The Next Big Consumer Application Will Possibly Not Come From An Accelerator

http://alexstechthoughts.com/post/32195169760/the-next-big-consumer-application-is-most-likely-not

by Ataub24 • 14 years ago

34 27 14 years ago

tomasien• 14 years ago

The only way it comes from an accelerator/incubator is if it built there, a-la Reddit from YC. Reddit is quickly becoming something that should fit the list at the beginning of this post (it's blowing up) and it was built during YC's first class.

However, the odds of say, Twitter, joining an incubator as they were blowing up seems unlikely.

Ataub247• 14 years ago

Yea- it's at the end of the post with other YC consumer apps that are mainstream...

yesimahuman• 14 years ago

I would say this is more a function of the improbability of social products becoming mainstream than anything else. I don't think there is enough data to draw any conclusions yet.

finkin1• 14 years ago

I think going through an accelerator/incubator is seen as sort of a quick path to success. They are short. You can get decent press right away. Great products often require much more time, thought, and energy than accelerators/incubators allow for. YC is definitely one of the best.

bmr• 14 years ago

1957: Future NBA superstars are unlikely to be black.

mwww• 14 years ago

I think the reason might be that people who are able to build "the next big consumer app" just don't need an accelerator to start building. Just like Steve Jobs didn't need an MBA from Harvard in order to build Apple.

wilfra• 14 years ago

YC is the Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT and Caltech of accelerators, all rolled into one. But that doesn't mean startups who can't get into YC are wasting their time going through other accelerators anymore than students who can't get into S/H/Y/P/M/C are wasting their time going to Berkeley or Cal State Stanislaus or wherever they can get accepted. Ya, they'll have a lower chance of success, but there will still be guys who go to liberal arts colleges in Oregon - and dropout after a year - who change the World.

mattmanser• 14 years ago

The guy's just picked random companies that supports his point, most of them pre-incubator and made some silly conclusion out of it.

But of course YC doesn't count. Even though it was the first incubator by a couple of years. So of course has had the first successes.

Coincidence perhaps?

Why is anyone upvoting this?

Ataub247• 14 years ago

Yes coincidence. I have no affiliation with YC. Okay so take the biggest consumer apps in the past 5 years- Instagram, Spotify, Pinterest, foursquare, tumblr. They all pass the smell test. I threw in FB, Youtube, Twitter (on the bubble of pre/post accelerator), and a few others...

mammalfriend• 14 years ago

YC is by no means the first incubator. There were hundreds in the late 90's in silicon valley. Lots of junk, and few that turned out big businesses. Some of those big businesses failed in the .com crash simply because the capital markets imploded (and others because their business had been over-valued).

Ataub247• 14 years ago

ALSO- not sure if you know, but there were incubators and accelerators pre-2005 (year yc started)...

zacharycohn3• 14 years ago

1. Correlation != Causation.

2. You just picked random companies that support your point.

3. I don't understand the logic behind "accelerators slow you down." Most accelerators encourage you to do a ton of customer validation and to pivot - or ditch your idea completely - when necessary. By maintaining a fast paced environment with a lot of mentors around, they help you move faster, not slower.

Ataub247• 14 years ago

Have you gone through any accelerator programs? From some friends I hear the mentorship can very much slow you down- constant meetings. Maybe they just did it wrong, but I hear accelerator programs can slow you down in certain scenarios.

Company's are not random. They are mainstream consumer apps. The next big consumer app = mainstream. Does that not make sense?

adaml_6232• 14 years ago

So you haven't been through an accelerator either?

zacharycohn3• 14 years ago

I have not, but I work about 200 feet from Techstars Seattle and am friends with many of the companies from many of the classes there. I also work for Startup Weekend, so I've heard about a lot of accelerators all over the world.

I'm not saying all accelerators are good. Far from it. And I'm not saying accelerators don't have a ton of problems. I just don't think the article you wrote addresses any of them.

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

"The next big consumer app = mainstream. Does that not make sense?"

No it doesn't, that a big consumer app is considered 'mainstream' is an artifact of the fact that app got marketshare, its a dependent variable, not an independent variable.

Your claim is similar to ones that argue college is a waste of time, spend that four years doing things instead of learning stuff you'll never use. The fallacy of the college argument, and yours, is that structured learning has benefit in information gained over time at the start which is unmatched by unstructured learning.

Consider the time spent in an accelerator at those 'useless' mentoring meetings, they are with folks who have done a lot of different things, seen what is successful and what isn't, and more importantly know what traction 'feels' like when its happening. That lets one quickly learn the right stuff without having to waste time chasing ideas which aren't really having an impact.

I noticed that you backed off your argument a bit here: "I hear accelerator programs can slow you down in certain scenarios." If you're being honest with yourself then you can understand that "certain scenarios" is not "all scenarios" and by that reasoning your thesis fails. By that reasoning you would have to change your thesis "most likely" to maybe "possible".

If you want to reason about what makes a consumer app either a good fit or a bad fit for an accelerator that would be good to talk about. What sort of problems are ill suited to an accelerator environment and why? (and trust me, meeting frequency is not a good metric) There are a lot of accelerators out there [1], why not go through their funded projects and rank them consumer/non-consumer (you will need to define consumer app fairly precisely I suspect) and then bring some reasoning to the table that lets folks know how you arrived at the conclusion you did and why you believe it. We'd love to hear about it.

[1] http://tech.co/top-startup-accelerators-ranked-2012-08

interg122• 14 years ago

That's more of a caricature of what you go through - going through an accelerator just means you have that buffet of support if you choose to dip into it. You still spend every waking hour working on your product - sometimes you take one of those hours to meet the C-level exec from a company you admire. (i went through an accelerator in LA and that was my experience)

ig12• 14 years ago

Lets take a more scientific look at the YC generation of accelerators (which significantly differed from earlier incubators).

Since 2008 there have been only six consumer startups founded that have hit the billion dollar valuation mark: Instagram, Pinterest, Dropbox, Evernote, Groupon and AirBnB (you might choose to exclude Dropbox and Evernote from the consumer market).

Two of them are from YC, and Pinterest was founded by a YC alumni.

ig12• 14 years ago

(correction: AirBnB was actually founded in 2007)

interg122• 14 years ago

This article doesn't really make a strong case for anything, it just states the title as though its true.

jpdoctor• 14 years ago

Original title: The Next Big Consumer Application Will Possibly Not Coming From An Accelerator

Linkbait title: The Next Big Consumer Application Is Most Likely Not Coming From An Accelerator

GMAFB.

Edit: Title changed, blood pressure returning to normal. Thanks mods.

Ataub247• 14 years ago

read comments. it changed because of feedback :)

nchlswu• 14 years ago

1 - what's the proportion of incubators/accelerator companies are pursuing consumer applications?

2 - it's very easy to pick home run successes that are rare to begin with. It's relatively easy to crunch numbers to give the number of successes that come out of an accelerator. It doesn't make sense to cherry pick those successes to be compared to let alone conclude that they will essentially reduce your chances. I'd guess that the odds about the same between accelerator and non/accelerators wrt the success the author is talking about.

3 - I don't think the proposition makes much sense to begin with given how accelerators are so trendy and may be of questionable quality. A note: this is my anecdotal observation, I haven't taken a look at incubators/accelerators in detail.

4 - Has anyone done any investigative work on where accelerator alumni have gone? There are many other benefits to incubators that can't be quantified by a binary outcome. I'd guess that in a good incubator (like YC), alumni are on average, better off, for a variety of reasons

The Next Big Consumer Application Will Possibly Not Come From An Accelerator

Related Stories