My microutopia
(Partially inspired by the microutopia reading)
I am going to build a microutopia, and it's going to be incredible.
Recently, I've had an idea of building a startup incubator in the rocky mountains, 10 mins outside of Boulder, Colorado and 20 mins outside of Denver. I want to make a live-in community of brilliant people following their dreams.
The plan is basically to buy some land outside of Boulder and to build a nice, modern apartment complex similar to this one:
We'll have this apartment complex, a dining hall, an office building next door, some sports facilities, and a datacenter.
The site will hold approximately 70 people (20 staff and 10 startup teams of 5 people).
On our staff there will be engineers, lawyers, designers, and business people.
We will induct 10 teams of 5 people and have them live on the site for 1 year to develop their business, in exchange for 5% equity in their company. Everything will be taken care of for them for 1 full year while they build their business - free housing, free food, free equipment, and free servers, as well as some design, business, and engineering help.
If you haven't heard of startup accelerators, the story of Y-Combinator is interesting (a very successful startup accelerator that helped launch Dropbox and AirBnB as well as many others). They give you 125k for 7.5% of your company and they provide you with some other resources, like business development lectures and meetings with large venture capitalists.
I like Y-Combinator, but I think my microutopia would be a better, more active model. 125k goes pretty fast when you need to feed and house a team in the Bay Area (for 6 months during the program, and for years afterwards), plus pay salaries and business expenses. I'm not sure how far that money will actually take you - I think going all in on resources gives you better prospects and reduces stress/friction for entrepreneurs.
I am going to build a microutopia, and it's going to be incredible.
Recently, I've had an idea of building a startup incubator in the rocky mountains, 10 mins outside of Boulder, Colorado and 20 mins outside of Denver. I want to make a live-in community of brilliant people following their dreams.
The plan is basically to buy some land outside of Boulder and to build a nice, modern apartment complex similar to this one:
We'll have this apartment complex, a dining hall, an office building next door, some sports facilities, and a datacenter.
The site will hold approximately 70 people (20 staff and 10 startup teams of 5 people).
On our staff there will be engineers, lawyers, designers, and business people.
We will induct 10 teams of 5 people and have them live on the site for 1 year to develop their business, in exchange for 5% equity in their company. Everything will be taken care of for them for 1 full year while they build their business - free housing, free food, free equipment, and free servers, as well as some design, business, and engineering help.
If you haven't heard of startup accelerators, the story of Y-Combinator is interesting (a very successful startup accelerator that helped launch Dropbox and AirBnB as well as many others). They give you 125k for 7.5% of your company and they provide you with some other resources, like business development lectures and meetings with large venture capitalists.
I like Y-Combinator, but I think my microutopia would be a better, more active model. 125k goes pretty fast when you need to feed and house a team in the Bay Area (for 6 months during the program, and for years afterwards), plus pay salaries and business expenses. I'm not sure how far that money will actually take you - I think going all in on resources gives you better prospects and reduces stress/friction for entrepreneurs.
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