Bradley Joyce broke the news that Gabriella Draney’s ‘Tech Wildcatters’ (Dallas area incubator for startups) finally got off the ground announcing their inaugural class of startups including:
One day later Lauren Warthan from Porter Novelli let me know that the Capital Factory (Austin area incubator for startups) had just announced their 2010 summer class of startups including:
- Hurricane Party
- Simpz
- Smackages (Dallas, TX)
- RecycleMatch
- Corkshare
The five Tech Wildcatters startups will receive between $20-25K in seed funding while the Capital Factory startups will receive $20K. I would argue the money is simply a token of good faith and not really the point of either program. To be successful each incubator will rely on the involvement and expertise of their mentors.
When Bryan Menell and his team set up the Capital Factory they were completely focused on finding the right sort of mentors – successful entrepreneurs who have had success, experience and have the time necessary to commit to be present in the early lives of the startups in each of their classes. Check out the rockstar list of mentors at the Capital Factory (lots of relevant startup experience for each of the companies selected). Check out this video from Capital Factory:
If Tech Wildcatters has a weakness it is in the sort of mentors they have selected. Contrast this list of mentors with the list the Capital Factory or TechStars put together. Each is VERY successful, but very few of them (with a few notable exceptions) have relevant bootstrap startup experience that will be needed over the next few weeks. What should be more concerning to the members of the inaugural class is that their mentors are generally very busy folks. Here is the breakdown of mentors:
Interestingly the one thing each of these mentors has in common is that they have ‘paid to play’ (i.e. they invested in the Tech Wildcatters fund). This could work really well for the incubator since each mentor will want to get their money’s worth or it could work out poorly since each mentor will feel like they have already contributed. I suspect some mentors will be active – i.e. showing up daily – and other will be inactive – i.e. showing up weekly.
In any event it is very exciting that startups have a number of local options to help them get off the ground. While I am a little worried about the mentorship model Gabriella has put together, I am very stoked that she has stepped up to the plate and done something. So many of us (me included) have talked about doing something like this, but it took her tenacity and hard work to actually do it. Thanks Gabriella!
