Business Incubator Series: An Interview With David Cohen, Founder And CEO, Startup Accelerator TechStars – Boulder, Colorado (Part 1)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

I am talking to David Cohen, the founder and CEO of TechStars.

Irina: Hi, David. Let’s start with a brief overview.

David: I’m the founder and CEO of TechStars, which is a mentorship-driven startup accelerator for Internet companies. Tech Stars funds 10 companies at a time in each of four cities each year. The cities are New York, Boston, Seattle, and Boulder. The mentorship program is three months long. At the end of the program, the companies get to pitch their ideas to investors. About 70 percent of the companies go on to raise outside capital after the program. >>>

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Dr. Tom O’Neal, Executive Director, University of Central Florida’s Business Incubation Program — Orlando, Florida (Part 5)

By guest author Irina Patterson and Mridula Velagapudi

Irina: How many people work at the Venture Lab?

Tom: There are about 15. And it’s a free service. Again, the universities and the counties here pay for the staff at the Venture Lab. And I use the Venture Lab here a lot to help with the same kind of stuff for our intellectual property tech transfer office. >>>

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Dr. Tom O’Neal, Executive Director, University of Central Florida’s Business Incubation Program — Orlando, Florida (Part 3)

By guest author Irina Patterson and Mridula Velagapudi

Irina: What are the tools and methodologies you use in your entrepreneurship class?

Tom: One of our staff members runs the program, and we bring in external consultants, subject matter experts, for each one. One of my staff members sits in on the class every time and observes the clients. On the last night, the clients have to give a full presentation, and we evaluate the companies’ business opportunities. Those evaluations are entered onto a list, and if a company applies, we look at all of the evaluations and notes of instructors notes and involved judges. Then we make a decision. >>>

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Skip Simms, President And CEO, Ann Arbor SPARK — Ann Arbor, Michigan (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: How many investments has your pre-seed fund made in the past 12 months?

Skip: In the past 12 months, we’ve made 12 investments. In the life of the fund, we’ve made 52 investments. >>>

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Dr. Tom O’Neal, Executive Director, University of Central Florida’s Business Incubation Program — Orlando, Florida (Part 2)

By guest author Irina Patterson and Mridula Velagapudi

Tom: It is our job to figure out how to help entrepreneurs. We have about forty people in the area who donate their time and effort to help these companies. There is a lot of peer help going on among the entrepreneurs. We also provide free accounting or legal services to the companies, shared conference rooms, and shared receptionists – a professional environment. >>>

AngelList, CapLinked, And Financing Marketplaces

AngelList has been generating  a lot of buzz recently. Today, Business Insider has a piece claiming that they are scaring VCs to death. Really? I have a hard time believing that! In any case, I thought this would be a good time to give readers my perspective on AngelList, as well as other fund raising services that are coming into the market like CapLinked, which has recently raised money from star investors like Peter Thiel. Other related services are SecondMarket, Kickstarter, ProFounder and Invested.In, the latter three specifically focused on crowd funding (not CapLinked’s approach), while the first is more of a brokerage.

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Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Dr. Tom O’Neal, Executive Director, University of Central Florida’s Business Incubation Program — Orlando, Florida (Part 1)

By guest author Irina Patterson and Mridula Velagapudi

I am talking to Tom O’Neal, executive director of the University of Central Florida’s Business Incubation Program which is a University-driven community partnership that provides training, infrastructure, and professional services for entrepreneurs in central Florida. >>>

Business Incubator Series: An Interview With Skip Simms, President And CEO, Ann Arbor SPARK — Ann Arbor, Michigan (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Skip: [The entrepreneurs that come to us], everyone’s a little different in their company growth. So, all of our programs are customized. We differ from many incubators in that regard. I think the kind of consulting services that we provide are custom, too; they are specific to particular milestones as opposed to being a generic milestone plan. You know, one lesson fits everybody … we don’t follow that model. >>>