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This is a long time coming. Project Skyway has the coolest selection process ever for an accelerator plus they don't require a technical co-founder because the

This is a long time coming. Project Skyway has the coolest selection process ever for an accelerator plus they don't require a technical co-founder because they are providing every single team 2 full-time developers.

projectileboy 15y ago
I don't think I understand... Do the full-time developers that are provided become partners?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- caseyallen 15y ago
  Hey guys, I'm cofounder of Project Skyway. Ownership is a sacred thing -- we don't tinker with that at all. The dev team takes no equity. After all, you're running the company, not us. We just help with the resources and motivation. The dev team in India (which my cofounder Cem has worked with for years) are merely a perk we provide to our companies. It's one benefit of many. If there's already a CTO in the company then great, he can focus on what's core and have the offshore team work on secondary stuff. If it's a team of 3 business guys who have the right approach and the right knowledge then here's their chance to get the prototype figured out and raise that first bit of money to plow into a full time developer. Make sense?
  - rdouble 15y ago
    Do you have to use the offshore dev team?
    - caseyallen 15y ago
      No. Heck, we might not have any of our companies interested in going that route. But the option's there and we'll have a BA at their disposal. How many business minded entrepreneurs do you know that couldn't manage a contract developer if his life depended on it? We teach them how. The bigger point here is that for the first time ever guys who are non-coders but have domain expertise and the ability to take the product to market now have an option. Every other accelerator will slam their door in your face. We're pretty pumped about this. Having a tech cofounder is massively helpful, but we don't feel the lack of one discounts your value to zero.
      - SkyMarshal 15y ago
        Sounds like you guys have identified a problem in the startup incubator business and are attempting to provide a solution for it, though from reading PG it sounds like there are very good reasons for the existence of that problem. Good luck!
        caseyallen 15y ago
        Thanks for the well wishes, SkyMarshal. We just think it's something worth experimenting with. PG (and David Cohen et al.) are engineers. We think their bias towards developers is natural but until we see empirical data showing otherwise we think there's still potential for non-coders to successfully start and grow a product company. There's no question there's pros and cons. The only question is can we address the cons and accentuate the pros. (See Quora: What are the pros and cons of a non-technical founder for a start-up: http://qr.ae/clRm http://qr.ae/clRm ) The good news is we'll find out fairly quickly!
  - projectileboy 15y ago
    It does. Being from MN, I really admire what you're trying to do, so I don't know how to ask this nicely, so I'll just ask it... how do you justify your terms being the same as YC when your value proposition is so much less? You can't possibly argue that your network is as valuable as YC's.
    - caseyallen 15y ago
      Your point on network value is an excellent one, one definitely worth challenging us on. I suspect almost no accelerator in the next 5 years will touch YC's network, especially since they're right in the heart of M&A-land. However every accelerator, except for dopey government-run ones, needs an ROI. The numbers we came up with were our attempt at a happy medium. "Price"-wise, we can be lower than others (TechWildcatters, Shotput Ventures, SproutBox, Momentum) but we also add value and perks that few others do. We also have massive pent up demand in our region. Value prop is a tough starting point because it means different things to different people. And you know what? Maybe we'll find out our terms aren't right and we'll pivot. Just like almost every entrepreneur does on pricing. But then again, until you can find another accelerator that is open to single founders, open to non-technical founders, provides a dev team in India to support, and that has a selection process that includes a educational mini-bootcamp...then it's a tough comparison. No, our network isn't 1/3 as valuable as theirs (although we will have a few mentors from SV). But we've got plenty of tech entrepreneurs banging down our door so I think, for now, we're on the right path to helping them change the world.
shii 15y ago
This smells strongly of 1999. What equity stake do the ancillary developers get? Sorry, but all this news of late of tons of startup accelerators and incubators popping up everywhere is a little unnerving. What is the rational of all these? Did all the RoR startups that will shake up the world have so much trouble finding funding that they need a new one every week?
- lanerapp 15y ago
  There will always be a demand for good mentors. Accelerators imply that more than funding can help talent get their business to market ASAP. Like 1999 these times certainly smell like ASAP whether fortune or bust is the end result.
xal 15y ago
Kudos to the launch. The makeup of the founding team thing will be the make or break. I've barely seen a recent success story of a startup where less then 100% of the founders were technical. It used to be possible but I expect that times have changed in this regard. Bluntly, this approach sounds wrong to me from an investment portfolio strategy point of view but I'm glad you are taking the risk and try it. I definitely think that being in Minnesota will be a competitive advantage however. The area is vastly underrated and pretty incredible talents live and work there. Best of luck to your team and project.
- wheels 15y ago
  > I've barely seen a recent success story of a startup where less then 100% of the founders were technical. Groupon and Zyngas's founders aren't programmers. I'd say they're the two biggest hits of the last 5 years.
  - xal 15y ago
    Fair enough but both of them are highly technical people. Not programmers but that's not the yard stick that I put down here. Additionally it's not a good idea to use critical successes like that to extract any kind of lessons from. Groupon won the business plan lottery and found a real need in the market that wasn't being served. Zynga rode the coattails of facebook. Obviously i'm not dismissing those companies accomplishments. The founders are idols to me.
  - adora 15y ago
    Incorrect, at least one of Zynga's co-founders (Justin) is a programmer -- though he's probably not doing much of that anymore. One of the common misconceptions is that Zynga has only one founder ... it actually has many. But I get the point you're making and it's still valid.
  - sayemm 15y ago
    Correction: Andrew Mason actually is a programmer. He built Groupon in Rails. Also, as the other commenter pointed out, Mark Pincus's co-founder Justin Waldron is a programmer, but Zynga's probably a bad example anyway because Pincus was very much an accomplished entrepreneur with a lot of resources at hand prior to founding Zynga.

projectileboy 15y ago

I don't think I understand... Do the full-time developers that are provided become partners?

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
caseyallen 15y ago
Hey guys, I'm cofounder of Project Skyway. Ownership is a sacred thing -- we don't tinker with that at all. The dev team takes no equity. After all, you're running the company, not us. We just help with the resources and motivation. The dev team in India (which my cofounder Cem has worked with for years) are merely a perk we provide to our companies. It's one benefit of many. If there's already a CTO in the company then great, he can focus on what's core and have the offshore team work on secondary stuff. If it's a team of 3 business guys who have the right approach and the right knowledge then here's their chance to get the prototype figured out and raise that first bit of money to plow into a full time developer. Make sense?
- rdouble 15y ago
  Do you have to use the offshore dev team?
  - caseyallen 15y ago
    No. Heck, we might not have any of our companies interested in going that route. But the option's there and we'll have a BA at their disposal. How many business minded entrepreneurs do you know that couldn't manage a contract developer if his life depended on it? We teach them how. The bigger point here is that for the first time ever guys who are non-coders but have domain expertise and the ability to take the product to market now have an option. Every other accelerator will slam their door in your face. We're pretty pumped about this. Having a tech cofounder is massively helpful, but we don't feel the lack of one discounts your value to zero.
    - SkyMarshal 15y ago
      Sounds like you guys have identified a problem in the startup incubator business and are attempting to provide a solution for it, though from reading PG it sounds like there are very good reasons for the existence of that problem. Good luck!
      - caseyallen 15y ago
        Thanks for the well wishes, SkyMarshal. We just think it's something worth experimenting with. PG (and David Cohen et al.) are engineers. We think their bias towards developers is natural but until we see empirical data showing otherwise we think there's still potential for non-coders to successfully start and grow a product company. There's no question there's pros and cons. The only question is can we address the cons and accentuate the pros. (See Quora: What are the pros and cons of a non-technical founder for a start-up: http://qr.ae/clRm http://qr.ae/clRm ) The good news is we'll find out fairly quickly!
- projectileboy 15y ago
  It does. Being from MN, I really admire what you're trying to do, so I don't know how to ask this nicely, so I'll just ask it... how do you justify your terms being the same as YC when your value proposition is so much less? You can't possibly argue that your network is as valuable as YC's.
  - caseyallen 15y ago
    Your point on network value is an excellent one, one definitely worth challenging us on. I suspect almost no accelerator in the next 5 years will touch YC's network, especially since they're right in the heart of M&A-land. However every accelerator, except for dopey government-run ones, needs an ROI. The numbers we came up with were our attempt at a happy medium. "Price"-wise, we can be lower than others (TechWildcatters, Shotput Ventures, SproutBox, Momentum) but we also add value and perks that few others do. We also have massive pent up demand in our region. Value prop is a tough starting point because it means different things to different people. And you know what? Maybe we'll find out our terms aren't right and we'll pivot. Just like almost every entrepreneur does on pricing. But then again, until you can find another accelerator that is open to single founders, open to non-technical founders, provides a dev team in India to support, and that has a selection process that includes a educational mini-bootcamp...then it's a tough comparison. No, our network isn't 1/3 as valuable as theirs (although we will have a few mentors from SV). But we've got plenty of tech entrepreneurs banging down our door so I think, for now, we're on the right path to helping them change the world.

shii 15y ago

This smells strongly of 1999. What equity stake do the ancillary developers get? Sorry, but all this news of late of tons of startup accelerators and incubators popping up everywhere is a little unnerving. What is the rational of all these? Did all the RoR startups that will shake up the world have so much trouble finding funding that they need a new one every week?

lanerapp 15y ago
There will always be a demand for good mentors. Accelerators imply that more than funding can help talent get their business to market ASAP. Like 1999 these times certainly smell like ASAP whether fortune or bust is the end result.

xal 15y ago

Kudos to the launch. The makeup of the founding team thing will be the make or break. I've barely seen a recent success story of a startup where less then 100% of the founders were technical. It used to be possible but I expect that times have changed in this regard. Bluntly, this approach sounds wrong to me from an investment portfolio strategy point of view but I'm glad you are taking the risk and try it. I definitely think that being in Minnesota will be a competitive advantage however. The area is vastly underrated and pretty incredible talents live and work there. Best of luck to your team and project.

wheels 15y ago
> I've barely seen a recent success story of a startup where less then 100% of the founders were technical. Groupon and Zyngas's founders aren't programmers. I'd say they're the two biggest hits of the last 5 years.
- xal 15y ago
  Fair enough but both of them are highly technical people. Not programmers but that's not the yard stick that I put down here. Additionally it's not a good idea to use critical successes like that to extract any kind of lessons from. Groupon won the business plan lottery and found a real need in the market that wasn't being served. Zynga rode the coattails of facebook. Obviously i'm not dismissing those companies accomplishments. The founders are idols to me.
- adora 15y ago
  Incorrect, at least one of Zynga's co-founders (Justin) is a programmer -- though he's probably not doing much of that anymore. One of the common misconceptions is that Zynga has only one founder ... it actually has many. But I get the point you're making and it's still valid.
- sayemm 15y ago
  Correction: Andrew Mason actually is a programmer. He built Groupon in Rails. Also, as the other commenter pointed out, Mark Pincus's co-founder Justin Waldron is a programmer, but Zynga's probably a bad example anyway because Pincus was very much an accomplished entrepreneur with a lot of resources at hand prior to founding Zynga.