Capital Factory

Special Office Hours for SXSW Interactive Attendees!

Hey Everyone,

Here's a great opportunity to meet seasoned entrepreneurs in a casual setting and pick their brain!  You've got an idea, but you need to flesh it out.  Insight from someone who has "been there, done that" would be greatly beneficial.

OR you're ready to take advantage of the 2010 Capital Factory early-stage accelerator mentorship program for tech startups.  Applications are being accepted now through April 2.  What are they looking for?  How should I present this cool idea and really make an impact?  Well, come visit with the mentors and see what they are all about.

SUNDAY, March 14
9:30am-10:30am
Convention Center
NW corner, inside near the children's play area

Please RSVP at:  http://bit.ly/9b5z05

For more updates, follow us  on twitter @capitalfactory

Video Pitch Review

Most of the companies who submitted applications to Capital Factory made them public on YouTube or their website and included the words Capital Factory so you can just search YouTube to find them. Here are some of our favorite videos. Note that this is not a measure of how we evaluate their business - this is about the quality of the video. You'll see how we rate the businesses when we announce the winners.

Best Instructional Video - Homstie

Best Video Editing - InfoChimps

Best Background - ShortOrderPhoto

Best Voiceover - PetzMD

Most Likely to Get Arrested - dSpot

(there were numerous candidates in the running for this one)

Best Floating People - BullMooseTicket

Why wasn't I accepted into the program?

I've received dozens of polite, respectful responses to the first round of "Sorry..." letters we had to send out. They pretty much all ask the same question, "Why wasn't I accepted into the program?" I am going to try and respond to each one individually with some feedback over the next two weeks, but here is answer for most of the applications: It's not you, it's us.

The very thing that makes us attractive to work with makes us very busy because in addition to doing the mentoring most of us are running another business. We aren't limiting the number of companies that we select because of a lack of cash - quite the contrary - we've been turning away people who want to put their money into the fund. We have to limit the number of companies because of a lack of time. After reading so many impressive applications, I know that all of the mentors are wishing that we could accept more of them!

In filtering down the applications, we focus the most on companies that we think we can help the most and have the best chance of succeeding. You could have an amazing company idea for a new type of medical device that would save lives and make lots of money. Even though we might believe in the product and the founders we just wouldn't have a lot to contribute to making that a success and so we'd probably pass on it. 

When I say, "It's not you, it's us" what I mean is that in most cases there is nothing at all negative about your company idea or your founders. Figuring out which companies to focus on was a matter of adding up all their strengths - we really didn't talk about negatives. 

Things that made an application stronger:

• one or more of the mentors has experience in that market
• we think we can accomplish a significant milestone within the 10 week program
• the product is sold and marketed over the Internet
• the company has unique competitive advantages 
• the company has paying customers 
• the company has a balanced team with both business and technical resources  
• the product is a good fit for word of mouth marketing and social media 
• more... 

I hope that gives you some insight into how we filtered the applications. I know that there are going to be a LOT of great companies who were not accepted but are going to succeed anyway. I'm bummed that we can only work with a handful! 

Applications closed - what happens next?

First of all, THANK YOU to the hundreds of entrepreneurs who took the time submit an application for the 2009 Capital Factory program. Our goal was 100 applications and you've surpassed that by many times. We're very impressed by the enthusiastic response from all of the incredible entrepreneurs we have met over the past few weeks.

The 20 mentors have already had multiple meetings and have been reviewing applications all weekend. It's already obvious that there will be many more companies that we want to work with than that we will be able to work with. I guess that's a good problem to have, but it's going to be hard to say no. We're going to do everything in our power to make sure that even the companies who are not selected for the program can still benefit from the program. 

So what's next? First we narrow down the list by eliminating companies who don't meet the basic qualifications. Then we will identify a shorter list of the companies that we think we can help the most and ask some more questions by email. Finally we'll interview companies over the phone and in person.

We're still shooting for April 15th to announce the winners. The unexpected surge of applications at the end may push it out a few days but we're not sure just yet. Watch this blog and follow us on Twitter to find out about any changes.