I just heard one of the founders of this Y Combinator group. They have an interesting model where they bring in 20 or 30 IT types per year with good ideas and incubate them – its part angel capital, part incubator.
This guy was adamant that this kind of thing can really on work in a place like Silicon Valley.
But I would challenge that notion. At the same time, this guy said that it is easier now for IT firms to start up anywhere than ever before.
Successful start-ups are less than ubiquitous and this investment model has been successfully applied by numerous organizations, notably the Media Lab. Many challenges are well known, however, and having the “right” technology is only part of the equation. Savvy management (financial control expertise, planning and organization skills), a viable (and scalable) sales structure and an international outlook are as critical. YC are right that business plans are overblown in importance, but start-ups need to have good contingency plans in their stead.
One of the questions we need to be asking more is “how do we help investors to make better decisions?”
I love the Y-Combinator (YC) (TechStars, Extreme U) model, and I personally think it can work in NB. Now, will we have the same level of success? No… however the approach makes a lot of sense, and will start seeding early stage / innovation that will act as a showcase for other companies.
The beauty of YC is the mentors, and the fact that companies come from all over the world to attend (several from Canada have already completed the program).
Propel (http://propelict.com/) is “trying” to do something similar with the Accelerator Program, although we are not focused on the investment / returns side of things. So not really an incubator in the YC sense of the term.
We should definitely borrow some ideas from these types of programs!