[kom107]

The Pittsburgh area accelerators also require that the company stays headquartered in Pittsburgh. I love my hometown, but it's not exactly the best place to grow a company, especially a startup (in general, I think in some verticals there may be a fair amount of potential). The governor talks about bringing in more venture capital to the area, but that's not really something you can legislate. There's a low cost of living and really smart people out here, but one of the biggest hurdles (IMHO) that no one is mentioning is that it's difficult to access capital to get going, and the small size of the business community here and lack of affordable transportation to other areas make it a bit daunting to start. Better to move out to SF and start something while couchsurfing--there's a higher ceiling elsewhere with their accelerator communities.

[nphyte]

i agree that there is a small business community but i've noticed that most of the companies that are successful in that region are sold to bigger companies. I'm not sure what stops them from going all the way and achieve world domination. They have excellent ingredients for success (lower costs , incredibly driven smart people)but is it a lack of vision or lack of good advice as talked here?

[kom107]

Agreed--if the exit strategy for a startup is to simply be bought up by another company, well then come on down!! :-)

I think that's actually a very interesting question. It's certainly possible that the accelerators here encourage exits instead of world domination, because it's 'safer' to exit if you have the opportunity (i.e. why soldier on for an IPO when you can be acquired, the accelerator makes its money back, you make some money, and everyone in the region can say 'oh well startup x was sold, look at the success!'). Continuing on represents risk...the company may not IPO, or may not continue to grow at a rate that supports the valuation, etc.

I've not gone through an accelerator here in Pittsburgh (or anywhere else for that matter), but I would strongly suspect a large part of it is the cultural mindset here--an exit is a win, because compared to their peers, that's enough, just like how our high school football teams view winning the local championship as more important than winning states. Not saying that an exit isn't a win (it certainly is), but you don't see anyone around here swinging for the fences and taking that continued risk. My $.02.

[nphyte]

Not been in an accelerator either. Although I did spend some time in Pittsburgh. If i were to start something they would not be on top of my list(the weather is palatable for a few)and most of the imp people there are very old for me to relate to , Or even to start a meaningful conversation with. I feel obligated to be respectful over honest because of my culture bias. I met this individual who taught an innovation in practice course and didn't know what " acqui-hiring" was. As someone who visited the country to study and learn how to innovate it was a slight shock