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by cperciva 5913 days ago
As a manager of Bootup, I can assure you that we haven't been personally paid anything.

My apologies. I had understood that you were drawing a salary from Bootup Labs based on a conversation I had with Boris a few months ago, but I can't remember exactly what he said, and it's quite possible that I misinterpreted him.

Even if you're not personally getting paid anything, I think $50k is a rather generous fee given that other startup accelerators don't seem to need any such fee at all.

1 comments

Other accelerators get the same fee as well. There are expenses to operate the accelerator plus an investment in the startup, which is exchanged for % in the startup. Often 5%-6%. If you add this up, effectively, the companies are getting $60k of real money spent on them for 6% of the company. That's a $1M post money value. (note: YC is probably an exception to this math since it has no physical space) But, that's how it works for most accelerators. In Bootup's case, we simply funnel the operating costs through the company in order to maximize canadian R&D credits which can amount to 50%+ of development costs. It's just a smart way to leverage more money into the startup, but in the end, the math works out to be the same and those fees are paid to operate the accelerator.
So essentially what you are doing then is taking money from investors who give you money to put into startups, giving two thirds to the startup and taking one third for yourself.

At this rate, what do you care if the startup succeeds or fails? You get $50k no matter what.

I can't fathom how you think this is a good deal for anyone but you. This kind of behavior is why vancouver will be better without you.

R&D? at the pub?
Yeah, usually the Irish Heather (http://irishheather.com/).