The buzz and momentum continue with organizations who are injecting entrepreneurs with speed! Short-erm pods and communities and studios of startups with those ideas that pass the litmus test are being created and incrementally funded. Junkies have to fill out an app and go through an interview process in hopes that they get funded of anywhere from $5000-10,000 along with a 4-6% equity allocation. The best at it today are http://ycombinator.com/ (in cambridge, mass and san francisco) and http://www.techstars.org (in boulder) as they have funded several companies each and have conferences to support such initiatives and idea generation. They also provide excellent mentoring opportunities with successful angel investors, entrepreneurs...amongst others that can help the concept scale into reality. Time limits on accomplishing milestones are set, so that if it doesnt look hopeful then everyone can move on. This process is replicated over and over and the hope is to hit a few winners where there is an exit and profitable win...
Others cities have launched or in the process of doing so: www.seedcamp.com in london; www.boostphase.com in atlanta; www.hitforge.com in san francisco; launchpad in memphis
Im looking forward to watching how things develop, as it might be that other more traditional incubators/accelerators need to incorporate this sort of model, as a complement to what they currently support. Im know we are...
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