APPLY For Winter 2014
What kind of teams is Flashpoint looking for? They need founders to be full-time committed to their startups and to have strong working relationships. The startup engineering work requires teams to have significant domain knowledge and to have relevant technical expertise ready to hand. Flashpoint looks for people who are demonstrably motivated to create scalable important businesses. All things equal, they’d choose to work with exceptionally intelligent founders who are open in their thought processes, stable in temperament, conscientious in their ways, and relentlessly resourceful.
What types of startups are you looking for? They like all startups, but especially technology startups. Atlanta is a great place for e-commerce, internet security, materials, consumer health, medical devices, computing, robotics, financial transactions, and logistics. With Flashpoint’s connections to Georgia Tech and the Atlanta corporate community they look for teams they think they may strongly advantage by providing access to resources in our networks.
Is Flashpoint an accelerator? It’s more. Flashpoint has a startup engineering curriculum. They get startups moving incredibly fast and teach founders the process. What they do dramatically reduces startup risks and costs. Startups have a smaller chance of failing and at the same time have a less expensive way to achieve success. Flashpoint is the opposite of an incubator. The work is mostly out of the building.
How is it similar to accelerators I know about? Common attributes: Many teams apply. Flashpoint filters and accepts about a dozen into a cohort. Every team receives funding (about $25k for about 8%, don’t get hung up on the numbers), enough to do the work without taking too much dilution. They connect teams with Flashpoint mentors who have done startups before. The Flashpoint community has dinner together at special Tuesday night gatherings where teams present and mentors and Flashpoint alumni hang out with speakers who often fly in from the Bay Area, Boston or NYC. Teams work in great shared space in Tech Square. Each Flashpoint cohort runs four months and they run two cohorts a year. At the end of each cohort there are demo days for investors in Atlanta, NYC, and the Bay Area.
We’ve already been working on our startup for a while. Is Flashpoint appropriate for us? Yes. Startup engineering practices and the Flashpoint program can help any startup.
Do we have to legally form a company before the program starts? No. If you have a company, that is fine. If not, they will help you out.
We’ve already taken funding. Can we still apply? Sure.
Do we have to be in Atlanta for the program? Yes.
[Photo Credit: Flashpoint]
