I know it's easy to view perks as window dressing, but some of the things offered by TechStars are game changers for a business's tech teams, particularly in the early stage.
Granted, these perks do eventually go away and you have to have ample business justification for technology costs. But at the outset it's a godsend to know your business has the financial headroom to address any early technical challenge.
Benefits like web hosting / services credits allow all that financial hassle to get out of the way in the early game so you can just focus on delivering the best product possible.
List them. If you are going to use words such as 'game changers', you should explain what the perks are.
> Benefits like web hosting / services credits allow all that financial hassle to get out of the way
For most early stage startups, hosting costs represent extremely low % of expenses. Let's just call this what it is.. cheap way to lock start-ups in your infrastructure.
Same as investing.. give them a year worth of 'funding' and hope they become a massive paying customer.
They're linked in the parent to my original reply.
> Let's just call this what it is.. cheap way to lock start-ups in your infrastructure
Whose infrastructure? Perks come from Amazon, Microsoft, Softlayer, Rackspace, Digital Ocean, and others. That's a pretty wide swath of hosting providers, but I guess if you want to run your business from a couple of boxes under your desk, you're on your own.
> For most early stage startups, hosting costs represent extremely low % of expenses.
Cost is relative. $5k/mo for a year (citing the BizSpark Plus credit directly here) can make a big difference early on when you're pre-revenue. In the case of TechStars, this is particularly true if you decide not to take the convertible note.
> They're linked in the parent to my original reply.
Okay how are they a game changers? How did they impact you?
> That's a pretty wide swath of hosting providers
They are still trying to do the same thing I described. It's a marketing play.
> If you want to run your business from a couple of boxes under your desk.
Been there, done that. Things were different ten years ago. Now you can get a VPS for a price of coffee.
> Cost is relative. $5k/mo for a year (citing the BizSpark Plus credit directly here)
It's $5K a month for a reason. They either have no traction or most start ups will never hit that limit or even come close to that price tag within the first year.
Sure there are exceptions, but if you are really pushing $5K /month on BizSpark at an early stage you should step back and figure out where you are now and where you want to be in a year after that credit runs out.
I hope there's no one in this thread naive enough to think otherwise. Of course it's a marketing play. That doesn't mean it can't benefit you.
Your initial point concerned vendor lock in and how this was a cheap way for companies to impose it. My response to that was "lock in to whom?" due to the diverse hosting providers on offer. Granted no mom and pop VPS provider is amongst the perk list (to my knowledge), but you have a several serious options to choose from.
In terms of my company the perks provided did anything but impose vendor lock in. I put parts of my infrastructure where it made the most sense for our business. This actually ended up being multiple providers amongst the list of those offering perks. If anything the benefits on offer from TechStars (and YES other accelerators that join these incentive programs) led to a more diverse and robust infrastructure setup which I hope will benefit us more in the long run.
But yes, fine, I acknowledged in another response lower down on this page that I should have qualified my original statement. The perks on offer were a game changer for my business because it gave us the freedom to choose providers and technologies that made the most sense for the product. For us this was crucial at an early stage and benefitted us immensely. I would assume our company was not necessarily unique in this regard, but perhaps I'm wrong.
In either case, who cares? You either were or weren't going to join TechStars or some other accelerator because the accelerator's terms made sense for your business when weighed against the benefits. Perks are just that...perks. Not fundamental lynchpins upon which you hope to run your business. My only initial argument was these perks are substantive and helpful, and shouldn't be dismissed outright. Apologies if that initial argument was not well-formed enough to get that point across to you effectively.
> but some of the things offered by TechStars are game changers
You're really going to need to elaborate on this. Some of those perks (maybe even all of them) are not things TechStars paid for.. they're things that other companies chose to give away to startups in an accelerator (of which TechStars is one).
I really don't understand why I should give TechStars kudos because they slapped Amazon's logo on a page and a short blurb about a program that Amazon has for startups.
This is a serious question: if Amazon (and Microsoft, SoftLayer, Paypal, and others) setup a program for startups, give the services to startups, and pay for those services from their own pockets... What did TechStars do to earn a share of the credit for those programs?
> Some of those perks (maybe even all of them) are not things TechStars paid for.. they're things that other companies chose to give away to startups in an accelerator (of which TechStars is one).
Of course they aren't. Many are conditional against being enrolled in an accelerator. However, like I said in a previous post, the linked article relates to turning down TechStars. Full stop. Not turning down TechStars for some other accelerator that offers many of the same perks.
> This is a serious question: if Amazon (and Microsoft, SoftLayer, Paypal, and others) setup a program for startups, give the services to startups, and pay for those services from their own pockets... What did TechStars do to earn a share of the credit for those programs?
They were a participating accelerator in that program, that's all (to my limited knowledge).
In relation to these perks being "game changers" it isn't about TechStars having better perks than Accelerator X, it's about TechStars allowing me access to benefits I didn't have before joining an accelerator that ended up being enormously helpful to my startup.
The "game changer" in my company's case was the peace of mind that comes from knowing that for a full year we can shave at least $5k/mo (once again quoting the BizSpark credit here for convenience) off of our operating expenses. That's a technology hire for us in the city where we are based. So, for us, it means a lot.
I apologize because I obviously colored my original statement through the lens of my company's own experience.
This statement:
> but some of the things offered by TechStars are game changers
should have been qualified by stating that it was coming from personal perspective. So, in the short term, these perks meant a lot to the technological freedom of my company based on our technology needs and the other places we could put those savings to work based on our business needs at the time. For my business, the perks made a difference and were a big help early on, they may not do anything for your business or others.
Granted, these perks do eventually go away and you have to have ample business justification for technology costs. But at the outset it's a godsend to know your business has the financial headroom to address any early technical challenge.
Benefits like web hosting / services credits allow all that financial hassle to get out of the way in the early game so you can just focus on delivering the best product possible.