by David Kirk
StartVI (pronounced Start 6, for reasons that will become clear later) is a new breed of tech startup incubator. There is nothing like it in Northern Ireland or the ‘promised land’ for start-ups, Silicon Valley. In the history of business incubators, its’ launch is a defining moment.
Technology incubators have been around forever - a spit over fifty years, the first one being credited in NY in 1959. So important are they to infant companies that there is a National (US) Business Incubator Association (http://www.nbia.org/) who just happen to be celebrating their 25th anniversary this year. The heady days of the dotcom bubble saw a revolutionary set of incubators for Internet companies, starting with Bill Gross’ IdeaLab. The last fifteen years have seen Y Combinator's and Plug n' Play's popping up all over the globe. Everywhere bar Northern Ireland - until now.
Incubators are much, much more than a cluster of desks and computers, telephones and videoconferencing. Real incubation is about transferring business know-how as quickly and relevantly as possible into the minds of inexperienced entrepreneurs so that they can turn that big idea into a big business in the shortest possible time. StartVI takes that concept one step further.
It's easier to explain StartVI in terms of what it isn't rather than what it is.
StartVI is definitely void of bureaucracy. Paper kills trees and green is good. Forms kill souls and karma is king. The only application entrepreneurs need to submit is a 5 – 15 minute video. Just explain why this is a brilliant idea, in a big market, with a hot product and an ace team.
NO MORE BUSINESS PLANS.
StartVI is about building businesses-NOT writing about building businesses. (But somewhere in there, you'll have to create a 2-3 page overview and a 12-15 slide deck of your investment opportunity.)
StartVI is also virtual. (Another play on “VI”=Virtual Incubator). After all this is 2010. Web 2.0 is already legacy and the folks that will rock the technology business world have grown up with Twitter, Skype, YouTube so meeting, conferencing, mentoring, presenting, discussing, deciding can all be achieved without face-to-face contact. That's not to say there won't be any in-person contact-just that lacking it won't stop progress. Eliminating the tyranny of time and distance-shifts enables StartVI to bring mentors and advisors from around the world to bear on StartVI companies. A small, but enthusiastic group of successful entrepreneurs and executives from Silicon Valley have already offered their time to support this effort.
And if StartVI is not your father's incubator, it certain isn't your mother either. It’s about entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs. It's #JFDI – and if you don't understand that then #fail. And since it isn't a father or mother figure, you obviously get treated as an adult. The perfect entrepreneur for StartVI has an attitude, and reeks talent, imagination, passion and – most of all – ambition.
Oh, and that “SIX” … it's six companies, for six months at 6%. Applications start in April, but this is the first time through so if you expect everything to launch smoothly as silk, then you'll be disappointed, not just with StartVI, but with your own business launch. This is the new world. Launch and be dammed, but run like crazy to pick up all those dropped balls.
Welcome to tomorrow.
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