startup programs
You’re So Vain
While we talk about lean startup and vanity metrics we also often send conflicting signals. Here are some examples that startup ecosystems create or enable. From what I’ve seen, vanity is the major culprit. The Events Problem Speaker Events. You don’t get any closer to your goal by going to hear a speaker, famous or […]
When Does a Startup Accelerator Succeed?
There’s a lot written about startup accelerators. At least, there’s a lot written by outside casual observers; very little is written about them from the inside. There are reasons for that. In my experience running an accelerator, I wouldn’t share much about the startups until after demo day (more about why in a later post). […]
Four simple things that make a better accelerator experience
With a growing number of startup accelerators, bootcamps and incubators out there, here are some tips for having a good experience once you’re in a program. This comes from running two startup accelerators (three-month full-time programs) and three bootcamps (three-month part-time programs). Be Coachable. Disagreeing with feedback is fine and necessary at times but be […]
How I Tried To Be a Better Startup Weekend Judge
[I originally wrote this piece in early 2013. I just revisited it again in March 2018. I hope you enjoy it.] Working with many startups, I get to see how lots of people test ideas and build their startups. I also get to see how lots of people want to rush off and build in […]
The Two Sides of Demo Day You Might Never See
I’ve run three different startup accelerator programs. Two of them ran demo days, but the one I currently run does not. For an explanation of why, see this post on side effects. Demo days can be good or bad depending on your goals and the people involved. I thought that this would be a good […]
Startup Weekend Toolkit
Here’s a Startup Weekend Toolkit I put together after mentoring and judging. It’s a lot of info, so it’s best to read this before you go since you will be busy enough (and sleep deprived) during the weekend, but these resources will save you lots of pain. Startup Weekend isn’t a hackathon or a business […]
Launching AcceleratorHK
Today is the first day of AcceleratorHK, Hong Kong’s first startup accelerator. I’m happy to be the Director of the program. The process of getting this off the ground was straightforward but took a while: – Lots of discussions with people in HK’s tech community, starting December 2011 – Lots of discussions with other accelerator […]
Simplicity
I saw two useful and simple new services yesterday: Delight.io (by Thomas Pun, who I know) and PopTip.com (from a new TechStars grad). Delight.io allows developers to add a line of code to their iOS app in order to see how users interact with the apps. PopTip allows any Twitter user to run a poll […]
Famous teacher or good teacher
Years ago, when I was at Columbia, I heard about an interesting-sounding course taught by a Nobel Laureate. Competition to get in the course was tough so I decided to sit in on a class first (always a good idea). What I found astonished me. The class was half full with most of the attending […]
Are the TechStars Results accurate?
I have total respect for TechStars and what I know about it tells me it’s a great program. So when I recently saw TechStars’ results page with a 80% success rate I had to learn more. I’m always very interested in “success/failure” at startups so I looked through their list of previous classes, going back […]