You do some unpaid programming for interesting TechStars startups, in exchange for the ability to listen to other startups get advice about their startups. Can't wait to sign up!
If you're going to donate this much of your time, spend it writing open source software. Stuff that you can take with you. Stuff that will remain in your toolkit and in your portfolio until <i>you</i> decide otherwise.
In general, any sort of unpaid internship biases against people who aren't well enough off to work for free (i.e. whose parents won't support them while they do). It's really a kind of class discrimination that prevents people from lower socioeconomic standing from having much of a chance at certain jobs (like in the finance world) that tend to rely heavily on unpaid internships.<p>One thing I've always liked about my profession is that we tend not to do that in the software industry, which I think makes it more egalitarian and at least helps open up opportunities to people who actually do need to get paid for the summer. It's disappointing to see a reversal in that trend.
Any software startup that would accept an "intern" on the team is failing one test of viability. The last thing you need in startups is more than one level of hierarchy. [1] You don't want people to expend valuable mental and emotional energy trying to figure out if task X is "right" for a mere intern, or if it's really important not to have conversation Y in front of the intern, or (in general) whether or not the intern is really a member of the team. One likely result is that your team will not gel. Another is that the team will gel, but suffer a breakdown when the intern inevitably quits. A third is that the team will defend itself by shutting out the intern, assigning him or her to go mend broken XHTML tags or make coffee while everyone else does the real work. Which is another good reason not to be that intern. ;)<p>Interns are for big companies, where they make only a tiny marginal contribution to the already massive political overhead. ;)<p>---<p>[1] Two levels, if absolutely necessary. But the best leaders are the ones who always manage to convey the feeling that it's <i>really</i> only one, that they're only the leader because <i>somebody</i> has to have their name on that line of the corporate charter and be forced to take tedious phone calls from big clients.<p>I can also attest that, if it grows, eventually your software startup <i>will</i> need a hierarchy. But at the beginning it's probably just unnecessary friction.
$6,000/founder and as many 0.375 FTE slaves as they can round up - MBAs around the globe rejoice, TechStars has solved the "I've got this amazing idea, if only I could find some developers" problem.
I am going to reserve judgement on this for now, but I am really going to be surprised if this works out well for the TS companies. The old adage, "you get what you pay for" is especially true with developers/UI designers who are interested in startups. Without some sort of compensation, whether it be cash money or equity, I wonder if you are going to get the "right" kind of interest.<p>You have to ask yourself, who is their target talent here?<p>The real talented AND motivated developers/designers in Boulder and probably Boston (AKA "The Gurus"), who have an affinity for startups and TechStars probably applied to the program themselves and didn't get in. Either way, they know the value of their time and are hard at work on their own startups.<p>The other talented and motivated people are probably consultants or working full time at a company. Despite this being a poor economy, I've found that there is no shortage of work for the "right" people.<p>And of course, there are a fair share of those that fit a combination of the above.<p>This leaves us with the last two groups. The people that are either talented and unmotivated, or lack talent, but have the motivation. My suspicion is that you will get people volunteering to the HackStars program who are TechStars fanboys at best. They like the idea of doing a startup, or being a part of the "startup culture" but in truth may not want to put in the work, or worse, are benched because no one wants to work with them.<p>I may be totally wrong. Either way, I don't fault the TechStars team for test driving an idea like this. But if I were a founder who made it in to the program, I would be very skeptical of the value of the volunteers.
It's all about mutual benefit. For example, I'm going to be doing a few server installs for a friend while I'm traveling, in exchange for some cycles on those machines to use for my own project.<p>My friend is happy, because he doesn't need to spend $2k per server to have an engineer fly out and install them. I'm happy, because I'll be traveling anyway, and I get to use a pile of machines around the world without having to pay for and install them myself.<p>No money is changing hands, and we both benefit in a way that we find acceptable.<p>An unpaid 'internship' for a 'guru'? Fifteen hours a week for no pay and no equity?<p>I think not.
If you really want to commit 15 hours a week to doing free work for an up-and-coming startup, don't do it this way. Make a list of the top 20 companies you're fascinated by, and contact them directly, one by one.<p>If you can't be bothered to "sell" free dev/tech work to the companies you're most interested in, you're not going to make it as an entrepreneur anyways.
Unpaid internships are becoming EXTREMELY common (if not in the CS field, certainly elsewhere). In NYC this used to be only the case for fashion, but has now spread to basically every other industry.<p>We had a discussion the other day at lunch whether this was legal/ethical. I'm still not sure how I feel about it...
(Disclosure: I'm one of the founders of Devver, one of the TechStars 08 companies)<p>I think that some of the variables will likely need to be adjusted (for example, 15 hours per week seems high to me), but I think the fundamental idea is interesting, although it's clearly not for everyone.<p>At 15 hours a week, it's clear that a volunteer developer is not going to come close to replacing a technical founder or a full-time employee. Any team that tries to primarily rely on volunteer developers will suffer for it.<p>I can imagine this appealing to developers (including those in college) who are strongly considering doing a startup or working for a startup, but want to learn more about the process and want to make great contacts (both technical and business).<p>There may very well be problems with the quality of some applicants, but assuming the application process doesn't filter them out, I would guess things will work themselves out during the summer. That is, the so-so devs will be a net drain and teams won't ask for their help, while any talented hackers won't be donating their time for long - they'll quickly get snapped up by the companies they help out (either during the summer for all equity or after a funding round for salary + equity).<p>Of course, this is all speculative. Maybe it won't work at all. But I suspect that connecting a group of hackers with teams that will, either immediately or in the near future, want to hire hackers could work out for everyone involved.
Fuck That! - EDIT<p>I think that they should at least mention what the benefits of such an arrangement would be. Just hanging out with cool people doing work for free people isn’t really that beneficial.<p>Everyone also knows, once a developer starts working on something like this it will be more than 15 hours of work; they will work all night and day to get things done. It should be more formal and give the developers something in return. The companies will be looking to sign up "real advisers" during this time but they will get something in return. Also this will need to be very carefully orchestrated because if people are working on things that are patentable; the volunteers will need to be listed on the patents.
Jeff said it best when he was asked the question at an event in Boston, "What is better, YC or TechStars?"<p>Jeff's answer: "You can teach a hacker business, but you can't teach a businessman how to hack".<p>'nuff said.
When I went to the Techstars for a Day thing last year I did notice that many of their teams were light on developers. Several had people who learned to program right there or one person who could program a little but all had at least one who knew what he was doing. This may be more of an unofficial way to fill out the teams a little as someone else noted it would be hard to do only 15 hours a week. Either you are in all the way or your not serious therefor likely not reliable except maybe as a programming mentor if you drop by once and awhile.
I think part of the problem is that some hackers might sign up thinking it will give them an inside track to TechStars in a future round. But, giving 3 months of part time as an uncompensated intern is a high price to pay for the possibility of a second look at your application.
One problem is that they will not get good developers. According to Joel Spolsky, good developers never look for jobs (they re always working), so they are not likely to work for free...
Question - does anyone else get offended by the name "coder" I've always found that people who write code prefer to be called developers or hackers. I'm a bit of a hacker myself, so maybe i'm overly sensitive, and i know this is a small point, but i always feel like the people who use the word "coder," don't understand them or what they do.
Mind you... it might be much better use of time than jobhunting.<p>but then you'd have to seriously compare with Open Source contribution - a faster way to learn, smarter people to work with and more social benefit...<p>OSS work likely has even more commercial potential...
Um everyone mentions that the money isn't the real value of TS or YC. This lets hackers that didn't get accepted into the program get many of the benefits. They get to meet the mentors, see some of the presentations, spend time working with and getting to know the community. I don't see how that is considered so much worse of a deal than the actual program. Consider hackers still in school, hackers not ready to make the leap and start their own companies...<p>It seems like an interesting way to become involved and learn a ton about the start up process.<p>(disclosure I was part of Techstars 08)
I agree working for free would be foolish. But, once you meet your prospective team just ask them how much equity you'll be able to get. If it doesn't meet your standards I think you could just say no thanks. Seems like a reasonable way to join an interesting startup (if there are any interesting ones in their summer class). If you have actual skills they need, you do have a good bargaining position.
I guess there is a real market niche that ycombinator flushed out-<p>namely, Impedance matching between -<p><pre><code> a) investors with too much cash and too little time for small startups
b) startups who don't need or want large amounts of cash
</code></pre>
You'd think it would be more efficient to cut out the middleman, but I guess the aggregator / 'broker' serves a valuable role, as a retailer.
Let's have a TV show, I think in the US they are called "American Idol"? In Germany we have "Germany's Next Topmodel" and "Germany's next Superstar", both concepts could be easily extended into a show that portrays the making of a HackStar.
wouldn't you agree internships are a good opportunity for students?<p>Seems like a similar thing but specifically orientated around startups. They should get (a slither) of equity, maybe..
What really gets me is how these types, the come-work-for-free scammers, don't give up - but then again that is assuming they have enough presence of mind and brains to realize that<p>A. This has been tried before, many times<p>B. There are many who have seen this, and can see right through it<p>Never fails to amaze me, the room temperature IQ crowd. The crowd that really thinks that someone who is bright enough to do what we can do will - at the same time - be dumb enough to fall for a 7th grade level scam.
Dark comment: Could this be the perfect opportunity for a genious hacker with enough "fuck you" money <i>(yet doesn't care about their own reputation afterwards)</i> to sneak behind enemy lines (whatever that means), work for nothing, and provide a totally unexpected mentor experience - possibly have them running around in circles and setting up a bunch of startups for failure?<p><i>"You're using PHP! That doesn't scale! You'll need Java. I'll show you how."</i><p><i>"You're using Java! Performance will grind to a halt! You'll need PHP. Lemme see that keyboard."</i><p>An infamous HackStar, indeed.
I think that there are some people on this forum that are missing the point. Just because you are a hacker, does not mean that you have the ingredients to make a successful company. As some have already noted, this is a program for those people who were rejected from TechStars initially to get into the program and glean most of the benefits by donating some of their time. Fifteen hours per week is only two hours per day, and that time could be spent simply providing another set of hacker eyes to a new feature (not building the whole thing from scratch), or another techie to bounce your idea for server architecture off of. What I don't understand is why they do not provide this same system for business types to "hack" into TechStars.