Internet Business Productivity

But maybe you're right, maybe the failure rate of too-young startups was just too high and the organizers didn't want to waste their time on guys who "appeared to be good" and work on something "tangible" instead?

After all, I don't remember any of the first-round Seedcamp finalists who have made it big, and most of them where PPT-stage startups...

This also means that they'll be increasingly more students or post graduates who will risk and go the startup route instead of going for a J.O.B. and later submit their half-baked startups to Ycombinator or Seedcamp to really prove themselves. Just hope they'll get their chance...

Then again more Ycombinator-like competitions are being created throughout US and Europe... and this is a good thing too (supply and demand :-)

In my oppinion anything which produce another user-generated stuff is following historical concepts, there are a lot of crapy content over Internet.

That's way codility won seedcamp - they found niche not for another UGC but for analysis od data which produce needed output. If there are customers for that output, the Codility will win.

The problem that founder of a startup is having... and he wants to solve it his way. This is what Jason Fried did with Basecamp, what Alexis Ohanian did with Reddit and what many successful startups owners did to create something great. Hell, this is what I did with Nozbe - my way of a GTD app.

Doing a copycat startup for money and fame should not be a way to go. Doing a social app for the sake of it being social is also a no-no.

I like what 37signals are saying - do something useful. Useful is always good... and is useful for people :-)

Maybe we really don't know how to do Seedcamps in Europe? So maybe ultimately my point is right and Y-Combinator is just better? Reddit, Posterous, Dropbox... have been founded by relatively inexperienced guys who were looking for seed round... not "additional" round.

Just as you noticed - how can you participate in a "seed"-kind like competition in Europe with a new startup (even if you already have a demo) if you know that relatively big and already founded startups are your competition and they'll win - you have no fighting chance (or a zero-to-none).

My take - competitions like these are for investors... European investors... and we know very well that European investors don't want to invest in innovation but in proven model (copycat from the US) or proven business (with first rounds of funding - knowing someone has taken the initial risk first)... Maybe they should be called "investor-camp" and not seedcamp? Or "vc-camp"? :-)

Good comment flow guys, nice discussion :-)

We are seeing great first time entrepreneurs with awesome businesses, having unique ideas and developing them without external help to the first revenues and good customer bases. Yes, they are more than ppt teams - but they made it on their own, not with large investments up front.

Oh, and about that Vienna thing - we had nothing to do with it, they seemed to have used the name "seedcamp" without our knowledge or agreement. That adds a lot of confusion - no 800k in any of our startups before they came to Seedcamp.

I hope we haven't "lost it" - I'd be happy to discuss the whole topic in more detail as well :)

I think it's the job of SC or YC to find out what "seed" really means. I think SC and YC should really define what do they want to support and what not. PPT presentation is not enough and I totally get that, but supporting companies who are longer on the market with substantial funding is not something that inspires entrepreneurs either. Anyway, same shady thing happened at LeWeb that the startups that "launched" were real companies that launched many months (if not years) ago...

The only thing I care about is that initiatives like SC or YC should really work hard to define and focus on young entrepreneurs with really good early-stage startups who have something which is good, but needs support to make it big. The "early stage" thing needs definition here I guess.

As long as you keep working on stimulating young entrepreneurs who have good ideas and are trying to execute these, but need a push, then you haven't "lost it" :-) Just remember your mission :-)

Thanks for your comment Philipp and for your perspective. I'm flattered you cared to chime in and let me wich you a Merry Christmas and great successes for Seedcamp companies in 2011.

Thing is, from an outsiders perspective, seedcamp has almost NO exposure to the outside world. I've had Ycombinator stuff being pushed to me from about a month into my discovery of the startup world whereas I am yet to come across seedcamp. Who are the seedcamp alumni anyway? Shouldn't there be a strong presence from them to get the startups rolling? What was the biggest news you heard from Ycombinator last time? It was the whole "each startup will receive 150k in no strings attached funding".

What did I last hear from/about seedcamp before this blog post. I honestly don't remember. Ask me to list down some seedcamp startup names and I'll give you a blank look. It's not that I don't want to know it's just that with me following so many tech resources I'll take only what comes my way. This probably means that seedcamp has a lot more internal exposure than out. Which isn't good. Ycombinator startups can become known worldwide really fast (even if not everyone knows where they came from). What startup from seedcamp is out there becoming known like that? I don't know. Exposure. Lacking. Big time!

Second point is. I got a chance to talk to one of the co founders of just spotted (he is Sri Lankan) and he told me that they packed up and left London to go to Silicon Valley simply because the attitude for funding rounds just didn't cut it. There didn't seem to be a huge amount of positivity towards high risk industry disruption.
In contrast (this has nothing to do with YC or SC actually) Path which is essentially a copy of picplz and instagram with a "feature" of only 50 followers recently secured 8.5 M dollars. Seriously? I'm fairly sure there are a LOT of London based startups that could split that money and make a name for their selves with it. Maybe that's what is missing. Take the startups that go big. When did you last read in the news that a company managed to grab big bucks on their last funding round? Do you think Twitter, which had NO business model or even an inkling of an idea of a business model when it started would have gotten far in London?

I'm not bashing anyone or any community. This is just how I see it from a real third party seat. cheers :)