Just a lack of normal BS you have to deal with if you have Wells Fargo. Basically a well-run operation. Haven't used many of the benefits/features they offer other than banking.
So more small businesses can be coerced into selling their products at 25% of retail value in the name of "getting their name out there". Plus more clutter in organic search results along with yelp, yellowpages, and thumbtack.
Could not agree more that there is way too much hype around panel speakers and such. Especially in smaller, not well-known events where they couldn't get an actual qualified speaker.
I experienced this in the college town where I started my company. They would take whoever the most qualified person is and give them a panel role or a speaking role. For example, you'd have a partner at a law firm giving startups product advice, just because he happened to be the only regarded person they could get.
Kudos to the poster. Only critique I have is that I misread the title to mean "If your VC firm doesn't lead rounds, you aren't a VC". Might be better to clarify.
I can't help but think this must be vaporware. I worked in the credit card industry for several years. A credit card company is not something anybody can just start from scratch - you need data to model chargeoffs, fraud, spend, ect in order to be profitable. And unlike Robinhood, you need a source of capital to fund the cash you float, usually securitization or deposits.
I may be completely wrong, but I simply don't buy it. There's so much more to a credit card product aside from the nice-sounding features they have on their landing pages.
I agree with the concept for the most part, but have a few gripes.
First, the desk space argument is very real. Y Combinator takes 60+ companies and has no real space constraints since they do not offer office space. Other accelerators take far fewer companies and do have office space, so they need to know ahead of time 1) that their batch will be full and 2) that each company has passed their own due diligence process.
Also, as with term sheets, founders can take their offer from one accelerator and shop it to others. It's happened before (with people I know), who take an offer from one accelerator and use it to trigger FOMO from the other.
Couldn't an accelerator just position it's start date before Y Combinator's decision date, and therefore not need an exploding offer but have the same effect?
Exploding offers should be reasonable, and I'm not against being fair to founders. But doesn't democratizing this essentially involve accelerators colluding to have the same offer/acceptance date?
I thought the fist bump was awkward, but I would disagree with your statement that nobody drives around to meet interesting people. Most of the drivers I meet actually say that's a big part of the appeal.
We built slightly more than an MVP, but eventually we needed to get into this hybrid situation. Now we're trying to get off of Parse, partly cause it's limiting and partly because its expensive.
It can handle more than an MVP, but it depends on the product.