This story is really frustrating and sad to hear, but I have to say, in the three years I've been working on my startup, never once has anything good happened from paying for access to any type of person (investors or customers), using any currency (equity or cash).
We did YCombinator, which could be described as an "access" play, but apart from that, every time someone has offered us access to something in return for something else, we've always politely declined and then just gone and won the business or relationship on our own merits.
Gatekeepers suck, and doing business with gatekeepers leads startups to doing sucky things and pulls them down as well.
The minute I read him deciding to do a second accelerator so he could get access to "his vertical" I started getting a sinking feeling in my stomach.
I agree, very often we have these average gatekeepers who imagine themselves as top level power brokers at an elite world, and those should be avoided.
But the best "gatekeepers" are not the ones that guard the gate, they are the ones who can show you where the gates even are, it's just very difficult to be able to distinguish the real valuable guys from the "hustlers" without having a lot of experiences yourself.
I find this viewpoint very confusing, assuming you see YC as a good experience... unless you are trying to tactfully say that YC was a bad experience and I'm just being dense.
"never once has anything good happened from paying for access" ... "We did YCombinator"
I disagree that no good can come from "paying for access."
First, we must define what is "good". After participating in DreamIt Ventures in 2012, I can say that we extracted immense value by quickly invalidating a B2B software concept. It was taking me months to get one meeting with an enterprise client on my own. With the help of DreamIt's mentors, I secured dozens of meetings in less than six weeks. We learned that the software we were building was ill-fated through those meetings. This was undoubtedly "good" for us, and we paid a mere 6% for that kind of access. In retrospect, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
But your mileage may vary. The value we obtained was highly correlated to the fact that we were pursuing a B2B venture, a sector where DreamIt's mentors could best leverage their networks. In contrast, I saw some consumer-facing companies extract less value from the accelerator program.
In sum, you have to carefully (and honestly) weigh the value that "paid access" can yield. Feelings of frustration in connection to "paid access" likely stem from a miscalculation of the cost/benefits that the access could provide.
Paying someone for access never ends well. Do you think the people whose access is being sold are happy with the arrangement? By definition you're entering into a sleazy area. This is why apartment brokers selling access to apartments are sleazy.
I'd just like to say that the reason I created Seed-DB (http://www.seed-db.com) is because the world of seed accelerators should be more transparent. I've currently got a list of 170+ accelerators around the world, and the list makes it pretty clear which ones get results and which don't. (Or don't care enough about publicizing results).
If you have any feedback for me as to what would be useful to you when choosing between accelerators, please let me know. Email is in profile.
How do you update that list? I'm familiar with a few of the lesser known accelerators on it and I'm aware of some pretty nice exits they've had, but their exit column is listed as $0 on your list.
This is probably complicated by the fact that many of the smaller acquisitions (<$100m) are for undisclosed sums. Not sure how you can ever account for that unless you make wild guesses.
Also it looks like companies which are very valuable but not formally exited yet (AirBNB, Dropbox etc.) aren't accounted for here... a column for "current portfolio valuation" might be more valuable. Again, if it were ever possible to put such a thing together accurately, which I doubt.
This is an amazing resource! Working at an accelerator, I know it is very important that both sides are transparent with each other to make sure the program/session is effective and enjoyable.
This doesn't seem to be about an accelerator as much as about a person with a behavior disorder that sounds very much like narcissistic personality disorder. NPDs cope with their incompetence by abusing and blaming those around them, creating chaos and misery yet still managing to escape responsibility 9 times out of 10.
The right thing to do here is anonymously expose the managing director.
My thoughts exactly. In my business experience, I dealt with two individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Of course, I did not see their medical records; it was hearsay. However, it explained much about their behavior. It's a sad story, but it is also the face of mental illness, which is all too real. Learning to recognize and deal with this is another thing to store in one's experience quiver.
This is a throwaway account because I want to publicly expose AngelHack (or HACKcelerator): After we "won" a local hackaton -that had an entry fee- they didn't help us with the housing, zero, no cash for any of the 20 "winner" teams and only gave $1000 (per team, not person) for fly expenses (hint: not enough) then suggested us to stay in one of the worst hostels in San Francisco (European Hostel).
Later on I also found out that they are already searching volunteers around the world to help them out organizing the 2014 competition... in my opinion all this is pretty shady but we the teams are holding up just in case the demo day brings something good (a.k.a. investors and new contacts).
Design tip: if a quote is a quote, have a quote style. If a quote is the entire content of your article and is many paragraphs long, rethink styling it as a quote and instead label it, or something.
I think the bit from the letter about "billed as campus, community, accelerator, and more" will probably narrow it down. That seems like a pretty distinctive way to brand your accelerator.
A word of warning: these personality types are incredibly common in the startup world, for a number of reasons: Driven, strong personalities are valued. It's easier to hide in a small company. As a founder, it's relatively easy to build a team that will tolerate your excesses.
Don't be afraid. Moving on after one month is ok. It won't irrevocably stain your resume. The self-aware hiring managers know this dynamic exists, and won't hold it against you.
There are thousands of amazing, hard-working, kind, creative, interesting people and teams. Find one and cherish it.
Classic narcissistic personality disorder. Run for the hills. With NPDs, it is always everybody else's fault. Add pathological lying, some bipolar, and maybe just for fun booze/drugs and they'll drive you insane too.
Startups looking for accelerators remind me of authors looking for agents and publishers - we don't realize how much power we have in the relationship, and also how much we can do for ourselves without someone to "help" us for a chunk of our equity.
Of course the right accelerator/VC/agent/publisher, at the right time, can help. It works best if you see them as a piece of YOUR plan, rather than see yourself as a supplicant to their network/deep pockets.
I've been approached by a few startup-ish projects in the past few years, all wanting to 'partner' up and 'join an accelerator' or 'apply for startup program XYZ'.
I proceed to ask "what are you going to do with the $50k you'd get if you get in?"
There's typically a blank stare.
Now, I get that you get more than just money; hopefully you're getting connections and introductions and press you couldn't get on your own. But not always.
But I'm still shocked that typically there's no answer at the top of their minds. And they're asking me to invest the next 6 months or more of my life with them to 'do a startup'. As a tech/dev, I am an investor, investing my time, knowledge, energy and passion in to something. If they can't convince me to invest, they're not going to convince an accelerator.
My experience was not nearly this bad, but still horrifying for me, my co-founder, and our families.
We had been talking off and on with an accelerator for about a month. We had pitched them, had a few calls, but lived on the other side of the country. They wanted to meet in person which was really not feasible for us. We worked at full-time jobs while hacking away on the side and scraping together whatever money we had to fund our company.
A little flashback, first: I had dropped out of grad school and taught myself programming to start my first company. After a year of living on my wife's student loans, I got "acquihired" by a startup that was run by one of the accelerator's mentors. They gave me 3% equity, a $10k moving bonus, $15k for the company, and a $75k/year salary. I said yes.
Three months later, I decided to quit. I was the only technical person in a company consisting of the two non-technical co-founder, co-CEOs, a project manager, and myself. They had burned through $700k already and hadn't built anything yet. It was becoming clear that my product was going to be their product. In the best case scenario I would spend the next four years working on my original startup, only now for pennies on the dollar.
The purchase of my assets still hadn't gone through and I hadn't yet been paid, aside from the moving bonus and salary. The co-founders claimed I had acted in bad faith and asked for the moving bonus back. I explained that I wouldn't have moved had the moving bonus not been offered (as I couldn't have afforded it). If they had wanted that money back in case I quit, our contract should have specified as much. They relented, and we went our separate ways.
Fast forward another year, back to our accelerator story. The accelerator decides they want to afford us the opportunity to meet in person. They agree to pay for flights so long as we pay for our own hotels and car rental. We also have to talk up the trip on social media, talking about how they paid for our trip, our meetings with investors, etc. Small price to pay, we think.
We make the trip and have some pretty productive meetings. They seem to like us. We fly back, and after some back and forth, they decide they want to invest. Of course, they still need to do their due diligence, so it's going to take some time. In the meantime, my co-founder and I get fired from our jobs. You see, our boss found out about our trip to the accelerator since it was broadcast over social media. It was cool when we were working on a startup after hours. It wasn't so cool when we were talking openly about actually starting a company.
It doesn't matter, though. We made it into the accelerator. They send over the paperwork. It's a convertible note with pretty standard terms, fully signed by all the partners. We sign and send it back. We can't believe it's happening. I sign a lease on an apartment in the new city and my wife and I pack up our apartment. My co-founder does the same.
Suddenly the music changes. They go dark for a couple days. I'm nervous because I have a U-Haul scheduled. I finally get a call with one of the partners; I'm supposed to start a 3,000 mile move the next day. He explains that they can't do the deal. A check isn't coming. He can't explain why.
My mind races and I think: it couldn't have been that mentor, could it? My resume was fully transparent. They should've seen the connection. And they did their due diligence before they made the deal. How could that have slipped by?
I ask for an explanation but to no avail. They can't explain it. Not even a little bit.
Now I have to try to reorder my life. My job is gone. My apartment is already rented out to someone else. Luckily the landlord at the new place lets me out of my lease. I reschedule the U-Haul to take us to my wife's parents' house instead.
My co-founder was devastated. He wasn't used to startups. In fact, to this day he's been bouncing around trying to find a similarly stable job. I can't help but feel responsible. I recovered better. I decided to start consulting for other startups and have made a pretty good go of it.
That's my accelerator horror story. Anyone else have others?
> They agree to pay for flights so long as we pay for our own hotels and car rental.
This seems crazy to me. In my head, if a few hundred bucks for flights & lodging is too much to ask, how much dough could they really have to invest? Is this standard?
> It's a convertible note with pretty standard terms, fully signed by all the partners. We sign and send it back. [...] He explains that they can't do the deal. A check isn't coming. He can't explain why.
Is there any legal recourse available in this situation?
> My mind races and I think: it couldn't have been that mentor, could it?
Which mentor are you talking about here?
> Now I have to try to reorder my life. My job is gone. My apartment is already rented out to someone else.
You know, I've seen deals fall apart so often that until cash is in the bank I don't change my life. Maybe it's from my time as a car salesman in college - until the bank funds the loan, I wasn't counting my commission. Deals fall apart in all sorts of crazy and ridiculous ways.
My story about accelerator is all fluffy and red roses (I was with 500startups and the experience was AMAZING) and I moved from another country to the US in order to participate in it. I can only imagine what would have happened if they had cancelled on me at the last minute.
I think these kind of stories need to include name and not be anonymous, I hate when people get away with this kind of behavior because no one is interested in calling them out on this shitty behavior.
If you sold the company and then backed out, the company still should have remained sold even if you decided to quit. If you were still doing the same thing in the accelerator, it would probably be reasonable for the acquirer to raise the issue.
Thanks for sharing. Any insight as to why investors sometimes back out at the last minute, after the startup has already committed to the change? I've read of that same thing happen at least a few times now... I just don't really understand why it happens.
I have a horror story to share with regards to my experience within the LA ecosystem, but unfortunately now is not a good time and I don't have an anon account handy right now.;)
So accelanon your deal was in LA for $40K. There's only a handful of them. Hmm. My situation was pretty bad and I drove 3200 miles and rented a place for 4 expensive months. It was stressful, fun but not what I thought I was getting myself into. BUT the whole ordeal fired me up and I haven't lost a bit of focus. I am much better off now. If anyone wants info on what LA is all about hit me up.
I've walked away, shaking my head, from several YCombinator-alikes. They're too often about trying to put together deal-flow without understanding what's helpful. Now I'm all for new things if there were solid principals, strats and connections, but that's rarely the case.... anyone with half an aptitude is likely already in play. Basically, their "help" is a waste of my time and something I can do on my own, better, without giving up an iota of equity. My conclusion is you don't need most of them, most of the time, even the ones that try not to be instant wantrepreneur bootcamps. If you're focused, hungry and persistent... you already have what it takes. So where's the value?
I had an awful experience years ago that reminds me of some of these stories. I'd have to tone it down to make it believable.
Short short version: a guy with no money pretended to be a deep-pocketed investor, talked me into leaving my day job. At least that's how the story begins. Then it gets progressively more insane.
I met a one of these faux investor, charlatan, stone soup types a few years ago. When he talked about making investments, it took a while to figure out he'd invest time and no cash. When he talked about how was was affiliated with some impressive named and organizations, he really meant he'd done a shitty website for a semi well known author and he'd visited the Harvard campus once. At every turn when I asked him for a hard commitment of something I could use, actionable advice or hard cash, he never produced.
I recommend demanding excellence from your investors and expect them to demand excellence from you. Strong relationships improve when tested, others buckle and fade away. That's been my experience anyway.
Nothing as bad, but heard of bad experience by teams at Microsoft + Techstars accelerator in Seattle where both sides lost interest in the class in the middle of the program. Not sure how good/bad the fundraising was across the board.
With that many red flags, why would anyone accept an investment and enter a relationship with such an organization? The things people will do for funding... I'd rather have a day job or a consulting gig in a heartbeat compared to a situation like that.
In college I flailed around for funding for an idea for a bit. I accepted the first offer I found. Said "investor" jacked half of his money back out of the account (he needed a card because he was supposed to do some work on the financial end) and spent it on parties and shit. Very similar tendencies to what was described in the article and lots of the same red flags. He then threatened to sue me if I talked about the whole thing. Thinking about posting the whole story somewhere.
But the broader point is: if you need investment and can't find anyone else, it's very easy to convince yourself that it won't be as bad as it will.
I've become very wary of accelerators that make bold promises, although my experience is nowhere near as bad this story.
Having been approached by 3 different accelerators, the story is always the same:
1. They offer a very nice chunk of funding
2. Declare how fantastic their team of mentors and legal connections are
3. They say they have some very low equity requirements
... fast forward ... about to sign an agreement ...
4. Funding is suddenly limited, or is now a range, with the upper figure as what they originaly offered... but with additional caveats
5. The equity requirements are now greater, since they 'forgot' to mention that additional equity is required at the end of the program
6. There is also suddenly an 'entry fee' to cover various expences that they also conveniently 'forgot' to mention
7. Many of their so called mentors/connections have not even agreed to be part of the program
There are certainly many good accelerators out there, but there are many more two-bit players out there willing to screw over early stage startups just to get themselves some funding (and equity, on the off-chance one of the startups actually become successful despite their 'help').
It seems to me like a lot of accelerators would be better off throwing this one to the wolves ASAP before they all get tainted by a stench of unknown origin.
[+] [-] brandnewlow|12 years ago|reply
We did YCombinator, which could be described as an "access" play, but apart from that, every time someone has offered us access to something in return for something else, we've always politely declined and then just gone and won the business or relationship on our own merits.
Gatekeepers suck, and doing business with gatekeepers leads startups to doing sucky things and pulls them down as well.
The minute I read him deciding to do a second accelerator so he could get access to "his vertical" I started getting a sinking feeling in my stomach.
[+] [-] Cookingboy|12 years ago|reply
But the best "gatekeepers" are not the ones that guard the gate, they are the ones who can show you where the gates even are, it's just very difficult to be able to distinguish the real valuable guys from the "hustlers" without having a lot of experiences yourself.
[+] [-] arn|12 years ago|reply
"never once has anything good happened from paying for access" ... "We did YCombinator"
YC is the prototypical model for this.
[+] [-] JRFuentes7|12 years ago|reply
First, we must define what is "good". After participating in DreamIt Ventures in 2012, I can say that we extracted immense value by quickly invalidating a B2B software concept. It was taking me months to get one meeting with an enterprise client on my own. With the help of DreamIt's mentors, I secured dozens of meetings in less than six weeks. We learned that the software we were building was ill-fated through those meetings. This was undoubtedly "good" for us, and we paid a mere 6% for that kind of access. In retrospect, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
But your mileage may vary. The value we obtained was highly correlated to the fact that we were pursuing a B2B venture, a sector where DreamIt's mentors could best leverage their networks. In contrast, I saw some consumer-facing companies extract less value from the accelerator program.
In sum, you have to carefully (and honestly) weigh the value that "paid access" can yield. Feelings of frustration in connection to "paid access" likely stem from a miscalculation of the cost/benefits that the access could provide.
[+] [-] sillysaurus2|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomphoolery|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mathattack|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JonnieCache|12 years ago|reply
For anyone else who thought the same, here's an article about a russian who got his face caught in a proton beam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoli_Bugorski#Particle_acce...
[+] [-] Bjoern|12 years ago|reply
"Putting your hand in the Large Hadron Collider..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NMqPT6oKJ8&list=TLwUB7ALPnO...
[+] [-] ISL|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChikkaChiChi|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aylons|12 years ago|reply
Not only me - this is the top comment and there are three more comments about this. This is a good measure of how geek this site is.
[+] [-] meepmorp|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jedc|12 years ago|reply
If you have any feedback for me as to what would be useful to you when choosing between accelerators, please let me know. Email is in profile.
[+] [-] arbuge|12 years ago|reply
This is probably complicated by the fact that many of the smaller acquisitions (<$100m) are for undisclosed sums. Not sure how you can ever account for that unless you make wild guesses.
Also it looks like companies which are very valuable but not formally exited yet (AirBNB, Dropbox etc.) aren't accounted for here... a column for "current portfolio valuation" might be more valuable. Again, if it were ever possible to put such a thing together accurately, which I doubt.
[+] [-] brayton|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] accelanon|12 years ago|reply
Thanks for sharing!
[+] [-] aziari|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] woodchuck64|12 years ago|reply
The right thing to do here is anonymously expose the managing director.
[+] [-] rhuppert|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] angelhacksucks|12 years ago|reply
Later on I also found out that they are already searching volunteers around the world to help them out organizing the 2014 competition... in my opinion all this is pretty shady but we the teams are holding up just in case the demo day brings something good (a.k.a. investors and new contacts).
[+] [-] citricsquid|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slaven|12 years ago|reply
"I may have also changed the gender of certain people (i.e. he/she), again, with approval of the author."
So lets not point fingers based on gender alone.
[+] [-] kumarski|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway98765|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] minimax|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fizx|12 years ago|reply
Don't be afraid. Moving on after one month is ok. It won't irrevocably stain your resume. The self-aware hiring managers know this dynamic exists, and won't hold it against you.
There are thousands of amazing, hard-working, kind, creative, interesting people and teams. Find one and cherish it.
[+] [-] brianmcconnell|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] auctiontheory|12 years ago|reply
Of course the right accelerator/VC/agent/publisher, at the right time, can help. It works best if you see them as a piece of YOUR plan, rather than see yourself as a supplicant to their network/deep pockets.
[+] [-] mgkimsal|12 years ago|reply
I've been approached by a few startup-ish projects in the past few years, all wanting to 'partner' up and 'join an accelerator' or 'apply for startup program XYZ'.
I proceed to ask "what are you going to do with the $50k you'd get if you get in?"
There's typically a blank stare.
Now, I get that you get more than just money; hopefully you're getting connections and introductions and press you couldn't get on your own. But not always.
But I'm still shocked that typically there's no answer at the top of their minds. And they're asking me to invest the next 6 months or more of my life with them to 'do a startup'. As a tech/dev, I am an investor, investing my time, knowledge, energy and passion in to something. If they can't convince me to invest, they're not going to convince an accelerator.
[+] [-] accelanon|12 years ago|reply
We had been talking off and on with an accelerator for about a month. We had pitched them, had a few calls, but lived on the other side of the country. They wanted to meet in person which was really not feasible for us. We worked at full-time jobs while hacking away on the side and scraping together whatever money we had to fund our company.
A little flashback, first: I had dropped out of grad school and taught myself programming to start my first company. After a year of living on my wife's student loans, I got "acquihired" by a startup that was run by one of the accelerator's mentors. They gave me 3% equity, a $10k moving bonus, $15k for the company, and a $75k/year salary. I said yes.
Three months later, I decided to quit. I was the only technical person in a company consisting of the two non-technical co-founder, co-CEOs, a project manager, and myself. They had burned through $700k already and hadn't built anything yet. It was becoming clear that my product was going to be their product. In the best case scenario I would spend the next four years working on my original startup, only now for pennies on the dollar.
The purchase of my assets still hadn't gone through and I hadn't yet been paid, aside from the moving bonus and salary. The co-founders claimed I had acted in bad faith and asked for the moving bonus back. I explained that I wouldn't have moved had the moving bonus not been offered (as I couldn't have afforded it). If they had wanted that money back in case I quit, our contract should have specified as much. They relented, and we went our separate ways.
Fast forward another year, back to our accelerator story. The accelerator decides they want to afford us the opportunity to meet in person. They agree to pay for flights so long as we pay for our own hotels and car rental. We also have to talk up the trip on social media, talking about how they paid for our trip, our meetings with investors, etc. Small price to pay, we think.
We make the trip and have some pretty productive meetings. They seem to like us. We fly back, and after some back and forth, they decide they want to invest. Of course, they still need to do their due diligence, so it's going to take some time. In the meantime, my co-founder and I get fired from our jobs. You see, our boss found out about our trip to the accelerator since it was broadcast over social media. It was cool when we were working on a startup after hours. It wasn't so cool when we were talking openly about actually starting a company.
It doesn't matter, though. We made it into the accelerator. They send over the paperwork. It's a convertible note with pretty standard terms, fully signed by all the partners. We sign and send it back. We can't believe it's happening. I sign a lease on an apartment in the new city and my wife and I pack up our apartment. My co-founder does the same.
Suddenly the music changes. They go dark for a couple days. I'm nervous because I have a U-Haul scheduled. I finally get a call with one of the partners; I'm supposed to start a 3,000 mile move the next day. He explains that they can't do the deal. A check isn't coming. He can't explain why.
My mind races and I think: it couldn't have been that mentor, could it? My resume was fully transparent. They should've seen the connection. And they did their due diligence before they made the deal. How could that have slipped by?
I ask for an explanation but to no avail. They can't explain it. Not even a little bit.
Now I have to try to reorder my life. My job is gone. My apartment is already rented out to someone else. Luckily the landlord at the new place lets me out of my lease. I reschedule the U-Haul to take us to my wife's parents' house instead.
My co-founder was devastated. He wasn't used to startups. In fact, to this day he's been bouncing around trying to find a similarly stable job. I can't help but feel responsible. I recovered better. I decided to start consulting for other startups and have made a pretty good go of it.
That's my accelerator horror story. Anyone else have others?
[+] [-] Domenic_S|12 years ago|reply
> They agree to pay for flights so long as we pay for our own hotels and car rental.
This seems crazy to me. In my head, if a few hundred bucks for flights & lodging is too much to ask, how much dough could they really have to invest? Is this standard?
> It's a convertible note with pretty standard terms, fully signed by all the partners. We sign and send it back. [...] He explains that they can't do the deal. A check isn't coming. He can't explain why.
Is there any legal recourse available in this situation?
> My mind races and I think: it couldn't have been that mentor, could it?
Which mentor are you talking about here?
> Now I have to try to reorder my life. My job is gone. My apartment is already rented out to someone else.
You know, I've seen deals fall apart so often that until cash is in the bank I don't change my life. Maybe it's from my time as a car salesman in college - until the bank funds the loan, I wasn't counting my commission. Deals fall apart in all sorts of crazy and ridiculous ways.
[+] [-] adambenayoun|12 years ago|reply
I think these kind of stories need to include name and not be anonymous, I hate when people get away with this kind of behavior because no one is interested in calling them out on this shitty behavior.
No offense, I'm sure you have your reasons.
[+] [-] comrade_ogilvy|12 years ago|reply
Based on the OP and your story, I guess tech start ups have truly "arrived".
[+] [-] rdl|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevin_rubyhouse|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewhillman|12 years ago|reply
So accelanon your deal was in LA for $40K. There's only a handful of them. Hmm. My situation was pretty bad and I drove 3200 miles and rented a place for 4 expensive months. It was stressful, fun but not what I thought I was getting myself into. BUT the whole ordeal fired me up and I haven't lost a bit of focus. I am much better off now. If anyone wants info on what LA is all about hit me up.
[+] [-] ballard|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] api|12 years ago|reply
Short short version: a guy with no money pretended to be a deep-pocketed investor, talked me into leaving my day job. At least that's how the story begins. Then it gets progressively more insane.
[+] [-] amorphid|12 years ago|reply
I recommend demanding excellence from your investors and expect them to demand excellence from you. Strong relationships improve when tested, others buckle and fade away. That's been my experience anyway.
[+] [-] philzdelish|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jedc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ashbrahma|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnrob|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BWStearns|12 years ago|reply
But the broader point is: if you need investment and can't find anyone else, it's very easy to convince yourself that it won't be as bad as it will.
[+] [-] foobarbazqux|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gojomo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buncle|12 years ago|reply
Having been approached by 3 different accelerators, the story is always the same:
1. They offer a very nice chunk of funding
2. Declare how fantastic their team of mentors and legal connections are
3. They say they have some very low equity requirements
... fast forward ... about to sign an agreement ...
4. Funding is suddenly limited, or is now a range, with the upper figure as what they originaly offered... but with additional caveats
5. The equity requirements are now greater, since they 'forgot' to mention that additional equity is required at the end of the program
6. There is also suddenly an 'entry fee' to cover various expences that they also conveniently 'forgot' to mention
7. Many of their so called mentors/connections have not even agreed to be part of the program
There are certainly many good accelerators out there, but there are many more two-bit players out there willing to screw over early stage startups just to get themselves some funding (and equity, on the off-chance one of the startups actually become successful despite their 'help').
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|12 years ago|reply
I want to say that this fact should have been obvious long before, but I have the benefit of third-person hindsight.
[+] [-] swamp40|12 years ago|reply