May 26, 2016
Why Startup Incubator-Hopping Is Beneficial to Launching Your Business
Venture capitalists Sam Altman and Jason Calacanis both wrote posts recently on the topic of startup incubator-hopping.
Altman says that participating in more than one startup incubator may actually decrease your chances of getting into Y Combinator, a goal many startups are vying for, whereas Calacanis says the question isn’t about Y Combinator–it’s about whether or not you should do an incubator at all.
According to his article, acceptance into an incubator depends on a scale of “seemingly invincible†to “desperate,†and takes into account the reputation of founders, strength of business, and market competition.
Our company, GiftStarter, a group gifting solution for e-commerce businesses (B2B), went through more than one incubator. We participated in 9Mile Labs in Seattle from August to November in 2014 and in 500 Startups in San Francisco from July to October in 2015.
We are in a space that’s filled with many gravestones and companies in purgatory, but the opportunity to grow a business in this space has been a personal obsession for over 10 years. We have formulated and rebuilt our hypothesis to arrive where we are. We believe this space is solvable, and that we will be the ones to solve it. Our experience in two different accelerators helped us get where we are now. Here’s why.
Read more at www.businesscollective.com…
Arry Yu is the CEO and Founder of GiftStarter.com (Emotiv Labs).  Arry got her start advising world class brands including Microsoft, Google, and L’Oreal at the intersection of where business and creativity meet technology.  Arry is passionate about building businesses with an emphasis on corporate culture and innovation, using technology as an enabler.  She’s recognized as an industry leader in the services space and has had the opportunity to offer her expertise to both startups and major brands. Arry was recently profiled in the Puget Sound Business Journal’s special “40 Under 40†publication in 2014.
BusinessCollective, launched in partnership with Citi, is a virtual mentorship program powered by North America’s most ambitious young thought leaders, entrepreneurs, executives and small business owners.