Milwaukee’s Gener8tor Accelerator Kicks Off Summer Session With These 5 Startups

Wisconsin based startup accelerator Gener8tor, is holding it’s summer session at their Milwaukee location this year. To date, the accelerator that operates out of both Madison and Milwaukee, has graduated 13 startup companies that have raised $5 million dollars in venture capital and created over 70 jobs. They hope to add to that impressive group with this year’s summer session.

Gener8tor co-founder Troy Vosseller and Joe Kirgues take a more hands on approach with their startups and keep the class size small. This seems to have paid off so far in terms of follow on funding and job creation. Of the 13 startup “graduates” so far, only one has been from outside of Wisconsin. That startup, MobileIgniter, relocated from Colorado.

This year’s summer session includes startups from Chicago, Austin Texas and Minneapolis. The other two startups are from Wisconsin, one from Madison, the other from Milwaukee.

This session begins today and runs through August 29th when the startups will participate in what Gener8tor co-founders call “Launch Day” (a much better name than Investor Day or Demo Day). Both Vosseller and Kirgues know that a startup really begins at the end of the program.

“The Summer 2013 Program consists of some of the most innovative startups from around the country,” Troy Vosseller, co-founder of gener8tor, said in a news release. “We’re really looking forward to helping these companies grow and achieve their full potential.”

Here are the five startups selected for Gener8tor’s third cohort.

Catalyze.IO Catalyze.IO offers cloud-delivered backend infrastructure for health and wellness applications to make it easier, cheaper and faster for developers to create solutions for healthcare. (Milwaukee, WI)

DeckPresenter DeckPresenter is a web presentation tool built for businesses designed to host, manage and track PowerPoint decks. (Austin, TX)

Docalytics Docalytics builds online tools to help marketers get more from their content marketing activities. The Docalytics platform gives marketers a more efficient way to generate and qualify new leads, while gathering actionable information about how their prospective customers interact with their documents. (Minneapolis, MN)

OpenHomes: OpenHomes is a safe, affordable, modern way to buy or sell a home. OpenHomes uses technology to connect homebuyers and sellers as well as helping real estate agents serve their clients better and more efficiently. (Madison, WI)

Optyn Optyn optimizes the marketing relationships between businesses and consumers. For consumers, Optyn is the first ever “marketing inbox” that lets consumers easily control their connections with businesses and automatically organizes their marketing emails. For businesses, Optyn increases conversions and revenue by acquiring and engaging customers through a simple, quick and inexpensive “opt-in” process. (Chicago, IL)

Check out the pitches from Memphis startup accelerator, Seed Hatchery’s recent investor day.

Memphis Seed Hatchery Investor Day Draws Global Audience

On Thursday in a swank movie theater in Memphis’ revitalized midtown district, six startups presented their companies to a theater that was literally, standing room only by the beginning of the pitches.

BetterFed (farm to consumer), MentorMe (e-harmony for mentors), Soundstache (a fan engagement platform for bands), Boosterville (a huge disruption in fundraising), Musistic (Github for musicians) and ScrewPulp (a better way to self publish), took the stage for 12 minute investor pitches after concluding the three month Seed Hatchery accelerator program.

Investors and spectators from Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and as far away as Singapore and Silicon Valley were in attendance to take in the pitches.

Mara Lewis, a San Francisco based entrepreneur and founder of stopped.at, was in attendance for the Seed Hatchery festivities which included an after party at the world famous Memphis BBQ competition. Lewis, who’s pitched in front of plenty of crowds said that this group at Seed Hatchery was one of the best groups she’s seen. Lewis is currently working with Start Co’s co-President’s Andre Fowlkes and Eric Mathews on their upcoming Upstart women’s startup accelerator.

After playing host to a group of Memphis entrepreneurs (including myself) in Silicon Valley in March, Kuji Chahal of Fisher Investments made the cross country trek to hear the pitches from the Seed Hatchery cohort. Chahal stuck around throughout the festivities to talk with all of the new entrepreneurs.

Andre Mouton, an investor from Singapore has been ecstatic about Memphis’ entrepreneurship. He made a trip to Memphis in February which included visits to Launch Memphis, Bioworks and everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. Mouton took meetings with entrepreneurs all weekend long at the BBQ Festival and over at the Peabody Hotel. Mouton told us that he was impressed at how hard everyone was working in Memphis, that my friend is the Grit N Grind.

Vic Gatto, a Managing Partner at Solidus, the investment firm that seeds the Seed Hatchery class along with Jump Start Foundry in Nashville, made it a point to call out investors in the room with a call to action to talk with the entrepreneurs, and see that all six businesses have a good chance of survival. Gatto’s partner Townes Duncan, along with his son Walker Duncan, co-founder and Editor in Chief at southernalpha also made it down from Nashville. The younger Duncan was returning from an event in Atlanta. Obviously the Grit N Grind of Memphis is expanding state wide.

Both Fowlkes and Mathews were quick to point out that Investor Day isn’t the conclusion of the Seed Hatchery program but rather the beginning. They recently added Rhodes graduate, Hillary Quirk, to the Start Co team as Community Manager. In her new role Quirk is forming an alumni association for Memphis’ accelerators which include the two cohorts at ZeroTo510.

You can find out more at neverstop.co and at their old site launchyourcity.com

See all the pitch videos from Seed Hatchery’s investor day here at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else.

Memphis’ Highly Successful ZeroTo510 Accelerator Announces Summer 13 Class

Zeroto510,Startup Accelerator,Memphis startups

Charleson Bell, CEO at BioNanovations, pitches on stage at last year’s ZeroTo510 Demo Day

Earlier this morning we said it was going to be a big day for summer accelerators here at nibletz.com The Voice Of Startups Everywhere Else. We kicked it off with the Techstars Boulder Summer 2013 class. Now we’ve got the official list of startups selected to participate in the highly successful medical device startup accelerator in Memphis Tennessee, Zeroto510.

Last year, 5 out of the 6 startups in the first cohort at Zeroto510 raised “follow on” funding. Four of the startups raised an additional $100,000 while the 5th, Restore Medica, went straight to series A closing a $2.5 million dollar round.

ZeroTo510 is a cohort based medical device accelerator that prepares medical device startups to go through the 510k clearance process. This is a process that shortens FDA approval because the startup idea or product concept is improving on something that’s already been through the FDA process. Often times, these new products and devices solve problems that previous devices or methods manifest.

James Bell, the CEO of Handminder, a startup in last year’s cohort is back again this year leading a different team with a startup called Mobilizer. This device helps ambulatory patients become more mobile. When we spoke with Bell he said that the big problem their product is solving is the four highly paid technicians it takes to transport a patient on monitors, IVs and pumps from one section of the hospital to another. Mobilizer allows a more modular setup of equipment that can than be monitored by one technician.

The rest of the class includes:

AIS Inc. – This is a local team led by a biomedical engineering student from The University of Memphis who previously had a career in the Army. They are building a leadless, single-surgery (battery is external), GPS- and Bluetooth-enabled hybrid cardioverter defibrillator. Their product is targeted to pediatric patients because surgery is not required to replace the battery.

Better Walk – A team of biomedical engineering students from Georgia Tech are making a redesigned crutch that relieves the primary complaint of crutch users by eliminating the discomfort experienced in the underarm area due to axillary nerve damage.

Cuff-Gard – A nurse from West Memphis has designed a disposable skin barrier, worn by a patient, to protect and extend the life of blood pressure machine cuffs. The barriers are impenetrable; one side absorbs fluids or drainage from the skin, and the other side is a polypropylene backing that protects the blood pressure cuff from contamination.

Health and Bliss – A team from Baltimore, H&B is attempting to revolutionize the way people detect strep throat by introducing to the market a patented self-contained screening test. Strep Test Anywhere allows patients to be tested for strep throat in a convenient, affordable, and time-saving manner.

SurgiLight – This team has designed a novel LED light for use in surgeries and is led by an electrical engineering student from The University of Memphis. Connected by a long flexible tube, the light allows easier and better lighting to hard-to-access surgical sites.

During the recruitment process, we received competitive applications from around the United States, and we had two international applicants,” said Allan Daisley, director of entrepreneurship and sustainability for Memphis Bioworks in a statement. “The high quality of the applications made the selection of this year’s participants quite a challenge.”

The companies will matriculate through an intensive, mentorship-driven, 12-week program of instruction and hands-on activities designed to guide the entrepreneurs through the process. Each company chosen for the program will receive $50,000 in initial seed capital from co-investors Innova, a pre-seed, seed and early-stage investor focused on starting and funding high-growth companies in the healthcare, technology and healthcare technology fields across the state of Tennessee, and MB Venture Partners, a Memphis-based venture capital firm that provides equity capital and strategic direction to life sciences start-ups.

Zeroto510 partners with SeedHatchery, and Launch Your City, which provides the business portion of the programming and helps develop the medical device startups investible stories.

You can find out more about Zeroto510 here at zeroto510.com.

This was a huge win for Memphis’ startup community.

Evernote Launches No Equity Accelerator For Developers

Evernote is known for it’s great relationship with developers. They hold hackathons on just about every continent, they hold the “devcup” and they support every single bit of creativity that developers can build using Evernote as the backbone. Some of the things that have come out of Evernote developers are really cool, and go way beyond the “notepad app” that Evernote started as. (my favorite Evernote app is Hello).

Now Evernote has announced they are expanding on the relationship with their developers once again. Evernote is opening a new on-site accelerator bringing their developers to SiliconValley. Docomo and Honda have partnered with Evernote to make the accelerator possible.

No matter where you are based, if you’re selected for the Evernote accelerator you and your team will be flown to Silicon Valley, you’ll get living accommodations, free food, office space, access to Evernote developers and engineers, group work sessions and feedback sessions and more. At the end of the program Evernote’s Rafe Needleman told Venturebeat, that “they’ll hold a demo day for Silicon Valley investors and press.”

Currently there are six billion API’s per month across the Evernote platform and Needleman and team are looking for even more. “There’s a million different ways to store, use, and get access to personal and private data, and so far we’ve only built eight of those apps,” Needleman says.

Teams chosen for the accelerator will come from the DevCup. Once they arrive in Silicon Valley not only will they be working with Evernote but they will also be working with Docomo Innovation Ventures and Honda Silicon Valley Labs. This could be a big benefit for Evernote developers whose apps deal directly with mobile and wireless or transportation.

Interested in learning more? Check out Evernote’s developer’s site here.

Unfortunately money doesn’t grow on trees in Silicon Valley, read here.

Startup Front, There’s Something Brewing Outside Of Chicago

We’re pretty confident that over the course of the last year Chicago’s thriving tech startup scene has proven the folks at PandoDaily wrong, very wrong. Chicago has one of the fastest growing startup tech scenes in the world. Their 1871 incubator and startup epicenter is amazing, producing hit after hit and now home to TechStars Chicago.
It’s this eruption of startup activity that got serial entrepreneur Kelly Schwedland and entrepreneur Nat Finn talking about what they could do on the other side of Chicago, in Valparaiso Indiana.

We’ve reported on Indiana’s other thriving startup communities, like Indianapolis, home to the Speak Easy, Developer Town and Verge Indy events. We even featured Speak Easy Executive Director Denver Hutt as one of our Bad Ass Startup Chicks.

Now, those in Northwest Indiana don’t need to head into the big city to have access to startup resources thanks to Schwedland, Finn and a host of other collaborators.

Startup Front started out as a lunch meet up for tech leaders, entrepreneurs and startup founders. Like every great startup though, they pivoted and have now become an accelerator, which will launch next year, with a ten year plan of cranking out at least 2 startups per session ripe for an IPO.

Nibletz co-founder and new CEO, Nick Tippmann, was a guest speaker at the kick off event for the new Startup Front last week in Valparaiso. Over the next two weeks we will feature a series of videos from Startup Front that discuss building startup communities in the heartland.

Check out the video below where Tippmann interviews both Finn and Schwedland. They discuss bringing some of the attributes of the third largest city in the United States, just miles down the road to North West Indiana.

Check out Startup Front at startupfront.org

We’ve got more startup stories from Indiana here at nibletz.com

Portland Opens Up Applications For Startup PDX: Challenge

Portland Oregon’s Portland Development Commission has kicked off a new initiative to lure startups to the Central Eastside part of town. The new program called the Startup PDX Challenge is a non-equity based grant program that will give up to six startups $10,000 grants and free office space for a year in what once served as Mayor Charlie Hale’s campaign office.

The office space is located in what most people in Portland know as “Produce Row”. It’s for the most part, an industrial area that the city is trying to revitalize with new types of restaurants, businesses and now technology startups.

There are several equity based tech incubators in the Portland area. This program is the first of it’s kind where the money comes with no strings attached (other than working in the office space). The PDC has a budget of $150,000 for the project which includes the grant money as well as money to make improvements to the building where the startups will be housed. In consideration for the improvements the landlord is not charging the tenant startups rent this year.

In addition to the cash and office space, startups selected for the program will also have access to services donated by Portland area law firms, accountants and human resources services according to Oregon Live.

The Startup PDX challenge has already lined up several sponsors including; Perkins Coie; Davis Wright Tremaine LLP; Perkins & Co; Trupp HR; Xenium; Lewis & Clark Bank; Business Accelerator at Portland State University; Pie; Portland Seed Fund; Technology Association of Oregon; Portland Development Commission; Oregon Entrepreneur Network and Transfer Online.

Applications are due April 4th and can be filled out here.

Work On An Iceberg: Ark Challenge Applications Open Through April 7th

We were really pleased that our neighbors from Arkansas’ Ark Challenge accelerator program were just one of many Global Accelerator Network (GAN) accelerators in attendance at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference. The Ark crew was at the conference talking to attendees and startups about retail, logistics and food processing the three core focus areas for the North West Arkansas based accelerator.

Startups selected to accelerate in the Ark Challenge program will receive a seed investment of $20,000 for 6% equity to offset the cost of relocation to North West Arkansas.

The program will be held at the beautiful new IceBerg coworking space, where founders will have 24×7 access. They’ll also get access to a huge mentor network, product development and design support, promotion, and access to advisors and funders. On the retail side of things Ark Challenge isn’t far from the largest retailer in the world, Walmart.

The Ark Challenge is one of 20 projects nationwide that receives funding for the advancement of regional competitiveness from the Economic Development Administration (EDA), Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Employment And Training Administration (ETA).

In addition to all of that, two teams are selected to receive follow on funding of $150,000 to help the startup get through “speed up”.

The early bird application deadline is next week on February 24th with the final deadline on April 7, 2013. The session will run from June to mid September with an investor/demo day at the end of the session.

You can apply to the Ark Challenge here

Did you miss everywhereelse.co 2013? Well don’t miss everywhereelse.co 2014, ticket sales open and discounted now for the next six weeks here.

Austin’s Incubation Station Prepares For Next Cohort

Austin’s consumer packaged goods startup accelerator, Incubation Station, is preparing for it’s next cohort.

Incubation Station is in it’s second year and is specifically targeting startups in the consumer packaged goods space. They’ve extended the application deadline until February 15th and plan on unveiling the selected startups to participate in the program at an event being held at “Abels on the Lake” on the evening of February 27th.

This accelerator in the CPG space is proving how startup accelerators in new verticals can be successful in cities across the country. Incubation Station applies the cohort based startup accelerator methodology to companies that make actual, consumer purchasable products.

The session at Incubation Station is 12 weeks and features intense training from go to market strategy, marketing, pitch, and business skills. Like most accelerators, the session finishes off with a demo day, which they call “Showcase Day” in the middle of June. Incubation Station participants will show their products and business models off to over 100 investors that specifically invest in consumer packaged goods.

Their first class included Thunderbird Energetica, Criquet, Whynatte, Primizie and Verb.

“After participating in Track 1 of Incubation Station we expanded our growth by 300%. We have broken through the borders of being solely an Austin-based company and now serve the entire nation,” comments Taylor Collins, founder and owner of Thunderbird Energetica. “IS helped mold our start-up company into an efficient, goal-setting powerhouse through the sound and strategic advice from the brilliant minds in the diverse mentor pool.”

“Incubation Station provided Criquet with all the tools that we needed to fine-tune our marketing strategy, product offering, and investment pitch,” comments co-founder of Criquet golf shirts, Billy Nachman. “Our mentors pushed us to focus on the core concepts of our business plan, helping to effectively reach our customer, and efficiently message our investor. Since IS Track 1, Criquet has seen consistent and significant revenue growth, helping us secure a strategic capital investment, which puts us in position to achieve significant milestones within the next 9 months.”

Incubation Station was founded by attorney Shari Wynne who’s MWR Legal, specializes specifically in the needs of entrepreneurs, investors and startups. She’s a past president of the Entrepreneur’s Organization Austin chapter and she’s an active mentor at Incubation Station.

Startups in the CPG space that plan on applying can do so by clicking here.

What’s acceleration all about, find out from accelerator leaders and graduates at everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference

St. Louis Accelerator Capital Innovator’s Introduces Fresh Class Of Startups

At an event held at Moulin in St. Louis last night, Capital Innovators, the region’s cohort based accelerator, announced their newest class of startups. The class will convene for a 12 week program at the T-Rex startup hub and co-working space.

T-Rex houses several other startups as well as winners in the Arch Grants program that gives grants to startups to relocate and build their business in St. Louis.

This is the fourth class to go through the Capital Innovators program. To date, Capital Innovators has invested in and graduated 24 other startups in a variety of industries. Startups like Systematic Revenue and Norsecorp, that have successfully gone through the Capital Innovators program, have also successfully raised follow on funding.

The Capital Innovators program sees their startups with $50,000 which runs on the higher side of accelerator seed funds. Typically accelerators fund companies with between $10,000 and $25,000 dollars.

These are the five startups in the 2013 spring program, along with their founders:

BidRazor, Mike Pulley
BidRazor gives contractors the power to create custom bids much more easily and quickly than traditional
methods.
Dead Inventory Management Systems, Brandon Twitty
Dead Inventory Management Systems (DIMS) is in the business of aiding manufacturing companies in
listing large amounts of idle electrical inventory online in the matter of seconds using our Quick LIST
system.
Juristat, Drew Winship
Juristat helps lawyers predict the future. We transform raw court records into actionable analytics,
allowing users to predict the behavior of judges, juries, and attorneys. Juristat can calculate the odds of a
favorable verdict, motion, or appeal.
Time to Cater, Ed Spinaio
Time to Cater is a free national catering concierge service that connects busy people with the perfect
caterer for their event to save them time and money. We handle all the details of any catered event from
order through delivery and presentation at no extra cost to our client.
TrakBill, Steven Marciniak
TrakBill is an advocacy platform delivering timely, customizable updates on legislation, with a social twist.
Find specific bills or search areas of interest, receive up-to-the-minute updates on legislative actions and
hearings, and advocate for your cause using social media. With TrakBill, you spend more time advocating
and less time tracking

The spring class will end on April 26, 2013 and Capital Innovators will hold demo day on May 8th.

Two of St. Louis successful startups, LockerDome and Bonfyre will be at eveywhereelse.co The Startup Conference Will you?

Interview With Eric Mathews Founder Of Memphis Startup Accelerator Seed Hatchery

While some startup communities are in their earliest stages of development, Memphis’ ecosystem is going on six years old. One of the biggest drivers of that startup community is Eric Mathews, who’s Launch Your City organization has been at the center of Memphis’ entrepreneurial community for over six years.

Launch Your City is the organization behind Launch Memphis, Upstart Memphis, and Seed Hatchery, Memphis’ intense three month startup accelerator. Seed Hatchery is currently taking applications for it’s third class which will begin in February and graduate in May during Memphis’ legendary Barbecue Festival.

We got a chance to catch up with Mathews to discuss Seed Hatchery, what makes it different, and why Memphis. Check out the interview below:

DreamIt Ventures Philadelphia Graduates 15, Here’s A Song About it

Earlier this month DreamIt Ventures graduated their fall Philadelphia class. DreamIt Ventures holds accelerator programs in their hometown of Philadelphia, New York, Israel and a new program that started this year in Austin Texas. The fall Philadelphia class was their 7th class to graduate the program.

Here’s a list of all 15 startups that pitched at Investor Day:

Altair Prep: An SAT tutoring service that remotely connects students with leading tutors.
Applique: A drag-and-drop tool for creating mobile apps.
Betterific: Helps you share and find ideas to improve product development.
Brideside: An online boutique that helps brides build up their wedding experience together with their wedding party.
CallGrader: Lets companies collect marketing data and analytics from phone calls.
Charlie: Prepares you with information about a contact before you meet up with them.
Cloudamize: Offers tools to help companies manage and optimize their cloud services.
FlagTap: Helps websites increase user engagement, and tells them exactly what their visitors are doing.
Mor.sl: A combined recipe and grocery delivery service.
NinjaThat: An online marketplace that lets businesses outsource tasks to students.
PeerActive: Brings together game dynamics with e-commerce.
Spruceling: An online marketplace for parents to sell their kids’ used clothes.
TrendBent: A personal style engine for men.
Vizy: Lets you record and store virtual memories in physical places.
ZenKars: Offers a peaceful online marketplace for buying used cars.

Philadelphia’s class ended demo day with a song. Check out this awesome video below courtesy of TechnicallyPhilly’s YouTube Channel.

Linkage:

Check out DreamIt Ventures here

Here’s more startup news from “everywhere else”

This is “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference”

Accelerators Everywhere Else Are Still Great For Startups

After Thanksgiving many startup and tech sites feverishly began telling the story of doom and gloom for startups, follow on funding and startup accelerators.

This vicious news cycle began with the Dow Jones VC Edge report released at the end of November. The report highlighted many positive things, including growth for some key areas in high growth potential tech sectors both here and abroad. Fred Wilson, the principal at Union Square Ventures and a respected authority in the startup and VC space, was quick to point out that VC funding for consumer web and mobile companies was down 42% in the first 9 months of 2012.

The Dow Jones report coupled with Wilson’s commentary sent a tremor through Silicon Valley that we could be on the cusp of a bubble.

While startups and high growth potential technology companies are contributing to job growth, what’s not being considered is the fact that his down turn in VC funding may actually be more of a leveling off.

The same week the Dow Jones report and the Wilson piece came out, Paul Graham, founder of YCombinator sent out more troubling news. Again, interpreted at some of the startup and tech sites as bad news.

Graham had explained how the next cohort of YCombinator companies would receive less funding. The very next day Graham again took to the YCombinator blog to let everyone know that the class size was shrinking as well.

For a startup accepted into the program it instantly meant prestige and validation, not to mention a huge six figure seed investment. Reading the news from Graham made people all around start doubting the accelerator model. PandoDaily quickly opined. Erin Griffith, a writer for Pando Daily, said “We know accelerators are headed for a shakeout- but do they“? Griffith pointed out that there were over 100 startup accelerators across the country churning out thousands of startups with only a 10% success rate.

But what’s really happening in accelerators and across the startup space, is that people are getting more conservative in the valley because they’re used to a culture of ginormous funding rounds and even bigger exits. Everyone knows the story about Color. Everyone’s also seen the value of the Instagram Facebook deal diminish as Facebook’s stock went down hill fast. Truth be told, even after the $1 billion dollar Facebook deal, Instagram still had less than 25 employees when they moved into Facebook’s offices back in September.

That billion dollars really produced a lot of jobs right? Consider the fact that the $1 billion dollar Instagram Valuation was more than the New York Times is currently worth and they employ over 10,000 people.

The real question about accelerators is really about whether the goal behind an accelerator is to help yield larger than life venture investments or is it about building companies with solid foundations and solid founders. It is about the cash or the wave of now more educated entrepreneurs who may not get their first startup entirely off the ground but may hit a home run or even just a double in the next go round?

It seems accelerators with the real goal of producing these crazy funding rounds and crazy exits are no better than public schools who are just teaching whatever standardized test it is to graduate the next class.

The beauty about accelerator programs “everywhere else” is that the startups in the programs are being taught important lessons about starting up, business and even life.

It’s awesome that YCombinator and TechStars have mentor networks that read like a “Who’s Who” in the startup and tech world. Every startup founder wants to learn from these great mentors, and they can, sometimes even in small towns. Take Oklahoma City’s Blueprint For Business accelerator. They all got a chance to learn from a day with Brad Feld.

Perusing the websites of startup accelerators outside the valley (everywhere else) you don’t typically find a “who’s who” of the startup and tech world. What you do find is a “who’s who” in most local business communities.

Startups may apply to programs like the Fort in DC because they want to be close to the epicenter of government. They may apply to the Brandery in Cincinnati because they want to be close to the biggest branded company in the world, Proctor & Gamble. Startups that are logistically focused or enterprise focused may want to apply to Seed Hatchery in Memphis to be close to FedEx. Startups in the entertainment and music space may choose an accelerator in Los Angeles or even Jumpstart Foundry in Nashville.

While some of these accelerators “everywhere else” may have mentors from the Valley participate or founders with big exits, the bulk of their mentor list is either mentors who speak to their niche or mentors in the local community. Which can be equally, if not more important than name brand mentors elsewhere.

Are you building solid companies or is the accelerator only looking for “the next big thing”?

Linkage

Apply for SeedHatchery here

Check out these accelerator stories from nibletz, the voice of startups “everywhere else”.

And check out the two great accelerator panels at the everywherelse.co The Startup Conference, the biggest startup conference in the U.S

Month One In A Startup Accelerator, Cliff McKinney CEO, Work For Pie

“This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.”

So I’ve started a couple of companies before. Okay I say “started companies,” but I don’t really
mean either of those words. I just incorporated some ideas I had. I got business cards with my
name on them. I built a little website for interested people to sign up. One of them even earned
me a little play money. But in truth, I was just playing house.

When I walked in the door a month ago at Seed Hatchery, a startup accelerator in Memphis,
TN, I hadn’t discovered that yet. In my mind, I was kind of a badass. I had read more books
about entrepreneurship than anyone I knew. I had listened to every episode of This Week in
Startups. Hell I even suffered through a few episodes of This Week in Venture Capital. My
team had a GREAT idea that NOBODY ELSE was doing (or doing well, at least), and I had this
awesome, undiscovered savant of a co-founder and we were just going to waltz in there and
kick serious butt.

And day one was awesome! I was part of a special fraternity of entrepreneurs, and we were all
going to change the world. It was all champagne and roses. And I really felt that way. It was
wild man. Like livin’ on Haight in ’67.

Then the rest of the week felt something like this:

“Your idea sucks. No one is doing it because it sucks. You haven’t thought it through, you
haven’t done a bit of customer research, and it’s amazing that you didn’t have the good sense
to realize it before you walked in this door. You are only slightly less likely to fail because you’re
here than you were before you got here, which is to say that the likelihood of your failure just
went from 100% to something closer to 99.5%. Your pitch sucks. It’s too long. Where’s the
real pain? Are you solving a real problem? Your presentation isn’t that great either. Too many
words, not enough substance. You’re half as talented as my mother and you’re in Memphis-
freaking-Tennessee. They don’t give money to stupid people here. They don’t even give it
to smart people. You have 90, 89, 88, 87, 86 days to make a great product, and you haven’t
shown me anything that makes me believe that will happen yet…”

Thank you Drill Sergeant, may I have another?

It was an awakening, to say the least. Turns out everything I thought mattered didn’t, and
everything I thought was true wasn’t (except for the bit about the genius co-founder), and
everything I had learned wasn’t relevant anymore. By the end of that first week, I was huddled
in a corner with my rifle, crying, hoping the whole thing would just blow up and take me along
with it.

“Okay, forget everything we just said.”

But I kept coming back, because it was the most awesome thing I had ever done. Humbling,
yes, but awesome nonetheless. I was doing THIS. I was being brought to my knees HERE,

doing OUR THING. We didn’t answer to anyone but ourselves. We were keeping late nights
because we wanted to, not because some freaking busybody micro-manager in another
department needs her TPS reports by noon tomorrow. We were living the dream!

And we were getting better. Bit by bit. By week two the pitch had improved. We met mentors
who had been there and were willing to guide us through the trials and tribulations. We were
doing customer research and starting to turn our crappy little idea into something that just
might work. We had this amazing, awesome group of cohort companies, each with great
entrepreneurs and talented individuals, helping us along the way. We were making progress,
and we were doing it at a speed that my counterparts in “the real world” wouldn’t even be able
to comprehend.

So three weeks in we said “okay, forget about everything we just said,” and changed just about
everything about our original idea. Three days (and about 12 hours of sleep) later, we pitched
that new idea to investors for the first time. We had come far enough to be able to say “yeah,
this one is going to be better, and it’s okay that we have to scrap a bunch of stuff to make it
work.” It was progress, and the investors noticed. It IS a better idea, and they knew it. And we
had survived. It wasn’t pretty, but we had survived. At least the first battle.

“You think Grendel’s a bear–you should meet the mother!”

Things aren’t any easier these days. Not at all. Sleep still comes in short bursts. The pressure
is building as we get closer and closer to demo day, and the expectations are higher because,
somehow, we’re infinitely better than we were when we walked through the door a month ago.
We’ve got a month to build a product that thousands of people will one day use. 31, 30, 29, 28
days. They pass before we even know what hit us.

But the false hope that got turned into realistic doubt in that first week is creeping into the
territory of realistic hope. And what we’re hearing in week five sounds a bit more like this:

“Your idea sucks, but you’ve got time to make it better. You haven’t thought it through, but
you’ve got the tools to do that now. You haven’t talked to your customers enough, but we’re
going to help you do that. And no matter what you think, we didn’t bet on your idea. The only
thing you brought with you was you, and you are what we bet on, not your stupid idea. You’ve
got a shot at this. Keep going.”

Here’s hoping that kind of talk continues…

Author Biography:

Cliff McKinney is CEO of Work for Pie, a company that is changing the way software developers
get recruited and hired by changing the way they communicate with companies. He and his
team have conducted countless interviews with both developers and the companies that hire
them. You can find him on twitter at @cliffmckinney.

Linkage:

Learn more about Seed Hatchery, the accelerator WorkForPie went through, here

Are you coming to “everywhereelse.co The startup conference”

Check out Work For Pie here

Startups Get Your Seed Hatchery Application In Before Christmas (Dec 23 Early Application Deadline)

While Santa is making his list and checking it twice, early stage startup founders across the country and around the world are checking off startup accelerators on their list. Seed Hatchery, the startup accelerator in Memphis Tennessee should be one of those accelerators. They’re looking for the type of entrepreneurs that are committed to growing their startup long term and aren’t afraid of hard work.

Seed Hatchery is now taking applications for their third class. The cohort based accelerator will begin in February and run for three consecutive months. At the end of the session you and your company will be ready to pitch real investors for opportunities to invest in your business. In the meantime you’ll be backed by the 3M’s Money, Mentors and a marine style bootcamp, in Memphis.

Although sometimes overlooked, Memphis is one of the most entrepreneurial minded cities in the world. Going back nearly 100 years, Memphis Tennessee was the epicenter for this little thing called “cotton” you may have heard of it. It was cotton and the cotton exchange that spurred one of the largest investment banks in history, Lehman Brothers.

Beyond that, other globally known phenomena like rock music (the blues), Elvis Presley, and R&B radio have their roots firmly planted in the Bluff City.

Is that not enough? Perhaps you’ve heard of this company that delivers packages via planes and trucks, overnight, yes FedEx was born and based in Memphis. Holiday Inn was born in Memphis as was Serv Pro, and Autozone. Even Debbi Fields, Yes Mrs. Fields as in cookies, calls Memphis Tennessee home.

With an entrepreneurial pedigree like that you can be assured that the mentor pool for the 2013 Seed Hatchery CoHort will be stronger than most regional accelerators Seed Hatchery’s size.

Seed Hatchery was the partner for the recent Zeroto510 medical device accelerator in Memphis where 5 of the 6 teams received follow on funding of over $100,000. One of the teams went on to immediately raise over 2 million dollars. While some startup communities are still just getting started, Seed Hatchery is backed by Launch Your City which has been working on strengthening entrepreneurs and their startups for the last six years.

If you’re a Memphis area entrepreneur or in any area and ready to relocate to Memphis it’s a great place to work and a great place to build a business. Not only that, but even though the accelerator is in the thick of the winter, it’s never ver cold in Memphis.

If you’re startup is chosen to participate you’ll receive a seed investment of $15,000, access to a very strong mentor network and a strong investment community. Seed Hatchery is looking for startups that are in the area or willing to relocate for the entire 90 day cohort and stick around Memphis to tap into the investor, entrepreneurial and startup community in the region after that. To kick off your stay in Memphis TN every team and their members selected for Seed Hatchery will receive a free ticket to the three day startup extravaganza known as “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” where you’ll get to see the great speakers already announced and have a small group session with recent graduates from TechStars, 500Startups, The Brandery and previous graduates of Seed Hatchery.

Applying is free and the application is open now. It’s not for the faint at heart but if you’re passionate about your idea and hard working, if you’re not afraid of rolling up your sleeves this is for you.

Hit the links below.

Linkage:

Here’s the application for the 2013 Seed Hatchery cohort

Seedhatchery.com

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