Old VC new moves: Incubator, in the name of the university

DFJ Investment founder Tim Draper Li Songpo Tim Draper is a legendary founder of the venture capital industry, DFJ investment. The audience who had experienced his speech must have been impressed by the fact that he almost always took an entrepreneur in unison to sing "disorientated Master". Tim has always had the courage to try new things, and his Draper University opened in 2013, facing young entrepreneurs, four courses a year, 6-8 weeks each--like the university? And only the 18-26-year-old trainees, the most early location of the incubator. But the most successful early business incubator was y-combinator, after which many investors either went directly to institutional angel investment or were actively working with a well-run incubator to start a project. If you start a business, why choose an incubator over VC? Or what kind of project does the incubator fit? Generally speaking, VC search has crossed the Death Valley, will soon be able to increase the rapid growth of the project, requiring a complete team, the CEO has considerable experience in the business, investors through the board to intervene in the management of the company; The incubator welcomes crazy ideas, and even without the development of the product, the team can be one or two. Focus on intensive development, investors every week or even daily collision with entrepreneurs to accelerate the launch of the product. The management partners of the incubator have many years of industry experience, even have more than a decade of products and technical experience, there is no lack of business cooperation network and capital docking capacity. The biggest value of incubator is not money, but hands-on help entrepreneurs plan their products and operations, avoid major mistakes, make detours, and quickly launch quality products and quickly iterate. Mature cloud computing services are also objectively providing entrepreneurs with the possibility of small capital ventures. Their fund single investment is generally around 200,000 dollars, if your entrepreneurial ideas meet the following conditions, may wish to consider the choice of incubator fund. 1, VC said to you too early, 2, VC questioned "your ideas have been successful?" 3, do not need a large amount of capital investment, such as large-scale ground promotion, 4, facing a new market segment, the competition is not fierce. For example, in micro-bo, micro-letter to find a job, 5, willing to listen to the advice of an experienced, 6, only products and technology, lack of market and sales. The vast majority of incubators have a high demand for entrepreneurs, at least not novices. But Draper University has a minimum age of 18, almost a freshman, with no hard barriers, except age. In addition, they seem to have an extra interest in Chinese entrepreneurs, and Andy (Tangzhong) of the team speaks Standard Mandarin and understands China. Such a special "university", I do not know as a veteran VC Draper, but also in the incubator industry how to create legends.