposed to share our ideas with you and do business with your organization if we know nothing about who is behind it. Where are your credentials? How does this being a side project for the "founding team" equal your "secret sauce" to recruiting the "best players in the industry" to advise your companies? If we know nothing about you, and neither do your great advisors, what is their incentive to even be involved, let alone companies applying to your class?
Not to mention that with Dandelion taking 50% equity and your being required to give at least 1% equity to your class, you automatically start out owning less than half of your own company—and if you have multiple co-founders you personally know (verses the ones in the class) and share equity between them, you start off owning a pretty dismal share in your own venture.
I know personally I'm not very incentivized to know that if I have an idea for a product and I start a company through your incubator I enter the game already having lost at minimum 51% stake in my own efforts. I understand that you receive equity in other companies in your class, which is great for investment and money purposes if somebody else makes it big, but for would-be founders such as myself (especially early stage) we're more focused on building our own companies. I would rather have a larger stake in my own efforts than a smaller stake plus small stakes in 99 other companies. I don't think that makes me a selfish entrepreneur, either.
Edit: I notice you added your "More detail about the team is coming." in between when I started writing and when I posted. I would suggest that your credibility would have been helped by having the detail available from the beginning. As the cliché goes, you never get a second chance for a first impression. Still, though, I would be interested to read about your team.