How do I apply to 500 Startups?
9 Answers
Views • Upvoted by Dave McClure, I run http://500startups.com, a seed fund and incubator / accelerator program. Previously I've work… and Antone Johnson, Work with entrepreneurs every day
Most Viewed Writer in 500 Startups
Here's our story on how we did it:
Since joining the current 500 Startups class, a lot of people have been asking me how we‘got in’. I usually chuckle, replying “brute force”. While that’s the general truth, it lacks the majority of the details. Following is a much more in-depth account of what really went down:
The Beginning - (April 19th - April 23rd)
It began in mid April. I attended a Girls in Tech event: A Fireside Chat with Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley on April 19th. It had only been a few days since my networking epiphany and I was seeing events like these with a new perspective. I was disappointed with the lack of fellow entrepreneurs at the event when I suddenly ran into an acquaintance.
Jonathan Howard intriguingly greeted me, asking what brought me to the event. I explained to him how I founded Kibin back in September 2010 and had just recently launched.
We got to talking and he asked if I had considered an accelerator program. I explained how we had just decided that 500 Startups seemed to be an ideal fit for us, but I had yet to start with the mystical application process. Jon told me he knew a friend that had just been through the first class and agreed to put us in touch. Not only is Jon an extremely talented developer atLolapps, but he’s a man quick to fulfill his word. He connected Van Nguyen, of SpoonDate, and me that night via email.
As luck would have it, I had met Jeff Evans of MindSnacks during an Educational Technology mixer at the Stanford Campus. He agreed to grab lunch with me the coming week so I could pick his brain about his fundraising process. I had no idea when I first met him, but Jeff was part of the 500 Startups family and was able to offer some insight into the “application process” over lunch on April 22nd. He also agreed to ‘vouch’ for me.
The First Push - (April 24th - 27th)
Van and I scheduled a lunch for April 25th. He was the one that would become responsible for planting the seed that began what would be a month long, roller-coaster, hustler type effort that few could endure. He told me how some companies had been able to get Dave McClure’s attention via stunts. There was mention of someone icing Dave and a couple other things. Once Van told me about Dave’s affinity for Angry Birds, I immediately had an idea.
My girlfriend had slaved for a couple days making Angry Birds costumes for our themed Bay to Breakers debauchery. I sent out a mass email to my friends, explaining what I was planning and asked them all to re-tweet something for me. It was planned to go down the next day, April 26th at 10:00am:
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It linked to the following image:
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It worked! Dave replied and started following Kibin on Twitter (product). Translation: let the Direct Messages begin!
I asked Dave if we could drop by the office and maybe grab a few minutes to chat. The plan was to go crash the design event that was allegedly happening on Saturday. He replied saying he was headed to Brazil for GOAP and I was left knowing that the next class was being finalized as the clock ticked away.
Turns out, I learned the office was a ghost town as everyone headed to South America, was out raising money, or just taking a breather. The design event was postponed so my co-founder, Jim Nguyen, and I stayed put.
But I wasn’t about to give up that easily. I figured I could potentially nab someone before they got on the plane. There was still one more day before they were scheduled to leave.
A friend of mine had seen my tweet and told me she is pals with Enrique Allen who is one of the founders at 500 Startups. She shot him an email introducing us on April 27th. I replied and gave him a quick summary of what we’re doing with Kibin, but I never heard from Enrique and he up and left with the rest of the GOAP group.
At this point, I wasn’t sure what to do...
I was zoning out, hanging at pariSoma when I overheard conversation about 500Startups. A few guys were mingling around me. They had just returned from a meeting in Mountain View where they were offered a spot in the next 500 class. I chatted with them a bit and they said it sounded like things were being finalized pretty soon. My stomach sank. I knew our time was limited at best. With Dave and most of the team out of town, I really wasn’t sure what I could do.
Back at my computer, I noticed Mark Suster on gchat. He had been tweeting about being in the 500 Startups space earlier that day and I thought I’d see if he could help at all. No, my connection to Mark did not come easy. I had been pinging him since November, 2010 and even wrote up one of his interviews for his weekly This Week in Venture Capital (about a 4 hour task). We had a phone conversation a few weeks prior and he had introduced me to Rob Angarita of Cramster. Basically, it took me a long time to build a relationship with Mark, but he thinks we’ve got an awesome thing going with Kibin and replies to my emails when he can. Mark agreed to shoot an email to Dave and Christine Tsai, suggesting us for the upcoming class.
But I knew I had to keep moving and as I sat pondering my next move, Van suggested that I talk with Hong Quan, a well-respected mentor at 500Startups. Hong and I connected over Twitter, and then gchat. He agreed to chat further with us and I was able to push for a meeting the very next day.
Our First Visit - (April 28th)
I hopped the CalTrain and arrived at Red Rock Café in Mountain View, not knowing what to expect. As I sat waiting, I dropped Van a note on gchat. He told me Hong was hanging out in the office and we should just “drop in”. Jim and I packed our things and headed down the street to 500 Startups.
Hong is a sharp guy. He gave us some good advice, but an even better poker face. I left the meeting feeling a little like I had been hit by a bus that had at least a few seconds to slam on the brakes (we were able to crawl away). In a nutshell, Hong made it sound like we weren’t ready for 500. Jim and I walked a few blocks down Castro street in utter dismay.
Suddenly, my phone lit up with a DM on Twitter. It was Van. He was wondering why we’d left and suggested we come back and hack for awhile... try to see if we could meet with Christine. Jim and I trekked back up to the 500 office. Van showed us where we could sit and hang out and said he’d check in on us.
A few minutes later, I saw Christine and Van across the room, whispering and pointing in our direction. Christine didn’t look like she had time to talk to us, but I had made it obvious I noticed them (I think I waived) and she approached us. We spent the next 20 minutes informally pitching Kibin and demoing the site. She had one concern regarding Crocodoc and potential overlap with our businesses. But I had previously chatted with one of their founders, Ryan Damico, via email and we aren’t at all competitors. Christine told us that she’d chat with “the rest of the team” and be in touch.
So, at this point we had Jeff, Van, and Mark all sort of vouching for us. Hong had given us some tough love, but apparently he was pulling for us too. Remember, just weeks prior I didn’t know anyone in the 500 family. Not bad.
Jim and I left relatively excited and felt like our odds of getting in were pretty good now. It was a pretty crazy day. We went from being excited about our meeting with Hong to feeling pretty terrible, and then back to being excited again, all in the span of a couple hours.
As I commuted back to San Francisco, I sent an email to Christine thanking her for chatting with us. She replied “nice meeting you”, but that was all. I also emailed Ryan to take initiative in squashing any concern regarding competition, but never heard back from him.
Too Quiet - (April 29th - May 10th)
Six days went by without word. I thought we’d have heard something by then so I sent Christine a follow-up email and it took a few days before I heard anything back. She replied with a “we’ll be in touch soon” type note.
I didn’t really know what to do now. Were we being considered for the next batch? No clue. I decided to be patient for a bit and wait to hear back from her. In hindsight, this is always a bad idea. When someone is making a critical decision like this and it involves you, never sit around waiting.
Done Deal? - (May 11th - 15th)
I was continuously consulting with Van. He would let me know if he heard any internal whispers regarding the timing of the next class. Turns out, they were due to come in “this and next week”. I hit panic mode again and started stressing out. I tried talking to Hong, but he wasn’t giving any information. So I decided to drop Dave a DM again. To my surprise, he replied within an hour with his cell phone number, telling me to drop him a call “tomorrow”.
Bam! It was on. I quickly notified Jim I’d be coming down to Mountain View the next day (May 12th). The plan was to call Dave and be accessible so we could rush over and hopefully get a meeting. We were pumped and figured this could only mean good things.
But things did not go nearly as I had planned. I had called Dave McClure around 10:00am and got his voice mail. I left a message and waited about an hour and a half. No response. I proceeded to drop him a text and received a rather quick reply.
Dave was “slammed” and didn’t have time to meet or even chat. He told us to ping him “tomorrow”. Worse yet, this text conversation told me one huge thing: Christine Tsai hadn’t even mentioned us to Dave. Dave asked if we had sent a summary over yet. Why yes, in fact we met with Christine weeks ago! As I said before: don’t be patient, don’t wait, always be doing something.
Distraught yet again, I packed up and went home. As I rode the train, I knew it was time to take action. I decided I’d nicely call Christine out via email for not speaking with Dave about us at all yet and I made a point in copying Dave on the email. She replied within hours, introducing us to Paul Singh, another 500 Startups mentor who was coming on to help run things. Paul was also quick to chime in and we were able to schedule a time to chat for the very next day, May 13th. I was excited and optimistic once again.
The conversation with Paul went extremely well. He had one concern, but admitted it wasn’t anything that would be a potential deal breaker. Paul even had a bit of Freudian slip when he said we’d “be seeing him in the office a lot”. We hung up the phone after 45 minutes with Paul notifying us he’d chat with Christine and we’d be hearing from her shortly (either that day or in the next few).
We were pretty stoked and more optimistic than ever. However, learning my lesson from the last time I was told “you’ll hear soon”, I texted Dave since we were supposed to have our second attempt at a phone chat that day. He got back to me a few hours later, wanting to chat in 30 minutes (about 8:30pm). Luckily, I was home working on a Friday night rather than out having fun. We chatted for a while and I gave him the low-down on what we’ve been doing, why 500 Startups makes perfect sense for us, etc.
Dave started talking about “options”. He said, maybe we could work out of the office for awhile without an investment. Maybe a future class would make more sense. I continued to listen, but it wasn’t what I was hoping to hear. The only option I wanted was to enter the next 500 class and be treated as such.
Dave wanted us to find a few more mentors that would be good to speak with about Kibin. The idea was these people would better understand our business and be able to give us a thumbs up. He was obviously driving and couldn’t think of anyone ideal off-hand. His last bit of advice was something along the lines of “just keep being persistent without being annoying”.
I spent the rest of the night in attack mode. I stalked 500 Startup mentors on LinkedIn, trying to find some good ones to speak with. I sent an email to Rob Angarita, asking if he knew anyone in the mentor list. I sent Mark Suster another email asking if he could put in yet another good word for us. I went to the Crocodoc website and got on their live chat support. As luck would have it, Ryan Damico answered. I wanted to make sure he didn’t have any qualms about us coming into the 500 Startup family since I never heard from him in my previous email. We scheduled a time to talk on Saturday. I was doing everything I could once again.
I woke up to an email from Mark Suster saying he sent a strong endorsement for us. I chatted with Ryan Damico later that day and he assured me that he had no problems with us entering the class. Christine Tsai had apparently already spoken with him, so that loose end was already tied. I also emailed Dave and Christine with the list of mentors I thought would be good for us to talk with.
Later that night I received an email from Paul Singh titled, “Kibin next steps”. It offered us a spot in the 500 Startups program for 30 days without investment. It was a trial period. If we achieved a handful of milestones we’d be considered for the program full-time. It was clear that we’d be treated like everyone else except for the investment and any press releases about the class.
Jim and I showed up at the 500 Startups office just two days later on May 18th. The program officially started on the 23rd, but we were staking our claim on desks.
The following week, once the program officially started, we began working our asses off. We went through the design boot-camp, several office hours sessions, meetings with mentors, and began redesigning our entire user experience. We made more progress in the next week and half than we had in the last two months.
Before we had even been there two full weeks, we sat down with Paul for what was ostensibly a routine office hours meeting. But it wasn’t routine at all. Paul told us that we’d been making so much progress that they wanted to move forward with us rather than waiting the full 30 days. We were stoked to officially be part of the program.
So, have we slowed down or started working less since our official acceptance to the program? Quite the contrary. Even though the papers are signed and the wires are hitting our bank account, we’re moving as fast as ever and just released a complete overhaul to our UI/UX. I’ve been sleeping even more nights in the office and we’re pushing harder than ever.
The amount of significance I placed on getting us into 500 Startups may seem excessive, or even trivial to some. But it was one of those decisions that simply felt right. Its tough to explain the instinctual feeling I often experience in my decision making process. Without it, I find myself hesitant to move forward, knowing something doesn’t quite ‘feel right’. But when I do find that feeling, I’ll stop at nothing until I either satisfy it or prove it wrong. Its very rarely the latter.
I also understand how difficult it is to convey the mental anguish I experienced throughout this process. In a sort of masochistic way, I enjoy the extreme highs and lows that seem increasingly more common as we continue to show more and more progress in this journey. There’s nothing like the highs, but they’re so quickly taken for granted that you learn there’s nothing like the lows to motivate and teach you to appreciate the few highs you’ll experience.
So was it worth it? 500 Startups has more than exceeded my expectations. I can’t begin to imagine what we’d be doing if we weren’t in the program. But I’ll leave it at that in fear of spoiling the details for those of you still planning to see the show.
Since joining the current 500 Startups class, a lot of people have been asking me how we‘got in’. I usually chuckle, replying “brute force”. While that’s the general truth, it lacks the majority of the details. Following is a much more in-depth account of what really went down:
The Beginning - (April 19th - April 23rd)
It began in mid April. I attended a Girls in Tech event: A Fireside Chat with Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley on April 19th. It had only been a few days since my networking epiphany and I was seeing events like these with a new perspective. I was disappointed with the lack of fellow entrepreneurs at the event when I suddenly ran into an acquaintance.
Jonathan Howard intriguingly greeted me, asking what brought me to the event. I explained to him how I founded Kibin back in September 2010 and had just recently launched.
We got to talking and he asked if I had considered an accelerator program. I explained how we had just decided that 500 Startups seemed to be an ideal fit for us, but I had yet to start with the mystical application process. Jon told me he knew a friend that had just been through the first class and agreed to put us in touch. Not only is Jon an extremely talented developer atLolapps, but he’s a man quick to fulfill his word. He connected Van Nguyen, of SpoonDate, and me that night via email.
As luck would have it, I had met Jeff Evans of MindSnacks during an Educational Technology mixer at the Stanford Campus. He agreed to grab lunch with me the coming week so I could pick his brain about his fundraising process. I had no idea when I first met him, but Jeff was part of the 500 Startups family and was able to offer some insight into the “application process” over lunch on April 22nd. He also agreed to ‘vouch’ for me.
The First Push - (April 24th - 27th)
Van and I scheduled a lunch for April 25th. He was the one that would become responsible for planting the seed that began what would be a month long, roller-coaster, hustler type effort that few could endure. He told me how some companies had been able to get Dave McClure’s attention via stunts. There was mention of someone icing Dave and a couple other things. Once Van told me about Dave’s affinity for Angry Birds, I immediately had an idea.
My girlfriend had slaved for a couple days making Angry Birds costumes for our themed Bay to Breakers debauchery. I sent out a mass email to my friends, explaining what I was planning and asked them all to re-tweet something for me. It was planned to go down the next day, April 26th at 10:00am:
It linked to the following image:
It worked! Dave replied and started following Kibin on Twitter (product). Translation: let the Direct Messages begin!
I asked Dave if we could drop by the office and maybe grab a few minutes to chat. The plan was to go crash the design event that was allegedly happening on Saturday. He replied saying he was headed to Brazil for GOAP and I was left knowing that the next class was being finalized as the clock ticked away.
Turns out, I learned the office was a ghost town as everyone headed to South America, was out raising money, or just taking a breather. The design event was postponed so my co-founder, Jim Nguyen, and I stayed put.
But I wasn’t about to give up that easily. I figured I could potentially nab someone before they got on the plane. There was still one more day before they were scheduled to leave.
A friend of mine had seen my tweet and told me she is pals with Enrique Allen who is one of the founders at 500 Startups. She shot him an email introducing us on April 27th. I replied and gave him a quick summary of what we’re doing with Kibin, but I never heard from Enrique and he up and left with the rest of the GOAP group.
At this point, I wasn’t sure what to do...
I was zoning out, hanging at pariSoma when I overheard conversation about 500Startups. A few guys were mingling around me. They had just returned from a meeting in Mountain View where they were offered a spot in the next 500 class. I chatted with them a bit and they said it sounded like things were being finalized pretty soon. My stomach sank. I knew our time was limited at best. With Dave and most of the team out of town, I really wasn’t sure what I could do.
Back at my computer, I noticed Mark Suster on gchat. He had been tweeting about being in the 500 Startups space earlier that day and I thought I’d see if he could help at all. No, my connection to Mark did not come easy. I had been pinging him since November, 2010 and even wrote up one of his interviews for his weekly This Week in Venture Capital (about a 4 hour task). We had a phone conversation a few weeks prior and he had introduced me to Rob Angarita of Cramster. Basically, it took me a long time to build a relationship with Mark, but he thinks we’ve got an awesome thing going with Kibin and replies to my emails when he can. Mark agreed to shoot an email to Dave and Christine Tsai, suggesting us for the upcoming class.
But I knew I had to keep moving and as I sat pondering my next move, Van suggested that I talk with Hong Quan, a well-respected mentor at 500Startups. Hong and I connected over Twitter, and then gchat. He agreed to chat further with us and I was able to push for a meeting the very next day.
Our First Visit - (April 28th)
I hopped the CalTrain and arrived at Red Rock Café in Mountain View, not knowing what to expect. As I sat waiting, I dropped Van a note on gchat. He told me Hong was hanging out in the office and we should just “drop in”. Jim and I packed our things and headed down the street to 500 Startups.
Hong is a sharp guy. He gave us some good advice, but an even better poker face. I left the meeting feeling a little like I had been hit by a bus that had at least a few seconds to slam on the brakes (we were able to crawl away). In a nutshell, Hong made it sound like we weren’t ready for 500. Jim and I walked a few blocks down Castro street in utter dismay.
Suddenly, my phone lit up with a DM on Twitter. It was Van. He was wondering why we’d left and suggested we come back and hack for awhile... try to see if we could meet with Christine. Jim and I trekked back up to the 500 office. Van showed us where we could sit and hang out and said he’d check in on us.
A few minutes later, I saw Christine and Van across the room, whispering and pointing in our direction. Christine didn’t look like she had time to talk to us, but I had made it obvious I noticed them (I think I waived) and she approached us. We spent the next 20 minutes informally pitching Kibin and demoing the site. She had one concern regarding Crocodoc and potential overlap with our businesses. But I had previously chatted with one of their founders, Ryan Damico, via email and we aren’t at all competitors. Christine told us that she’d chat with “the rest of the team” and be in touch.
So, at this point we had Jeff, Van, and Mark all sort of vouching for us. Hong had given us some tough love, but apparently he was pulling for us too. Remember, just weeks prior I didn’t know anyone in the 500 family. Not bad.
Jim and I left relatively excited and felt like our odds of getting in were pretty good now. It was a pretty crazy day. We went from being excited about our meeting with Hong to feeling pretty terrible, and then back to being excited again, all in the span of a couple hours.
As I commuted back to San Francisco, I sent an email to Christine thanking her for chatting with us. She replied “nice meeting you”, but that was all. I also emailed Ryan to take initiative in squashing any concern regarding competition, but never heard back from him.
Too Quiet - (April 29th - May 10th)
Six days went by without word. I thought we’d have heard something by then so I sent Christine a follow-up email and it took a few days before I heard anything back. She replied with a “we’ll be in touch soon” type note.
I didn’t really know what to do now. Were we being considered for the next batch? No clue. I decided to be patient for a bit and wait to hear back from her. In hindsight, this is always a bad idea. When someone is making a critical decision like this and it involves you, never sit around waiting.
Done Deal? - (May 11th - 15th)
I was continuously consulting with Van. He would let me know if he heard any internal whispers regarding the timing of the next class. Turns out, they were due to come in “this and next week”. I hit panic mode again and started stressing out. I tried talking to Hong, but he wasn’t giving any information. So I decided to drop Dave a DM again. To my surprise, he replied within an hour with his cell phone number, telling me to drop him a call “tomorrow”.
Bam! It was on. I quickly notified Jim I’d be coming down to Mountain View the next day (May 12th). The plan was to call Dave and be accessible so we could rush over and hopefully get a meeting. We were pumped and figured this could only mean good things.
But things did not go nearly as I had planned. I had called Dave McClure around 10:00am and got his voice mail. I left a message and waited about an hour and a half. No response. I proceeded to drop him a text and received a rather quick reply.
Dave was “slammed” and didn’t have time to meet or even chat. He told us to ping him “tomorrow”. Worse yet, this text conversation told me one huge thing: Christine Tsai hadn’t even mentioned us to Dave. Dave asked if we had sent a summary over yet. Why yes, in fact we met with Christine weeks ago! As I said before: don’t be patient, don’t wait, always be doing something.
Distraught yet again, I packed up and went home. As I rode the train, I knew it was time to take action. I decided I’d nicely call Christine out via email for not speaking with Dave about us at all yet and I made a point in copying Dave on the email. She replied within hours, introducing us to Paul Singh, another 500 Startups mentor who was coming on to help run things. Paul was also quick to chime in and we were able to schedule a time to chat for the very next day, May 13th. I was excited and optimistic once again.
The conversation with Paul went extremely well. He had one concern, but admitted it wasn’t anything that would be a potential deal breaker. Paul even had a bit of Freudian slip when he said we’d “be seeing him in the office a lot”. We hung up the phone after 45 minutes with Paul notifying us he’d chat with Christine and we’d be hearing from her shortly (either that day or in the next few).
We were pretty stoked and more optimistic than ever. However, learning my lesson from the last time I was told “you’ll hear soon”, I texted Dave since we were supposed to have our second attempt at a phone chat that day. He got back to me a few hours later, wanting to chat in 30 minutes (about 8:30pm). Luckily, I was home working on a Friday night rather than out having fun. We chatted for a while and I gave him the low-down on what we’ve been doing, why 500 Startups makes perfect sense for us, etc.
Dave started talking about “options”. He said, maybe we could work out of the office for awhile without an investment. Maybe a future class would make more sense. I continued to listen, but it wasn’t what I was hoping to hear. The only option I wanted was to enter the next 500 class and be treated as such.
Dave wanted us to find a few more mentors that would be good to speak with about Kibin. The idea was these people would better understand our business and be able to give us a thumbs up. He was obviously driving and couldn’t think of anyone ideal off-hand. His last bit of advice was something along the lines of “just keep being persistent without being annoying”.
I spent the rest of the night in attack mode. I stalked 500 Startup mentors on LinkedIn, trying to find some good ones to speak with. I sent an email to Rob Angarita, asking if he knew anyone in the mentor list. I sent Mark Suster another email asking if he could put in yet another good word for us. I went to the Crocodoc website and got on their live chat support. As luck would have it, Ryan Damico answered. I wanted to make sure he didn’t have any qualms about us coming into the 500 Startup family since I never heard from him in my previous email. We scheduled a time to talk on Saturday. I was doing everything I could once again.
I woke up to an email from Mark Suster saying he sent a strong endorsement for us. I chatted with Ryan Damico later that day and he assured me that he had no problems with us entering the class. Christine Tsai had apparently already spoken with him, so that loose end was already tied. I also emailed Dave and Christine with the list of mentors I thought would be good for us to talk with.
Later that night I received an email from Paul Singh titled, “Kibin next steps”. It offered us a spot in the 500 Startups program for 30 days without investment. It was a trial period. If we achieved a handful of milestones we’d be considered for the program full-time. It was clear that we’d be treated like everyone else except for the investment and any press releases about the class.
Jim and I showed up at the 500 Startups office just two days later on May 18th. The program officially started on the 23rd, but we were staking our claim on desks.
The following week, once the program officially started, we began working our asses off. We went through the design boot-camp, several office hours sessions, meetings with mentors, and began redesigning our entire user experience. We made more progress in the next week and half than we had in the last two months.
Before we had even been there two full weeks, we sat down with Paul for what was ostensibly a routine office hours meeting. But it wasn’t routine at all. Paul told us that we’d been making so much progress that they wanted to move forward with us rather than waiting the full 30 days. We were stoked to officially be part of the program.
So, have we slowed down or started working less since our official acceptance to the program? Quite the contrary. Even though the papers are signed and the wires are hitting our bank account, we’re moving as fast as ever and just released a complete overhaul to our UI/UX. I’ve been sleeping even more nights in the office and we’re pushing harder than ever.
The amount of significance I placed on getting us into 500 Startups may seem excessive, or even trivial to some. But it was one of those decisions that simply felt right. Its tough to explain the instinctual feeling I often experience in my decision making process. Without it, I find myself hesitant to move forward, knowing something doesn’t quite ‘feel right’. But when I do find that feeling, I’ll stop at nothing until I either satisfy it or prove it wrong. Its very rarely the latter.
I also understand how difficult it is to convey the mental anguish I experienced throughout this process. In a sort of masochistic way, I enjoy the extreme highs and lows that seem increasingly more common as we continue to show more and more progress in this journey. There’s nothing like the highs, but they’re so quickly taken for granted that you learn there’s nothing like the lows to motivate and teach you to appreciate the few highs you’ll experience.
So was it worth it? 500 Startups has more than exceeded my expectations. I can’t begin to imagine what we’d be doing if we weren’t in the program. But I’ll leave it at that in fear of spoiling the details for those of you still planning to see the show.
Views • Upvoted by Antone Johnson, Work with entrepreneurs every day and Sameer Gupta, Founder - Carnot Instruments [Head: Strategy- Control, Automation & Processes]
Most Viewed Writer in 500 Startups with 90+ answers
Rule #1: We value the opinions of our existing network (Mentors (http://500startups.com/m
Rule #2: Find a domain expert who will vouch for you (i.e. willing to invest their time, money, and/or reputation in you). Ideally, a person who is already in our network, although other recognized experts count as well. Your mom doesn't, unless she's in 500.
Rule #3: Work the 500 network using #1 & #2 above...without spamming them, or being annoying. When you have 2-3 folks who are committed on your behalf, we will pay attention.
Rule #4: There are no rules.
Rule #2: Find a domain expert who will vouch for you (i.e. willing to invest their time, money, and/or reputation in you). Ideally, a person who is already in our network, although other recognized experts count as well. Your mom doesn't, unless she's in 500.
Rule #3: Work the 500 network using #1 & #2 above...without spamming them, or being annoying. When you have 2-3 folks who are committed on your behalf, we will pay attention.
Rule #4: There are no rules.
A lot has changed over the last few years since my colleagues and 500 founders last commented!
While we value the referrals and dealflow of our mentors / founders / co-investors, what is most important is YOU and your STARTUP! This is what we are currently looking for as of Dec 2015:
-Complete and launched product
-Balanced team (hacker - someone who can build, hustler - someone who can sell)
-Good unit metrics (what is your CAC, LTV, retention / engagement? If you don't know these terms, you should look them up!)
-Some semblance of revenue / usage (i.e. enough data points for your unit metrics) This level is typically between $10k - $100k MRR, though this is not a hard and fast rule. These days, we are focused on helping late-stage seed companies grow during our program, and we are looking for companies with product-market fit / are near there. We have a distribution team (on our payroll at 500 Startups) who help our companies optimize their customer acquisition processes during our program, so you must be far enough along for us to be able to help. This is a change from a few years ago, when we were accepting super early companies.
To best increase your chances, you should focus on your unit metrics. Firstly, you should know what they are. Secondly, if they are "bad", you should work on optimizing them. That said, we do understand this is a work in progress AND unit economics change over time. So, at the very least, you should be able to discuss what experiments you are doing to decrease your customer acquisition costs, increase your retention / LTV and what levers you think are most important. We are not simply looking for numbers but a smart conversation about your numbers.
Lastly, because our program is so focused on growth, we will want to know the details of how you are acquiring your customers. You should be able to speak to this IN DETAIL. In addition, we will ask you about experiments you are running / want to run to acquire customers, and you should think through this and convey this in both your application and interview.
Views • Upvoted by Dave McClure, I run http://500startups.com, a seed fund and incubator / accelerator program. Previously I've work…
I have absolutely no connection to Dave McClure or his team. My recommendations are from a 30K foot level based on past experiences.
I'd take Dave's "there are no rules" mantra to heart and build a meaningful business (team, technology, customer references).
Then, leverage the six degrees of connectivity that impact us all and the social stream to generate some brand awareness for your startup within Dave's eco system and wait for them to come to you.
"You" might think about ways to integrate some of the 500 Startup's apps, services into your product offering (if it makes sense) - would think this would help as well.
I'd take Dave's "there are no rules" mantra to heart and build a meaningful business (team, technology, customer references).
Then, leverage the six degrees of connectivity that impact us all and the social stream to generate some brand awareness for your startup within Dave's eco system and wait for them to come to you.
"You" might think about ways to integrate some of the 500 Startup's apps, services into your product offering (if it makes sense) - would think this would help as well.
While the new application system is up, thought I'd share how Dealflicks got into 500 Startups Batch 5 (Oct. 2012, networking never hurts... :)
The process began in early August when my co-founder Zach Cancio and I attended an Orrick TOTAL ACCESS event and ran into Simon Ru of LessThan6Percent (also an LP at 500 Startups). We pitched him, exchanged info, followed up, and pitched him again. He introduced us to Dave McClure via email about a week later.
Around the same time, my friend (and now investor) Aryk Grosz of Mixbook encouraged me to attend unSEXY, a 500 startups conference. $500 for 2 registrations was a bit pricy in my mind at that time, but Aryk eventually convinced me to go.
The conference in itself was awesome, and we ended up meeting close to a dozen 500 Startups founders, mentors, and staff. It was amazing how accessible everyone was, but it was also interesting how some other startups (many interested in joining 500) failed to approach anyone.
After making friends with Elizabeth Yin of LaunchBit, she offered to introduce us to Dave. We were stoked, but we ended up waiting in line with her for close to 30 minutes to talk to Dave. After we pitched him Dealflicks, he hammered us with pertinent questions, then said that we needed to get three separate 500 mentors to vouch for us. We also approached Christine Tsai, told her about Dealflicks, and offered to follow up.
At one point, I almost tripped over someone who was sitting on the ground immersed in his laptop. I kept going and muttered to Zach, “Geez, what’s this guy doing.” Zach is also Dealflicks’ Official Scout, so after a few moments he realized that “this guy” was Aaron Batalion of LivingSocial. We weren’t sure what to do, but after a quick huddle, we reapproached Aaron and pitched him. He was super helpful and friendly, and we exchanged info.
After emailing everyone, we ended up talking to Christine early the next week. She also helped us get on the phone with Aaron later in the week. I soon met with Frank Langston of PayByGroup, and he suggested that I start sending regular updates to Christine and Dave (we did).
The day before we got into 500 Startups was a blitz. I met with Jameson Detweiler of LaunchRock, and he recommended us to Aaron and the 500 team again. Shortly after, I met with Chris Dyball of Groupiter and Ziv Gillat of Eye-Fi (also recommended us).
Jameson told us about a LivingSocial event that Aaron was speaking at that Thursday, but we were going to be in Texas. We really wanted in, so we decided to change our flight. Apparently, Jameson found out about this and let everyone know. Sometime around 1am, we received a welcome email to 500 from Christine, luckily before we booked the new flight :)
The process began in early August when my co-founder Zach Cancio and I attended an Orrick TOTAL ACCESS event and ran into Simon Ru of LessThan6Percent (also an LP at 500 Startups). We pitched him, exchanged info, followed up, and pitched him again. He introduced us to Dave McClure via email about a week later.
Around the same time, my friend (and now investor) Aryk Grosz of Mixbook encouraged me to attend unSEXY, a 500 startups conference. $500 for 2 registrations was a bit pricy in my mind at that time, but Aryk eventually convinced me to go.
The conference in itself was awesome, and we ended up meeting close to a dozen 500 Startups founders, mentors, and staff. It was amazing how accessible everyone was, but it was also interesting how some other startups (many interested in joining 500) failed to approach anyone.
After making friends with Elizabeth Yin of LaunchBit, she offered to introduce us to Dave. We were stoked, but we ended up waiting in line with her for close to 30 minutes to talk to Dave. After we pitched him Dealflicks, he hammered us with pertinent questions, then said that we needed to get three separate 500 mentors to vouch for us. We also approached Christine Tsai, told her about Dealflicks, and offered to follow up.
At one point, I almost tripped over someone who was sitting on the ground immersed in his laptop. I kept going and muttered to Zach, “Geez, what’s this guy doing.” Zach is also Dealflicks’ Official Scout, so after a few moments he realized that “this guy” was Aaron Batalion of LivingSocial. We weren’t sure what to do, but after a quick huddle, we reapproached Aaron and pitched him. He was super helpful and friendly, and we exchanged info.
After emailing everyone, we ended up talking to Christine early the next week. She also helped us get on the phone with Aaron later in the week. I soon met with Frank Langston of PayByGroup, and he suggested that I start sending regular updates to Christine and Dave (we did).
The day before we got into 500 Startups was a blitz. I met with Jameson Detweiler of LaunchRock, and he recommended us to Aaron and the 500 team again. Shortly after, I met with Chris Dyball of Groupiter and Ziv Gillat of Eye-Fi (also recommended us).
Jameson told us about a LivingSocial event that Aaron was speaking at that Thursday, but we were going to be in Texas. We really wanted in, so we decided to change our flight. Apparently, Jameson found out about this and let everyone know. Sometime around 1am, we received a welcome email to 500 from Christine, luckily before we booked the new flight :)
