Incubator overload, Wolverson
Logan Sears isn't sure if he has what it takes to be an entrepreneur.
But he wants to find out. The 22-year-old tech nut tried his hand at launching a computer-repair company four years ago. When he hadn't turned a profit after a few years, he scrapped the venture and took odd jobs doing tech support and software development at big IT firms like IBM and UniFocus. Sears thinks he's destined to be a software programmer or maybe the founder of a sexy Internet start-up like Airbnb or Uber. Like many people, he thinks an education will help him figure it out.
So this year Sears shelled out $20,000 in tuition--but he isn't enrolling in business school or getting a computer-science degree. Instead, he's going to a start-up school. He'll take computer-programming classes in a historic building in downtown Denver and hang out with venture capitalists, angel investors and successful techies who are plugged into the digital-start-up scene. "Having a university degree doesn't prove your worth anymore," says Sears. "There's a whole new paradigm I need to learn."
The allure of launching a high-tech start-up has never been more powerful. Some would-be entrepreneurs go the risky route of dropping out of college to start new ventures on their own dime, while others slog through four years of college and then get a business degree to burnish their credentials. But now aspiring CEOs are being offered a tantalizing shortcut: start-up school. New programs are popping up from San Francisco to Chicago to New York City, with names like Galvanize, General Assembly and the Founder Institute, promising specialized training and access to all the trappings of the techie lifestyle--cool open workspaces, cappuccino bars and mentoring sessions with industry icons.
It's an ambitious effort aimed at nothing less than standardizing innovation. A start-up education doesn't always come cheap. These courses, workshops and mentoring sessions can cost from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands--and some programs even demand an equity stake in businesses they help nurture.
The jury is out on how many start-ups launched by these endeavors will ultimately succeed. So far, the Founder Institute says 42% of its participants have been able to attract investors in their first six months in business; 9%, meanwhile, have failed. And in a sign that there's a market for the concept, more traditional educational institutions--including the University of South Carolina and Harvard--are responding with their own entrepreneurship centers, coursework and connections to venture funding.
Start-up school puts a new twist on some already daunting choices for the hopeful entrepreneur. Does it make sense to skip college to pursue start-up ambitions? What's more valuable in the long run--education or training? But there's a bigger question: Can you mass-produce the serendipity that forms the core of so many breakthrough ventures? "Trying to mass-produce start-ups is like trying to manufacture musicians or painters," says Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur and a lecturer who teaches entrepreneurship at the University of California, Berkeley, business school. "It's a hot industry right now, but a lot of people aren't built to be entrepreneurs."
A New Model