Shotput Ventures 2.0 | Hacker News Reader

Shotput Ventures 2.0

sanjayparekh.com

13 pointsdabent6 comments

Interesting news. This is essentially what I predicted in the paper I wrote on Y Combinator and its clones.

http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2009/09/21/copying-y-combina...

Short version: Don't blindly copy YC. Do something distinct and different, or you're always going to be a second-tier programme.

Good luck to Shotput Ventures in your re-start.

Thanks and note that we were never "blindly" copying their model. It was a place for us to start and then see what worked or didn't and start innovating from there. Obviously, we're a bunch of entrepreneurs so we're always going to be tinkering and toying with the model so that we drive value both for ourselves and the startups we invest in.

For those who haven't met Sanjay he is the nice guy who organizes Startup Riot, which is a free (and large) demo day conference in Atlanta.

He was nice enough to invite me to go last year, which led to minor coverage on CNN and eventually an offer to buy my company. Your mileage may vary but I'd recommend looking into next year's event :-)

Whoa! Congrats! I hadn't heard of the offer to buy the company. Drop me an email with an update when you get a chance. Congrats again!

why not just choose a different time of the year to run your program? You wouldn't have to convince the top companies to choose Shotput in Atlanta over Y Combinator and Techstars (a battle which you'll lose until you develop brand). The reality is that there are enough entrepreneurs who desperately need money at all times of the year. These companies may not want to wait until the summer application process and could be convinced to do shotput instead.

There are some benefits of having a 8-10 week "accelerator" program. As you mentioned, there's the feeling of camaraderie between the startups but also its easier to line up speakers, have a Demo day, and get good office space when its a 10 week program.

Perhaps it wasn't clear what we're doing. Instead of making companies wait to apply (or missing the window to apply), we'll be taking applications year-round. When companies are accepted, they'll have a custom 3-month accelerator program for them setup so that we're not doing a one size fits all approach - that's good for the companies that are beyond just the idea stage as some have been that have applied to the program.

Finally, given the various niches that startups we fund go after, the value of the idea sharing/camaraderie while useful hasn't been something we could point to and say "this will ensure startup success". Same goes for the speaker program. So why subject entrepreneurs to these programs/ideas if it won't help them succeed? For us, it's a clear choice of killing off the things that don't add value so we can do more things that do add value.

Re: office space, we're still likely to have office space for the companies. It's something we're currently working on with one of our partners.

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