Over the last twelve weeks, 24 startups have been working out of Facebook’s old headquarters in downtown Palo Alto as part of fbFund REV, Facebook’s startup incubator program that’s jointly run with Accel Partners and Founders Fund. During that time the startups have receieved mentorship from some of Silicon Valley’s elite, as well as help from Facebook engineers. Tomorrow, they’ll be presenting at the program’s Demo Day (we’ll have full coverage beginning tomorrow afternoon). In light of the close of this session, we’ve compiled a number of the mentor presentations given thoughout the summer, and sat down with fbFund team member Dave McClure, who outlined what made the program unique.
McClure says that REV is a “social incubator” — an idea that is helped by the fact that all of the startups enrolled somehow take advantage of Facebook, the world’s largest social network. But McClure also says that the structure of the incubator, from the way classes are held to the actual layout of the building, is designed to ensure that the startups involved maintain interaction with each other. Startups have been working in wide, open rooms with white boards and no cubicles, and the program invited mentors to speak to all of the startups around three times per week. The fact that the startups get office hours and help from Facebook employees can also help give them a leg up on the competition.
Of course, fbFund has been around for some time now — it was announced back in September 2007, and has since seen a number of graduating classes. But past winners in fbFund were given no-strings-attached cash grants, while the new model, obviously inspired by incubators like Y Combinator invites the finalists to participate in a mentorship program while fbFund takes a small stake in the startups.
Here’s a list of talks that were given over the summer, as well as embedded videos of a few of the sessions.
Financing
Marketing
Product Management
Legal Issues
Early Stage Hiring (HR)
Why Startups Fail (Strategy)
Gaming
Monetization
What an awesome summer, NutshellMail had a blast man…
Very classy move by FB to make these resources available for use by other start-ups.
We’re happy fbFund chose two nonprofits this summer, and that one of them was Samasource!
Next year, it would be awesome if the nonprofits got funding, too.
Looking forward to their demos! I second Leila’s comment- it’s great to see innovative non-profits supported.
L & E,
Venture Capitolist are all about profit when they invest funds. Find an Angel invester to start.
I think the only reason a Non-profit(s) got selected was to figure out a way to make a profit from your/it’s IP, then drop you like a rock.
Wake up! fbFund is all about FB. Not you or your concepts/idea to make a diff. But to strip your ideas and make it FB. FB is not google.
Protect yourself before you hang with Zuck?
Get paid and move on to what makes you tick tock with out the clock.
be your own badass
um, seriously dude… get a clue.
fbFund accepted 2 non-profits into the incubator program, and doesn’t have an ownership stake in either. furthermore, several folks at Facebook and other mentors/advisors (myself included) made donations to both organizations.
pretty sure we all have better things to do than steal ideas or IP from non-profits.
peace out,
And angel investors just like to give away money for free and don’t want a return? Guess I’ve been barking up the wrong tree–please put me in touch with your angel investors ASAP because mine all seem to eventually make money off my hard work…those greedy bastards!
We’re an fbFund company (Life360), and while we’ve definitely been encouraged to take advantage of the Facebook Platform, its ALWAYS emphasized that what is right for the business comes first. Sometimes its building some sort of Facebook functionality and sometimes its not, and those decisions are always supported.
Echoing what Dave said — a number of fbFund advisors have helped us raise about $50K in the last few months in donations. They’ve been a huge help.
The reason they don’t fund non-profits is because non-profits by definition have no equity. No equity leaves no way for investors to earn back their money. It would be hard for fbFund to justify making investments in companies that can’t offer equity.
Maybe we need a fbFund.org next year, funded by charitable donations, to get around this problem.
Fantastic summer. Thanks and cheers from the Wildfire team!
24 startups: quantity vs quality
elite: tickle me elmo.
u fascinate me.
Dave, Enrique, Shelli and the rest of fbFund have been a real delight to work with this summer. The whole friendradio.fm team really feels they have given us the tools to be badasses!
It’s great to see fbFund grow and change and learn from each iteration.
Although i missed the last two weeks during this summer i understood why other countries do not have the quantity and quality of American startups. They miss events such as fbFund