There’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur. Building a product is cheap and fast thanks to Open Source frameworks and the Cloud. Getting to market is easier than ever with app stores and affiliate programs. Super Angels and VCs are stepping on each other’s toes getting into early stage deals! Early exits are on the rise offering lower risk (but life changing) ‘outs’ for entrepreneurs.
But what I’m most excited about is that we’re beginning to have a set of best practices, thanks to the Lean Startup. Yes you need to have passion and vision (equally true whether you’re an Evil Genius or an entrepreneur). What’s been missing is a way for entrepreneurs to know what questions to ask and how to interpret the answers, especially when they don’t conform to the original vision. This is a lot tougher than it sounds.
That’s why we created Year One Labs. We want to help you realize your (huge) vision of the future by focusing on achieving the important things in your first year. Things like finding out who your customers are and building a product that solves a problem they care about. You’re not building a business (yet). You’re searching for a repeatable and scalable business model. We’ll do whatever it takes to get you there including getting you in front of the right customers, helping you build your product, and being brutally honest when your metrics don’t agree with your vision.
So what are we looking for?
- Passion – You love solving big huge problems (not just creating big huge companies, or Evil Empires)
- Ability – You have incredible knowledge and skills, and you can just get sh*t done
- Focus – Nothing distracts you from your goal, certainly not failure
The best way to ‘pitch’ Y1L is to sit down with us face to face and talk about the problem you’re going to solve. Ideally without Powerpoint. Oh, and you should read Four Steps to the Epiphany and everything in Eric Ries’ blog.
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How much control do you ask for when you make investments? You seem very similar to Extreme Labs in Toronto….is that a fair comparison?
Brad – Take a look here: http://www.yearonelabs.com/strategy-structure
We’re taking a 10-20% equity stake.
Extreme Labs has a similar model in some ways, although they’re more flexible in the way they invest in different projects. They’ve also got Extreme Labs University, which is a more Y Combinator / Techstars approach.
Strange
This sounds like a 1:1 copy of HackFwd: http://www.hackfwd.com/
That’s the first I’ve seen of that program (which looks very cool by the way). If you’re saying we have a similar approach, I agree. Their logo has a way cooler animation than ours.
This sounds awesome and I’m very excited we have you guys in Canada! I’m just wondering what are will you be expecting from a pitch? A demo/prototype? Something that’s already out there generating revenue? A business plan? Or just an idea with passion?
Cheers!
Teren – All of the above, or none of the above. We do like to get an executive summary or quick pitch deck of some kind to help us wrap our minds around any ideas that entrepreneurs are working on. So send us what you’ve got!