What do I have to do to get noticed by Dave McClure or 500 Startups?
3 Answers
Views • Upvoted by Terrence Yang, Angel Investor and Equity Crowdfunder and Pankaj Jain, Venture Partner at 500 Startups, Country Coordinator at Startup Weekend in India, co-founder of Hea…
Most Viewed Writer in 500 Startups with 90+ answers
best way: don't worry about if you get noticed by me or 500... yeah, it's kinda Zen like that.
look, most of you will succeed or fail, with or without us. at best we are catalytic, but not critical, to your success.
in general we prefer to invest in people who don't *need* us, but rather in those who bring as much or more benefit to our network & community as they receive. this is also a more sustainable and scalable structure, which we hope has network effects and gets even stronger as it grows.
in summary: water yourself, and grow your own community roots & branches... over time, we may notice your growth & potential, and then perhaps ask if we can bring you some water too.
go ahead... you can doo eet!
look, most of you will succeed or fail, with or without us. at best we are catalytic, but not critical, to your success.
in general we prefer to invest in people who don't *need* us, but rather in those who bring as much or more benefit to our network & community as they receive. this is also a more sustainable and scalable structure, which we hope has network effects and gets even stronger as it grows.
in summary: water yourself, and grow your own community roots & branches... over time, we may notice your growth & potential, and then perhaps ask if we can bring you some water too.
go ahead... you can doo eet!
Views • Upvoted by Dave McClure, Founding Partner, 500 Startups and Shai Goldman, Venture Partner at 500 Startups
Most Viewed Writer in 500 Startups
Some of the ways we notice great companies/founders:
- Get a referral from a member of the 500 family!
- Come to our events all across the globe and meet us! Geeks on a Plane, unSEXY, PreMoney, MamaBear and WarmGun are some of our conferences. We also regularly attend Startup Weekend in various parts of the world and are at many other events and conferences. You can also host us when we are visiting your city (either individually or with GOAP).
- Apply to our accelerator via AngelList: http://bit.ly/Be500STRONG
. - Get a referral from another investor with whom we have invested with before.
- In many international locations, we will periodically tweet out locations where we are meeting founders (bar crawls, dinners, etc). Keep us on your Twitter radar and come by.
- Be a thought leader in your space. Chances are that one of us will spot you and regret we didn't invest earlier :-)
- Talk about your successes and failures openly (blog, twitter, FB, Quora, etc)
- Do an amazing event and ask one of us to speak at your event or be on a panel (ego stroking goes a long way :-)
- Build a really awesome business which is impossible NOT to notice
- Be #500Strong even if you aren't -- YET.
Launch, get 500k users in 3 months and Dave will warmly welcome your team to 500Startups. :) No, seriously, I think Dave's answer below was more than useful: many entrepreneurs make the mistake trying to align with the standard way - bootstrap, get accepted by 500Startups, Y-Combinator or Techstars, then Round A, B, then IPO or a nice fat exit. If they notice a barrier somewhere in the process, they become clueless. In reality, entrepreneurs should focus on their customers, creative marketing and GROWTH. Top accelerators have all the assets to skyrocket a startup, no question. But the greatest thing you get there is the same thing you may get outside if you work hard: feedback and continuous support of other outstanding entrepreneurs for your truly unique story.
