In the Startup world, every other guy these days wants to become an advisor or accelerator. If you don’t have anything to do in life or if you are unable to do anything, just become an incubator. You have not built an enterprise, but you want to help others build an enterprise. This is well portrayed in the show “Silicon Valley”.
Don’t get me wrong, there might be some really good ones. Nevertheless, the chances of your startup becoming something like Apple or Microsoft are very low. Certainly not the ability to make you Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. The reason is quite simple. These so-called incubators take a chunk of your company- around 7%. Some offer a desk in their office and a minimum amount such as $25K. The question is…would you give your 7% for a mere $25K? For this small amount, you can easily get a credit card and fund your startup. Mark and Bill wouldn’t offer shares to anyone just to get an intro to an investor.
Interestingly, you should also look at the detailed profiles of mentors that these incubators provide. Most often these guys assume that only they know the basics of PowerPoint, business plans, and how to incorporate them. Come on, we live in the Google age and information like this is available with few mouse clicks. As a mentor, you are supposed to have built and scaled a venture from zero level. As a lawyer, advisor or whatever crap, you are not providing any value if you cannot help with the execution that’s required to turn ideas into reality. These mentors don’t even read the body language of the person who they are mentoring. It screams to laugh and to run away.
Every other guy talks about the same thing, value proposition, colors in presentation, how long it should be, and all other crap that doesn’t carry much value. For example, you show your presentation to one mentor, get his feedback and modify your deck. Take the same deck to another mentor, he will ask to change something else. This is never ending. These guys look more into irrelevant things rather than focusing on the meat.
Instead, these guys should share their expertise such as what they did when they didn’t have more than $20 in their bank account. What did they do to build the enterprise when all the doors seemed closed or didn’t know where to start? What strategy did they adopt to survive an attack from Google? How were they able to get the very first customer? But…do these mentors even have those experiences? It’s like blind leading a blind and boasting as “Mentor” at XYZ VC/Angels/Incubators.