An oversimplification of the incubator/accelerator space is to classify them as either a Y-Combinator (YC) or a TechStars (TS). If you really look at the booming world of incubators for high tech startups you see a model that either based on education and peers that is driven by a strong personality (YC) or a model that is more institutional, mentor driven, follows a script, and feels less personal but is more in line with how VC’s work (TS) (right in the middle is where I would place 500 Startups – which is arguably representative of a third type). There is plenty to be found about the differences but here is a bit of a deeper exploration into the differences.

Startup lifecycle

Startups have a number of key phases in development that is best outlined in Fred Destin’s presentation on startup lifecycle.

1. Start
2. Launch
3. Build
4. Chasm
5. Scale

With the 12-14 week cohort models, like YCombinator and TechStars, the focus should be on moving through starting and on to launch phase. There may be some that get into a build phase. The incubator or accelerator hopes that once they are done a 12-14 week program the startup will be in a much better position to move quickly through the build stage and at least take on the chasm phase.

Where I see the key difference between YC and TS is that YC seems to be able to get companies to go through stage 1 to 3 and they accept companies mainly in the start phase. TS seems to not attract a cluster of companies in a particular phase or not care about what phase a company is in.

The basics of an incubator/accelerator (whatever you want to call it)

Within the execution of any incubator or accelerator program there are, in my mind, 4 core stages in a typical cycle:

• Recruitment
• Onboarding
• In the program
• After the program

Within each of these of these stages there are a number of specific activities that all incubators do but in general they aren’t all that different.

Recruitment

YC currently leads the thought leadership with Hacker News, Paul Graham’s (PG) blog, and it’s success. Applicants fill out a form and once told they have an interview, travel to YC in Mountain View for an interview. They get just 15 min with a small panel and the panel does a bunch of tricks to the founders like carrying on side conversations – there are a lot of blog posts about that.

TechStars has adopted a more consistent process over it’s many affiliated programs (it appears) but they lack YC’s Hacker News or thought leadership (although they would claim otherwise). With Techstars there appears to be an affiliation with the Kauffman Foundation and the role they are taking in promoting the incubator model in general they have made themselves an authority in the space. From people I know that have been in the program it is a fairly standard process similar to raising Angel capital.

Onboarding

I am not sure on TS on-boarding but YC has a very short interview to decision to start of program window. YC has a little book that is like a long Wikipedia article written by Paul Graham that offers insights and baseline knowledge. From what I have been told the YC machine is pretty much immediately available to you when they say “you are in” — startups decide when to tell others. What is really interesting is that YC doesn’t announce it. They generally let a company know they are YC funded on the interview day but they don’t make a big announcement or anything.

Not having a big incubator announcement is a key difference here. I will assume that with TS it is just like YC in that they have decided to fund you, they are now available to you. However, TechStars (it appears) doesn’t approach announcing the cohort in the same way as YC — they announce them ahead of the program. For a startup this little difference could be a big one if you are concerned about managing expectations of outside investors as you go through the program.

In the program: peer mentorship, startup culture

Each program runs for roughly 3 months, 12-14 weeks, where mentorship, various events, and a demo day to close it off normally occur. Each week is important given that each team only has 3 months. Over three months there are phases you can generally identify:

• Teams becoming familiar with each other, their mentors, and what they need to do (first 2 weeks).
• The heads down getting stuff done phase (8-10 weeks).
• Funding mode going into Demo Day (2 weeks).

Other incubator programs are fairly similar with any given week involving office hours (optional or required) and a speaker/dinner. The office hours are used to check in and place goals on the teams. Throughout the term there are demo nights, which are used by YC as a way to put peer pressure on other teams that might not be moving as fast as others.

Where they differ here is in the education of the founder(s). From everyone I have talked to that has gone through YC it seems to me it is a very challenging but rewarding relationship for a certain type of founder. That would make sense as a certain personality type will work best with Paul Graham’s way of doing things and will excel. I am not entirely sure it is simply a hacker/coder persona as most assume. I think it is a personality and learning style that goes a bit deeper.

TechStars has a co-working model with parts very similar to YC. The key difference is that TS doesn’t have the Paul Graham approach to educating founders so you will get very different details depending on who is running the program. The character of the TS program can vary because it is so mentor driven and puts the onus on the startup to engage those mentors. There is a big plus to this approach as you are more likely to find a good fit in the large mentor pool for you and your company. TS also gives the startups a place to work where YC leaves them to find a house and work out of it.

After the program: Alumni network

The key value any incubator or accelerator provides after the program is the alumni network of companies that are now a few steps ahead (depending on the age of the incubator there could be alumni with very large companies) of the current cohort in the program. Over time these alumni are your best mentors and connectors.

It is at this phase where the greatest value is for the startup, I believe. You now have access to what the old folks call a big rolodex (social graph) that will open many doors which essentially leaves it up to the entrepreneur whether their company will succeed or not. There are few to no barriers, generally speaking.

Any alumni of YC or Techstars still have contact with the folks in their cohort and all cohorts along with Hacker News. Techstars Network is so big they have a conference just for alumni while YC taps its alumni for all kinds of things. Also, founders seems to find going through the program a second time is different but just as valuable. These massive networks of successful alumni with a flock of high profile admirers is very similar to that of Higher Education alumni networks, so much so it convinces me that this entire process is a form of higher education.

Programs that work copy YCombinator, even TechStars did

The current culture of education focused incubators started with YCombinator (started in 2005). I believe what we are seeing with the success of YC and TS is new take on graduate school. Both are different, both work, and people can have strong opinions either way. They feed a need that I don’t think people outside of incubators or startups fully understand yet, learning to be a founder is really hard. Being a successful founder is even harder. The bet is that if you help young founders focus on what is important they will see success earlier or just simply see what success looks like.

If you are looking at an incubator anywhere (there are lots of great programs out there) you need to understand that the money is secondary. You need to find a program that will fit with the way you learn and has companies that you want to work with. It is just like how you picked your University or College except this time it can cost you a lot more (in equity) if you are successful.

If 2012 is anything like 2011 for me I better get ready for a wild ride. The year started off with a pilgrimage to Lambeau Field to see the Packers defeat the Bears and enter the playoffs (thanks @tsand), then lots of good things:

• my third kid was born in time to watch the rematch of the Packers and the Bears on tv for the NFC championship (then they won the Superbowl!),
• my startup (TribeHR) went from a project to a business over a couple months then to a VC backed business ($1 Million) by mid-year,
• raised a $1 Million donation to the University of Waterloo’s VeloCity program from a 23 yr old in March with another $1 Million from the Ontario Centre’s of Excellence in July,
• the 3-pitch softball team I am on actually won a game and had a great season overall! go #abat!
• put a plan in motion for VeloCity’s workspace program to go from 1000 sq ft to 6700 sq ft (opens this winter),
• helped dozens of startups get off the ground,
• taught my son how to skate and decided to help coach with the hockey fundamentals program he is in which meant getting back on skates for the first time in a very long time,
• in November VeloCity was recognized with a Tech Impact Award from Communitech which is something I held as a big goal — building VeloCity into something that has a big impact on the local tech community is something I am very proud of,
• TribeHR was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2011 Junior Business Spirit Awards as well as earning Judge’s choice at Under the Radar in Mountain View,
• and finally my co-founder was on stage at the Canadian Innovation Exchange with TribeHR being one of Canada’s most Innovative companies.

None of the above list would have been possible without my family, the people in the community – startup and otherwise, and the amazing people I have had the pleasure to work with. Thank you all for the awesome year.

The oddest thing that happened was when a car leapt off of the road and tried to enter my dining room only to flip over and land on my friends Jeep. The pictures are just crazy.

A sad point was leaving the University of Waterloo after just over 10 years there (started there the end of May 2001 in the Information and Public Affairs department) and recognizing just how burned out the last year or so has left me. After all that time in one place (go back to 1997 if you count my student time with a short break working with small businesses and the web in 2000) it will likely be more difficult than I think it will to mentally break away from that identity but it is a healthy thing for me to do.

2011 was a year of learning, change, and growth… 2012 will be about my family and what to do with all the knowledge and experience I have gained personally and professionally. Specific goal of the year: be happy.

In closing… the fun part of having a blog for a long time is the old posts. A look back 5 years ago brings back a lot of good memories.

The 100+ employee company that is going to blow everyone away:

• Desire2Learn (D2L) – If you heard the story of D2L from John Baker you would have heard the howto in creating a great company. Lots of hard work, a little luck, and some bold moves gives this company the position it has today. Technology in education is a hot market and these folks are poised to take the leadership spot in a space where the leader, Blackboard, sold for $1.64 Billion in July of this year. D2L’s customer base growing by the day, they are poised to take over the leadership role with some great technology.

The 30-100 person company that is ready to take off:

• Well.ca – Guelph based ecommerce shop, Ali Asaria has built an amazing company with leading ecommerce technology behind it. These folks are going to drive ecommerce in Canada for some time to come but for 2012 they seem ready to make a big move.
• Enflick – Millions of users, really smart team, know how to grow revenue, and a $1Million raise.

The obvious ones that recently raised capital:

• Kik Interactive – Ted Livingston raised $8Million with Fred Wilson as one of the big investors… need I say much else?
• VidYard – Freshly back from Y-Combinator these folks announced a $1.65Million raise from Softech VC, YouTube Co-Founder Jawed Karim, YCombinator, SV Angel, Andreessen Horowitz, iNovia Capital, Gmail creator and FriendFeed founder Paul Buchheit, NV Investments’ Vivi Nevo, former RIM COO Dennis Kavelman, David Nikzad and others. Nicely done.
• TribeHR – Announced a $1 Million raise form Matrix partners in Boston with David Skok. This team will be making some serious waves in the HR space in 2012. Disclosure: I am a co-founder.
• Qwalify – Not sure they have raised anything outside of Angels yet but this is one of the smartest teams on this list with some awesome technology.

The lessor known but great companies in my mind:

• esentire - the coolest security company I know of.
• Miovision – they automate a lot of things around traffic monitoring building both the hardware and the software.
• 17 muscles – recently added Carol Leaman as CEO, fresh off the success at PostRank.

Scrappy upstarts with amazing teams:

• MappedIn - they have their stuff deployed at malls and a growing customer list, so much awesome here.
• Bookneto - the education technology space is hot, these folks are building amazing software to make the education experience better.
• BufferBox - annoyed with standing in the 1 hr + line at FedEx this holiday season? These folks fix that.
• TitanFile - keep stuff secure. Smart team from Halifax that are currently set up at the Communitech Hub.
• Willet - I have a soft spot for this team. They were one of the first companies to enter the VeloCity workspace and they are awesome people. Fresh off a term at FounderFuel, expect to hear lots from them in 2012.
• Lumos - Metrics and insights for your games. Watch for this team to find their place in 2012.
• Others?

This is by no means an exhaustive list for Waterloo but it is the list of the folks that are really stepping up their game going into 2012 as StartupNorth suggest we must. Who do you think belongs on here? Who did I miss?

Also, if you are just getting started or have been working for a bit and have something to show off… StartupCampWaterloo12 is January 18th, you should come out.

The idea of burnout is not something far from people’s minds as we enter the final push before the holidays. This is a stressful time of year where people joke about shopping or family fatigue. That makes burnout particularly newsworthy this month as well. For example:

• High levels of burnout in drone pilots
• Burnout in athletes mentioned more than once.
• Canadian Mounties in BC are burning themselves out
• Nurses and other medical professionals are showing signs of burnout
• Researcher takes on ‘empathy fatigue’ in the workplace

What makes the problem a very complicated one is that Doctors don’t think they can diagnose burnout. It could be the diversity in how burnout shows itself that leads to the inability to recognize it in themselves or others. Upon some self-reflection I believe I might have some personal experience to offer that may help others.

Recognizing burnout in myself

Over the last 4 months I have struggled to come to terms with why I was so unhappy given I have so many positive things in my life. In general I could see some odd things that I didn’t like about myself:

• I didn’t remember the last time I had a dream that I could remember. I was sleeping so badly that I don’t think I did dream.
• Short tempered.
• I didn’t take care of my house – I really use to enjoy working around the house, keeping the back yard clean, growing tomatoes, etc.
• I didn’t go fishing hardly at all last summer, I haven’t been snowboarding in years!
• I never felt like I was getting anything done even though I managed to attract some significant capital to the two projects close to my heart and see steady growth in both.
• I didn’t believe anyone thought what I was doing mattered or that anyone cared.
• Overall I was a grump.

I knew something was up in August of this year but I struggled to find a way to deal with it. My first thought was to just step back a little, look forward to bringing on some amazing new staff, and try to start a new term with a new attitude. What I failed to realize was that I was circling around the total burnout toilet bowl.

The first self-realization moment of things needing to change was when my son started hockey; he couldn’t skate and he didn’t want to learn. As a Canadian and a parent I felt like I failed my son as I didn’t take the time to teach him how to skate and have fun while doing it. I decided there and then to buy skates, helmet, and a stick. I then found any open ice time I could and took him out. My kids had to be more important than any work I felt I needed to do. The boy now loves hockey and the fun we have on Saturday mornings at the rink is something I truly cherish.

Around the same time something happened to a good friend and my co-founder (startup spouse): his wife gave birth to his son at 26 weeks in San Jose while on a business trip. At first it had an impact but then in mid-October I went down to see how they were doing and see if I could help. At that point nothing else mattered but the health of that tiny baby that was fighting to some day face burnout himself. He is doing really well now.

Those situations, along with my family and a number of conversations with people I deeply respect helped me start to realign my priorities and thinking. It wasn’t an instant fix. It is something I need to work on. I am lucky though, I didn’t collapse and hit a debilitating stage of burnout.

Looking back and times of high stress

In the last 10 years I can think of three different occasions when I was in a similar situation. The first time I started doing my Msc to find value and purpose in my work. The second time I had a very different kind of manager that recognized the signs early and did something about it. I also had a ton of positive re-enforcement from my family and the community to bounce back. This third time though, I let myself be isolated from coworkers and others for close to the last year. I thought that if I stopped doing the things I enjoyed but were time-consuming (like participating in the community) it would help, it didn’t. It made it far worse.

Next time (and there could be a next time although I am going to put more effort in to avoid it), I need to keep my perspective and make sure I find joy in what I am doing. I also need to take more time for the people in both my personal and professional life. Throwing myself at my work does result in achieving amazing things but at the same time, balance is needed in order to enjoy those accomplishments.

In trying to understand burnout my message to entrepreneurs is that you need to recognize when your behaviour or attitude changes. No one is immune to it and just because you haven’t hit physical exhaustion yet you might be reaching the point of mental exhaustion. Encourage feedback from your friends and family just like you would from customers or advisors on your startup. Listen, adjust based on the feedback, and grow.

Further reading

How to avoid or deal with burnout, collection of articles that are worth a read.

The Kitchener Conestoga Rotary Club believes every family should have a special Christmas Dinner, including a turkey. Five years ago, the Club decided to help make that a reality and has since raised $732,000 in support House of Friendship’s Christmas Hamper Program, which shares the gift of food with local families in need at Christmas time.

What are the facts?

This Christmas, House of Friendship anticipates the need for turkeys and Christmas Hampers will increase – that means 3,500 turkeys and 4,000 food hampers to feed over 10,000 people!

What will that cost?

The Kitchener Conestoga Rotary Club’s 2011 Turkey Drive goal is $275,000 to purchase turkeys and food products. We know this is a big goal, but we believe if we all pitch in a little, we will reach this goal, and more importantly reach thousands of local families. For as little as $20 you can sponsor a turkey. Or you may choose to sponsor a food hamper with a turkey for $80. All donations over $20 will receive an official income tax receipt. How many turkeys and hampers will you sponsor?

How can YOU help?

You can sponsor turkeys and food hampers rather than Christmas or corporate gifts; honour your clients with a donation to the Turkey Drive. Sponsor turkeys and food hampers and encourage your family and friends to do the same. Better yet, ask them to volunteer with you to pack or deliver hampers and turkeys.

How can I talk turkey?

Donate securely online at www.turkeydrive.ca or drop me an email to jrodgers at uwaterloo.ca.