If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Y Combinator can now consider itself twice flattered. Y Combinator’s funding methodology of investing a small amount of money across a wide array of young entrepreneurs has already inspired other programs, such as TechStars out of Colorado.
And earlier this week, Y Combinator was cloned again, this time in Europe. YEurope (not affiliated with Y Combinator) launched its own similar program for European internet and communication technology startups. The choice of the name launched a small flame war on Y Combinator’s news site, but understandably so. The program not only copied the “Y” and front page slide show (ironically a product of a Y Combinator startup), but also the entire application.
But, those details get in the way of what YEurope is really trying to do, which is encourage entrepreneurial spirit in Europe. Paul Böhm started the project after his own frustrated experiences financing a “social sorting” startup (detailed in his comments). A recent study by the Aho Group, chaired by the Former Prime Minister of Finland, echoes his concerns at the state European investment in innovation. After closing shop on his startup, Böhm went back to his original work in security consulting and started a non-profit project center called Metalab, which will house the quality time and lectures selected applicants will get with the entrepreneurial community .
Like Y Combinator and TechStars, YEurope invests in startups based on the number of founders (1-3, 5000€/each), and taking a 2-10% stake in the company. They plan on accepting 8 startups, who will travel to Vienna to build their companies. Their application drive ends May 15th.
We applaud the initiative. Perhaps a different and less confusingly-similar name would have been a better choice.
This is an interesting solution even if it is a clone of YCombinator: in italy there are very little investments about startups.
Try to mention some famous European service.
skype, last.fm, Google just acquired a swedish company’s software. Fon. Netvibes. Pageflakes.
Everyone likes to give so little and get so much.
Yes Mike also Wikio, the Spanish Fon competitor Wisher. 2spaghi (an Italian social apps about restaurant, do u know?), Xing, Joost and the Italian Babelgum (do u know?): i write some months ago the post “european silicon valley“.
YEurope is a positive attempt because in Europe there is a higher mental closing that other country.
Agree Dario. Just see the last paragraph in the post. Agree/disagree?
Yes Michael: don’t linke the clone, I prefer a different name/website project. I don’t know the reasons of this choice: advertising?
Mike, I agree with your last sentence. It’s cool to see this kind of initiatives in Europe, but they should have shown a bit more brain and use a different name for their company, especially considering that YEurope is not what I’d call a killer name.
Still, I’d like to see an incubator or however you want to call it, to go beyond investing 5-10k per project. Sure, for a student who just wants to build his dream project that might be enough, but the big problem in Europe is that when you try to start a company that needs substantially more than that to get started (even if just 100k), there is almost nowere to go.
quote: Perhaps a different and less confusingly-similar name would have been a better choice.
well look at the press they are getting: TECHCRUNCH!
I think it’s a great Idea, I’ve been at Metalab quite a few times now and it’s a great place with great people.
Last friday they hosted the first “Startup Freitag” (Startup Friday) to bring people interested in startups together. As Paul hasn’t talked about YEurope on friday, I guess some opportunities emerged from that first get togehter.
I’m eagerly awaiting the next one the 5th of May. I left the last one after a great chat at about 3am (if I remember correctly).
While I do understand why people don’t like the YEurope copycat from YCombinator, I think the reasons why they did it is obvious: attention and getting the message out fast. Most people interested in startups know about YCombinator and most of them will asume YEurope is doing something similar.
(time might also have played a factor)
I personally know Paul and if you have a look at Metalab and on what he (and the others) achieved with there, I think it’s a good point to have some trust in YEurope.
Many will agree that one of the great values of YCombinator are connections and bringing the right people together. That’s exactly what the Metalab is trying to do and has done really well so far.
Well, yes, I agree that by doing a “Y” name, they get the press (perhaps “bad” press, but press nonetheless), but if they also copied the application in order to get people to talk about them, I call that going a bit too far. Assuming that’s not the case, I don’t think is very professional to say the least. You be the judge:
http://beta.yeu.../media/2007.txt
http://www.ycom...r.com/w7app.txt
Profit of other names i say
I think its excellent. I think the similarity of name is actually great – inclusion of the “Y” meant I knew instantly what it was about. Although I appreciate YCombinators irritation perhaps; all in all, if you believe in pushing the entrepreneurial work forward, then a price surely worth paying.
Cant they simply work together and cross pollinate ideas, links, PR etc? This isn’t rocket science. Or are we assuming this is going to turn into a transatlantic grudge match? Oh I do hope not; we’ve all got better things to be doing!
Well I work for a European company as one of my gigs! France is a hotbed for startups. GigaTribe is one of them. I do not work for GigaTribe.
Other then that “Unauthorized”.
Rex
“Copy what you like” — Paul Graham
http://www.paul...m.com/copy.html
Well I think they are following Paul’s Advice so please do not call them unauthorized. Over the time they will differentiate if they are smart enough or else they will perish.
TechCruncher I never heard of them before.
http://DEBTISDUMB.com
Don’t you remember “Good artists copy; great artists steal” by Pablo Picasso?
btw, talking about Spaniards, MyStrands is another great European start-up that just won the latest Orange innovation contest.
I agree with Sudhir. Lets see how they survive.
Great to see Europe being featured!
With Techcrunch UK suspended how about amalgamating it into a new ‘Techcrunch Europe’ site ? This would be in English but act as a link through to non-English language European TC sites.
“We applaud the initiative. Perhaps a different and less confusingly-similar name would have been a better choice.”
I agree completely.
BUT, without this name, they likely would not have showed up on your blog, so I think it was a pretty good move on there part.
Now if they want to backdown, they can change there name, keep the yeurope domain, and redirect to the new domain.
But I think there main goal is done, getting there name out in a flash for there may 15th deadline.
Why clone YCombinator? The jury is still very much out as to whether YCombinator is successful. In Kiko, Paul said he lost money (YC! was buried under preferred equity of later investors). I’m sure YC! made a profit on Reddit, and Loopt will be a big winner when they reach an exit.
But, that leaves 30+ investments where the future is very much uncertain. When not clone a more successful investing model, start Yet_Another_Hedge_Fund
Its wrong –
What if I bought Jahoo.com and used Google custom search to make it a google clone
– Or Toogle.com or anything like that.
Pallet jack, if you got written up on TC, then choosing that name would have been a great choice, even if you changed later.
Its annoying (but pretty normal in journalism) that coverage actually promotes something that the journalist disagrees with.
Ironic.
How can people complain about this? More of these early stage funding projects that exist, the better. Especially in Europe where the total amount of VC available is much smaller.
Now what would be great is if someone could create a publicly investable fund on this scale with a very small investment minimum (perhaps a few hundred £/$/€) where investors could vote (based on shareholding) which startups were invested in by viewing their presentations or pitch videos. Now THAT would be web2.0!!
I guess the actual legalities of setting up something like this might be a bit ugly
btw, 2 more recently funded UK startups for you:
– http://www.webjam.com
TrustedPlaces – http://www.trustedplaces.com
Webjam – that’s us
Another bomb on our hands. The valuation discount these guys get relative to the first real angel round or Series A is insane. I’ve heard b.s. arguments about how that makes up for the “risk” factor. Please. Anyone can put together a beta and raise $5,000 or 5,000 euros from friends and family. This is the internet we’re talking about. Find people online and email them. It’s not just about introductions and connections.
Michael I suppose you love the Y-Combinator type companies since they meet all the criteria for inclusion on TechCrunch:
A) Do something worthless – a mashup of widgets, photos that determine if you’re an entrepreneur or not, etc.
B) Generate no revenue and have no model for doing so besides “advertising”
C) Due to (B) the only viable liquidity event is a sale to a major internet player (Yahoo, Google, eBay, MSN) which is very, very unlikely
D) Target the same 20 – 30 year old male, tech savvy demographic and will likely never be able to even capture 1/100th of the TechCrunch readership after everyone realizes how it just wastes time and solves on real problem
It’s really a shame that so many people are falling for this model. Great model for TechStars, Y-Combinator, and Y-Europe. Lord over young entrepreneurs, under-fund them, and hope that one or two of them get acquired by bigger fools (ahem, Conde Nast).
Even though it’s a blatant copy, it’s good to see more opportunities given to smaller startups. Most are in situations where they have good ideas / apps / sites, but don’t have the resources to further develop.
I don’t get why so many people want to beat up on the Y model.
If you don’t like it, don’t do it. But don’t preach to someone else not to do it. For a 20 something with no contacts, no money, a good idea, and alot of passion, this is a great thing. If they are successful, guess what, next go around this will make no sense for them as they will now have contacts, experience, and a success to point to.
Comment 23 and 24 show the good points and the bad points.
It is true there is a possibilty that none of the ‘creative’ ideas will produce anything other then a non advertising stream revenue generating web development project.
However to receive no funding with the opportunity of such an experience is definately worth the plunge.
I would like to know you opinion on this idea:
I work for a CVS (community volunteer sector), part of the role of our support and developemnt team is to access funding for various organisations from a stream of funders all the way upto European funding.
The governemt is pushing the initiative for social enterprises.
There is the possiblity of suporting web developements that can create a revenue stream with the intent to put that money back into the wider community.
This has the downside that they would be employees of the business, but the amount of funding accessible could be much higher and a lot of training and support from customer service to business managment can be provided as part of the package.
The objective is not just moeny making. It would be more about development of the individual, the company and given back to the wider community.
This is getting interesting: on TechMeme the word “Unauthorized” disappeared from the title.
Makes me wonder if it was the content or the typo they filtered out
It’s about time to have something like Y here in central europe
It’s funny that the YEurope also uses heysan’s photo slideshow on their frontpage since that is a Y Combinator funded company.
http://heysan.com
I would have been just as interested in covering a “Y Combinator”-like fund in Europe even if they didn’t have the “Y” in the title. Like I said, the copying issue detracts from their actual mission.
The lack of creativity in naming in this industry is abhorrent. Can we all agree that no new sites are allowed to be named by taking a word that ends in ‘er’ and removing the ‘e’?
Y2 Combinator will hopefully ensure there’s plenty more where they came from.
Actually – Y combinators concept has been around in Europe since 1999. We are part of an incubator at Chalmers Innovation (www.chalmersinnovation.com) in Göteborg, Sweden.
The CI incubator funds 10-12 companies a year with up to $40K, usually taking between 10 och 25%, depending on valuation. They provide offices and services, as well as a business coach for each of the companies.
Mostly electronic and biotech startups, but the range is very wide. We’re more than 10 internet related startups.
/John Sjölander, project manager at Contribio (www.contribio.com)
This is exactly the kind of thing we need over here in Europe, even if it’s a poor choice of name. So let’s try not to focus too much on that and welcome all initiatives encouraging webpreneurship around these parts.
I also agree with Simon (#18): it would be great to have a central ‘TechCrunch’ portal to specifically profile and map the startup scene in Europe.
Ycombinator is being imitated around the world
. Even India’s got its own Ycombinator clone- Dreamzhunt.com
Zoli, TechCrunch changed the title after Techmeme’s crawl. You can tell this by examining the URL of this post…notice no “unauthorized” in the URL.
Techmeme ideally should update its record but I think it mistakenly ignores title-only edits, which I suppose is an oversight.
I respectfully disagree with Jay (living in first life). It’s all about the introductions and connections. YCombinator and the like put so little money in initially that, even if they do lose money, it doesn’t really matter because they are all super-rich. But when one hits, I’m sure it hits pretty big.
You think Paul Graham is mad because he lost 10 grand on Kiko? He probably made 10-100 times more than that on Reddit.
I agree that anyone could probably raise $5000 for that spanking new internet startup if they tried, but their parents probably aren’t going to help them much in getting the word out about it. However, taking an investment from one of these early stage investors almost guarantees press and recognition, even if the product/service is useless…- Metagg
@ 39
I appreciate your respectful disagreement. So what you’re now telling me is that you’re paying for connections? That’s the same argument VC firms use. Honestly, connections matter a lot more in B2B than in B2C. Most Y-Combinator funded firms are B2C and therefore need hundreds of thousands of individual or small business users. These are not major software applications where the firm’s rolodex opens up and voila, you have 10% market share.
I can see the value perhaps of contacts to geeks with products who don’t have the social skills to show up at a networking event and make some friends. Use your alumni network. There are plenty of people willing to help. If you talk to enough people in the Valley, you will already know that most firms think Y-Combinator is a joke and that the deals being shopped to them are crappy. Yes, one or two firms will emerge, but how many of those end up becoming actual businesses? Does Reddit make a penny for it’s dumb acquirer?
Your last point is key and probably true. Most Y-Combinator funded projects (they really aren’t companies, but products), are worthless. They get great publicity on TechCrunch because Arrington & Co. like this kind of free, no revenue model business. It’s cool. That’s great. The traffic from these things dies down in 5 days. Go look at Justin.tv’s traffic. You’ll see the decline.
Also, there is a problem of statistical significance here. I love how TechCrunch claims this model is a winner. From what? One successful exit out of a cohort of 8? How is that statistically significant?
Check this one out http://y2combinator.com
Y2 Combinator is a new kind of firm: a company that starts companies that starts companies. We help company-starting companies through what is for many the hardest step, copying the Y Combinator site without making silly mistakes.
@ Jay
Connections, no connections, whatever – the bottom line is there are no guarantees. Working with startups is a high stakes game that is not for pussies and critics. YC and TS throw down some cash and cross their damn fingers just like all the rest.
@ entrepreballa
I’m a critic and in a start-up. Good entrepreneurs know that you arrive at a great business model by testing it out and questioning it to figure out what else you can do. Y-Combinator and TechStars throw down tiny amounts of cash. I don’t understand what your point is here.
Kudos on the Y2Combinator. It’s a good compliment to Bullshitr (http://www.tech...od-for-a-laugh/)
5,000 EURO for 2-10% and “We applaud the initiative.”
I am going to start a fund, 5,000 EURO for 0.00%, just to support the community
clearly its not about the money in this case, but driven to ”
encourage entrepreneurial spirit in Europe. Paul Böhm started the project after his own frustrated experiences financing a “social sorting”
“
I believe we need more initiatives like the one in Vienna throughout all of Europe. We are currently forming a team for this in Cologne – which is a great city for Techstartups. We are about to start a programm combining selection, small funding, education, network and know-how for entrepreneurs that don’t have much more than a good idea. Since things work differently in Germany and in Europe than in the US, we will offer solutions for the specific needs of tech/web-startups in this region of the world. Our plans are to take applications thoughout the next months and have the programm start this fall. We will release more information on a regular basis from now on.
@Gabe (and others)
Not only is “unauthorized” not in the url of this article, it’s also not in the title.
Something close is in the title
I wonder when Y Combinator will start a clone in Asia?
Hi My Name Is ivawus.