It's pretty hard to start a startup while you have full-time employment you're relatively happy with, both because of physical time constraints and reconciling the risk mentally.
In the past I felt exactly like these guys did: apply for incubators, which will provide both validation and financing, which makes a transition a lot less painful. It's one thing to tell your wife, "yeah so I quit my $125,000 job to work with Joe on our startup, which is really just a bunch of unreleased code at this point" as opposed to, "yeah so I quit my $150,000 to work with Joe on our startup, but we're in YC, which is like Harvard for startups, and we're getting over $150,000 in funding, and like half these companies raise venture capital really quickly after the program." Hell, it's a lot easier to tell yourself that.
A few months ago I wrote a post about my experience interviewing at YC and getting rejected, and I mentioned how we didn't continue working on our idea, and a lot of people asked me why. And the most honest answer I could give was, "I felt it was too big of a risk to take off my golden handcuffs without Paul Graham's approval," which sounds kind of absurd but is the most plain explanation I can give.
Well it's been over a year since then and I've realized two main problems with that way of thinking. 1) All an incubator can really do is amplify your ability to conceive of ideas and execute well on them. But if you can do both of those things well anyway, then you'll be successful regardless of acceptance or not. 2) If you refuse to embark on starting a startup without getting accepted into an incubator, then you're limiting yourself to "incubator-friendly" ideas, which is generally something that is consumer-facing and disruptive in some theoretically huge market (or eventual market) (e.g. AirBnb, Dropbox) or is a tool/platform that can improve the startup ecosystem of tools and platforms (which it seems like Keen.io is, if I understand their value prop on their home page correctly).
So congrats to the Keen.io for getting into TechStars, and I'm sure their product will be great, and they'll go on to be successful without having to sacrifice much more than going out to dinner a little less and downgrading their Netflix subscription. But it's very possible they were going to be successful anyway.
First, thanks for the thoughtful reply. I remember your post about your YC experiences, and it was great, especially since I was considering doing something like this and really identified with it. I think I probably would have quit my job anyways, but getting into an accelerator like TechStars really made it a no-brainer.
I'd like to raise the point that the idea you apply with doesn't matter a ton. It should be good enough to show that you're not stupid, but that's about it. We've already changed what we're working on significantly based on early customer development and discussions with the amazing TechStars mentors. It's actually been a little hard to convince myself that the reason we got accepted was like 90% team and only 10% idea (totally made up numbers, of course, but you get the drift).
I completely bought into the concept of an accelerator validating your idea, and that was really just kind of wrong (at least in our case).
Anyways, thanks again for the comment. Here's hoping we'll be as successful as you suggest. :)
All good points. You're not alone: I think most teams apply to accelerators for some blend of validation, cash, and credibility. In my mind, however, none of those facets is as important as education.
If a seed stage startup only has 2-3 people, they're certainly missing some competencies, contacts, and personality types that could greatly increase their chances at success. Nothing beats having the engaged mentorship of super smart people, people who have seen the world from other angles and can pinch-hit to help round out the team.
In our case, we're three capable software engineers, and we're building something really cool... but had we not gotten exposure to TechStars, our deficits in areas like go-to-market strategy (we had thought, "But it's applicable to every vertical!"), varied communication ("Our customers are excited about it, so of course investors will be!"), plus a million things to come, would've been much more encumbering at best, fatal at worst.
In the past I felt exactly like these guys did: apply for incubators, which will provide both validation and financing, which makes a transition a lot less painful. It's one thing to tell your wife, "yeah so I quit my $125,000 job to work with Joe on our startup, which is really just a bunch of unreleased code at this point" as opposed to, "yeah so I quit my $150,000 to work with Joe on our startup, but we're in YC, which is like Harvard for startups, and we're getting over $150,000 in funding, and like half these companies raise venture capital really quickly after the program." Hell, it's a lot easier to tell yourself that.
A few months ago I wrote a post about my experience interviewing at YC and getting rejected, and I mentioned how we didn't continue working on our idea, and a lot of people asked me why. And the most honest answer I could give was, "I felt it was too big of a risk to take off my golden handcuffs without Paul Graham's approval," which sounds kind of absurd but is the most plain explanation I can give.
Well it's been over a year since then and I've realized two main problems with that way of thinking. 1) All an incubator can really do is amplify your ability to conceive of ideas and execute well on them. But if you can do both of those things well anyway, then you'll be successful regardless of acceptance or not. 2) If you refuse to embark on starting a startup without getting accepted into an incubator, then you're limiting yourself to "incubator-friendly" ideas, which is generally something that is consumer-facing and disruptive in some theoretically huge market (or eventual market) (e.g. AirBnb, Dropbox) or is a tool/platform that can improve the startup ecosystem of tools and platforms (which it seems like Keen.io is, if I understand their value prop on their home page correctly).
So congrats to the Keen.io for getting into TechStars, and I'm sure their product will be great, and they'll go on to be successful without having to sacrifice much more than going out to dinner a little less and downgrading their Netflix subscription. But it's very possible they were going to be successful anyway.