Just want to clear the air on this comment (apparently this led to some unintended backlash) -
I participated as a consultant dev helping out a company there, I own no stake in the company and my view on the experience does not reflect the viewpoint of the company I was there for. I left on my own accord which had nothing to do with participation in the accelerator itself, the rest of the company remained thru the duration.
With that out of the way, the "Yikes" was to the effect of "wow, that ended up in the worst way possible". The "too familiar" was noting some of particulars of the story, some of which 1) female led MP 2) extra month+ before demo day 3) some other particulars I won't care to name, but nothing to the degree as told in the story. Let's just say to point 3 I was expecting it to be more hands on, and from what I've learned since writing this comment it was.
I have no issues/beef with the people involved, other teams, etc. I found everyone pleasant to deal with, and the nature of my involvement was as such that many issues going on behind the scenes weren't in my periphery anyway.
Too bad. The website seems very "High school project" caliber but I like the mission very much. It would be a shame if it's a scam.
1. an edtech accelerator embracing lean startup practices.
2. a collaborative coworking community in NYC dedicated to education entrepreneurship.
3. a campus focused on learning technology.
4. the birthplace of the future of learning.
One thing I do notice is there's a fine line between "We have 60% of the stuff figured out, and will make up the rest of the 40% as we go" and going 40/60 instead. One is an ambitious startup, the other is a scam.
Once upon a time, I had sent an email to an org with criticism of their web site and how it's hurting their image, only to find out that they gave the web dev opportunity to a high school kid in the area who really wanted the experience. The org was completely legit, and IMO they did a good thing by giving some kid a chance. If the org's product is not the web site, then I don't see why they should waste money/time on an amazing designer/developer when that money could ease operational needs elsewhere.
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.
Presumably what you're talking about is the fact that the summed "exits" are less than the input investments. But it's not a steady state environment. Obviously exits are going to lag the investments by several years, and the rate of investment hasn't been constant -- it's been increasing steadily for several years itself. So you wouldn't expect to see a net profit.
The real question, of course, is whether we should expect to see a net profit across the incubator/accelerator world at some point in the future, or if we're indeed in the bubble some of us think we are...
Hi, creator of Seed-DB here. I'd stress that "exit" values are just that... for known exits only. Even if companies have raised money at billion+ valuations, that number is going to be zero for them. Assuming a 2-10 year horizon for most companies between accelerator and exit, most companies still have a long way to go before they'll have a meaningful number hit the 'exit' column.
This is mainly because a) most accelerators are new so the companies haven't developed enough to exit and b) it takes time to build a program that reliably finds/develops companies that can exit.
